FVCC to offer courses for unmanned aerial systems
The pilot gave a slight push on the controller, sending the 3-pound aircraft hundreds of feet into the air within seconds. With his feet still on the ground, Adam Paugh had a bird’s-eye view of Flathead Valley Community College on his cellphone screen.
The flying robot that can reach 400 feet into the sky is called an unmanned aerial system (UAS), often referred to as a “drone.”
“It can be used for anything,” Paugh, an adjunct faculty member at FVCC, said. “That’s aerial pictures for newspapers or magazines, mapping for population density, forest monitoring.”
He said less than a decade ago, the flying craft was a tool often used by experts who had access to tens of thousands of dollars and the ability to program a robot. Now, it’s the new hot-ticket item.
As a result of more unmanned crafts taking to the sky, FVCC is launching new curriculum designed for people to better understand how to use the robots — whether the controller is a fire crew surveying the layout of a growing blaze or a real-estate agent hoping to capture the best angle of a property.
This August, FVCC will have two new courses, UAS for Commercial Operations and Unmanned Aerial Mapping Systems. The 2-credit courses fit into the college’s Geospatial Technology Certificate, a new offering approved by the FVCC Board of Trustees last year.
“People already working in an industry can come and take that certificate,” said Diane Skyland, director of marketing and communications at FVCC. “So this is an enhancement to your career, whatever industry you’re in.”
The college will also offer Introduction to Drone Flight and Photography, a non-credit course through its Continuing Education program.
SKYLAND SAID from social use to work, there’s a need for education on how to use the crafts. And she said that need doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.
Roughly 3 million personal and commercial drones will be shipped to buyers in 2017, according to the technology research firm Gartner.
According a 2013 report by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, the U.S. economic impact of UAS integration into the national airspace will grow to $82 billion between 2015 and 2025. The report predicted that leap would create 100,000 jobs.
Paugh said FVCC scoped 23 local companies when they initially began drafting the courses to determine whether there was an interest in the training and how the curriculum should look.
“Over 75 percent of the local companies we polled were interested in sending their employees for the training,” he said.
The national growth of interest in the flying machines has come with more regulations.
Last year, the Federal Aviation Administration unrolled rules requiring people to get a Remote Pilot Certificate license for commercial use, similar to a driver’s license.
The administration said the new requirement would “minimize risks to other aircraft and people and property on the ground.”
“Education’s always been the big component of new technologies,” Paugh said. “Especially for this I think, where people see this like an eye in the sky.”
Paugh’s been working with the unmanned crafts since 2010. At the time, it arrived in a box as parts. Paugh said he remembers crossing his fingers when he powered it on for the first time, hoping it “didn’t blow up in the living room.”
And now, anyone can pay between a few hundred and a few thousand dollars for the flying robot, charged and ready to go.
“It’s really exciting about how fast it’s come and how easy it is to take pictures and process them all inside your phone and share them,” Paugh said. “A lot of people still see them as very difficult to fly and don’t know quite how to use the data you get from it. I’m hoping to show people that it’s quite easy.”
Reporter Katheryn Houghton may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at khoughton@dailyinterlake.com.