Come fly with me

Unmanned aerial vehicles are fast becoming a common part of the surveyor's tool kit. So what does it take to be able to use one? We sent novice pilot Evan Owen-Powell MRICS to find out.

Drones are definitely set to play a key role in the future of surveying. That’s my firm conclusion after a day of flight training at the Aerial Academy in Norfolk, under the tutelage of director Elliott Corke. In terms of aerial imaging, and the potential use for surveyors, my day of multi-rotor flying opened my eyes to a world of future possibilities I could barely have imagined 24 hours previously.

Indeed, my first thoughts on the long drive to Norfolk circled around my only source of prior aviation knowledge: repeated viewings of Top Gun. As a result, I arrived for my day’s training under the misguided apprehension that the first order of business would be choosing my call sign – a notion of which I was swiftly disabused by a nonplussed Corke. “We don’t use call signs.”

After a safety briefing, and run-down of the risks involved, we were on to the actual piloting remarkably quickly. A short demonstration, and I was soon not only in control of the drone, but already referring to it, like a pro, not as a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle), but a UAS (unmanned aircraft system).

Flying a drone is very intuitive, and only takes a short time to get used to the controls. After barely an hour I was able to hover the drone over a farm building, close enough to inspect the roof – and usefully so, from a structural surveyor’s point of view. In fact, Corke estimates that it should take a modestly skilled prospective pilot around a day to become proficient enough to fly in a safe manner, respecting other aircraft and people on the ground, and to pass a flight test. I suspect that the generation of surveyors just below me, weaned on games consoles, will barely need tuition at all.

So if even your humble correspondent can fly a drone, then you probably can, too. Even a lack of piloting skills is not necessarily a problem per se – a drone on autopilot flying a programmed route can take aerial photos and video with skill and precision. And with the latest drones coming equipped with collision avoidance technology, the risks and entry barriers to pilots are lowering all the time. However, Aerial Academy’s trainers are at pains to point out that the real skill lies in what to do when things go wrong – when the in-built GPS system fails, for example, and the drone starts to wander off on its own. In these cases, it is important to have a base layer of ability to fall back on – and this can take months of flying practice to perfect. Corke reckons he is still learning things to this day, in spite of what appears to be an encyclopedic knowledge.

If acquiring the skill to pilot the UAV is not necessarily a barrier to surveyors, what of the statutory requirements? Here, things get a little more onerous, but by no means prohibitively so.

To fly a drone for commercial purposes, a surveyor needs a Permission for Commercial Operations (PfCO), which costs £247 from the UK’s Commercial Aviation Authority (CAA). This lasts for 12 months and takes approximately two days of theoretical training to obtain – including a flight assessment – and also requires insurance. Once you have demonstrated a sufficient understanding of aviation theory (airmanship, airspace, aviation law and good flying practice), developed procedures for conducting flights set out in your own Operations Manual, and passed a practical Operational Flight Assessment (the flight test) – then you are, essentially, good to go. You can expect to pay at least £950 for a training course, while perfectly decent drones for commercial use start at around £1,200, so total start-up costs are surprisingly low.