Today saw the last official step towards my Professional Drone License and I passed, cleared all the fences so to speak and now all I need to do is get airborne and home all those technical moves I need to make this business reach for the skies!
It was a cool day down in Basingstoke, Worting House to be exact and my exam time was 11am, things were running a little behind and we got going about 11:45 which was fine and I was all prepped for a 1 hour session to establish my skills and knowledge, well, little did I know that the examiner would turn out to be the most extraordinary chap by the name of Simon Adams from www.heli-telly.co.uk and he was amazing, such a great chap and a mine of information with a perfect way of installing it even into me! The scene was indeed set …
After a session with my paperwork with much feedback (otherwise called corrections) we headed for the field to what I imagined to be a series of maneuvers that had been set in stone and that I had spent a fair amount of time on but that all changed and what did in fact happen was a 2 hour lesson in being a UAV Pilot as well as all the time looking at what I’m doing and assessing as I went. Talk about learning things you never knew, having spent many hours on YouTube I think I took on board more in those 2 hours than all the time on screen, amazing how having that 1 on 1 rams the material needed into the cells for later and Simon has a fab way of making it very easy to digest and we covered so much and it took me through the pass point with about 80% score.
So, next is waiting for some house keeping things to happen all in preparation of sending it onto the CAA so I can receive my permits and all that takes a week or so thus giving me time to get as much airtime as I can to build up on log time and continue building those all important skills.
I reach this point after a 3 month journey from registration to completion, exams along the way, so many hours of on screen tutorials and no small amount of time airborne and here we are, at the end of it, well, the beginning really and much like passing your driving test, the learning, the real skill sets start then and as it feels for this too because of the allowance of freedom to build the hours airborne under the knowledge that I have in face passed the exams and all it leaves is to keep that level of learning going whilst the business builds up.
UAVHUB is without doubt the leading learning resource and can be found here: www.uavhub.com and if you have the desire to join me in the skies then this is where you begin, it’s awesome! and run by Matt Williams who presents all the courses within to a high degree of excellence.
Starstream has grown a new arm, the Oxford Drone Company (ODC) is alive so lets watch it grow 🙂
#starstreamphotography #markrayson #uavhub #oxforddronecompany #dronephotography #dronevideography
May the skies always be blue, may the winds forever lift your spirits as well as your aircraft …
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