What's next for the Pentagon after the Replicator programme?
Although the Replicator initiative has made several accomplishments, there are still multiple gaps to plug across the US Department of Defense (DoD) and its services.
First US UAS pilots approved by Sky-Futures
Sky-Futures has approved the first batch of US UAS pilots and oil and gas inspection engineers trained at its UK training centre, the company announced on 7 July.
Five personnel in total were approved, two pilots and three engineers; all of whom undertook Sky-Futures’ extensive in-house training course which includes ground school, flight training and industry specific inductions.
Sky-Futures was the third UAV operating company to be awarded UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) National Qualified Entity (NQE) status in the UK, and enables the company to train prospective remote pilots to a CAA approved competency level for visual line of sight UAV operations.
The remote pilot training programme takes place at a specialised location in the UK, with facilities including free standing structures over 100ft. The facility enables the S-FRP instructors to build up trainee remote pilot and camera operating skills by simulating the complex, challenging and dangerous environments they will encounter when inspecting infrastructure both onshore and offshore for oil and gas clients.
Nick Rogers, chief regulatory and training officer, Sky-Futures, said: ‘All of our newly trained remote pilots and inspection engineers come from a range of backgrounds and industries where they have already gained many of the skills required in order to be a successful remote pilots and camera operators in the oil and gas industry.
‘Our training centre further develops the remote pilots flying skills by testing their skills on facilities that replicate the challenging real world inspection scenarios that they will find working at oil and gas facilities onshore and offshore.’
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