You know in 2019, I don’t want us to ever take for granted the awesomeness of drone shots now, whether it’s on shows, like Top Billing or those sweeping scenes at festivals or dramatic battle scenes in movies.

Drones really have revolutionized the way we see filming and photography. Absolutely they’ve changed the game completely, but you know there is now an opportunity for anyone to go out and learn to explore and discover the legalities the art.

Besides and when I say the science, it is quite the science of drone flying and there’s, one place where all stats have a look at this. The drone buzz has hit South Africa really hard in the past few years, but it is serious business and that’s.

Why? I’m here today at UAB industries in Cape Town to find out exactly what it takes to become a commercial drone pilot. Let’s check it out. Uav Industries is one of only two companies in Africa to have both a certified drone training school and a drone operator certificate.

So to learn here is to do so from working professionals – whoa, okay, Yan. I have to tell you I have played around with some joints before, but this all seems way too next-level what’s going on yeah? Technically, if you’ve got deep enough pockets.

You can buy this off the shelf and start flying them as a hobby, but as soon as you want to fly them commercially start making money from them, you would need RP our license and our commercial license as well, and this is where it all happens right, But what’s the process to get in this remote pilot license? Firstly, we ‘

Ve got ground school, so ground school is the theory part of the license and we sit in the classroom where everything gets explained to you. We start off with the subject of a low. You go through human factors.

Meteorology there’s, a few other subjects we also cover. So it’s, quite advanced we get into aviation. So this is your first stepping-stone into the aviation world. It sounds like an intense program. Why would I need to understand air law and the weather, and all of that you fly in a controlled environment.

You fly in other airspace, other Air Command aviation aircraft. You fly with them, but just at a lower level. So you need to know how they think how they talk on the radio. How are they understand a space, for? I think I’m ready to get going and just understand in this process.

Should we go? Yes, let’s. Go given the speed of these crafts, it’s best to start your skill development in a controlled environment yawn I’m guessing. This is where all the practicals happen not entirely.

So normally we got out to arrange these flying fields, but what we’ve done here for you today. If you’ve set up a drowning yeah just to get you a bit of a feel for our is on the sticks of the real thing, so the stuff over here is going to explain to you how everything works, Mostafa that seems very intimidating.

Yes, it is, but it is actually young you’ll, have the massive transmitter, so in your fighter, if anything happens, you ‘ Ll make the connection action. Okay. Do I not get one? Of course you do.

This. Is your one identity to try? Ah, yes, I am so exciting, so you go okay. So what you want to do is average things about small movements. You can all turn all that drone in the same position, while maintaining a good altitude altitude want to be about eye level.

Yeah give it a go. Yeah I’m nervous, but let’s. Go it’s, not enough for you, okay! Okay, your throttle is down yeah. Okay, you’ve got control, so we want the razor throttle slowly like x-play. Here we go that’s, it slowly down with the throttle up again, [ Laughter ].

Am i doing this okay? Is it normal that it must go so fast? No show you! What you want to do is slowly small movement like a sprint. You with a throttle so up and down up and down slowly with the left speaker.

Okay, let’s. Just say if this was an airplane, we’d, all not be Ronnie Mustafa. This is yours. You handle that baby. This is my world: it’s just yet. Yes, this is aerial photography and a fraction of the cost of manned aircraft, making it highly popular across the security mapping, mining and survey industries.

Wow yeah, I’ve done my theory after in my practicals. What’s, the last stage of it? So the loss tips is called a skills test, so that’s. When we get an examiner in, you will test your theory, knowledge as well as your flight ability, and then after that, you get one of these.

It’s called your RP out the remote pilot license. So basically, this is my ticket to the skies. Correct yeah with this, you can work for a company that’s authorized by CAA. You do any commercial work.

You want there’s, a lot of industries. You can go into these companies that operate in forming this companies to operate within agriculture. Doing mapping. You can do security with that. This also opens you up to the broader aviation industry, so you can fly knowings and bigger airplanes.

One day, yeah yeah. I had a really good time with you here today. Thank you, but I think I’m gonna leave all of this flying to professionals like you, I think that’s, a good idea. Okay, let’s. Go ahead! Cough it up.

Yes, getting your wings has never been this accessible, affordable and potentially profitable.