How to qualify a drone pilot

Trying to find a professional drone pilot, but you’re not sure how to qualify a drone pilot? Look no further as we break down drone pilot qualifications.

When searching for professional drone pilots, many managers end up scratching their heads wondering how to qualify a drone pilot.  The process may seem simple, albeit it is very complex.  In this article we will highlight drone pilot qualifications and what to look for when hiring a drone pilot.   We will also provide a tool for managers and companies looking to hire drone pilots.  This tool allows managers to test the knowledge of drone pilots.  The tools will test drone pilot knowledge on specific aspects of drone operations.

When pilots have the right knowledge, they tend to operate more consistently.  Drone pilots are often tasked with learning a vast amount of information.  Yet, the FAA doesn’t really make this easier for drone pilots.  While Drone pilots need to be educated in how to access airspace and how to read airspace maps in order to operate without liability.    The FAA test pilots knowledge to access airspace.  But don’t expect the FAA to teach pilots how to fly. In fact, most FAA officials have never flown a drone.

Qualified drone pilots will be easier to work with.  Those professional pilots will have systems, a love of flight, an attention to detail and a prevailing confidence derived from experience.  In order to find the right drone pilots, you need to make sure they’re able to handle conflict, have the right knowledge, and are practiced drone pilots.  Drone pilot qualifications must be multi-faceted in order to encompass all the necessary information a pilot must know, and be able to act on.

Legal Qualifications for Drone Pilots

1. Must have Part 107 Certificate and it must be up to date. (Pilots have to renew every 24 calendar months)
   1. Have the pilot show you their Part 107 certificate, if it is older than 2 years, they must also have a recurrency certificate.
2. Insurance is not actually required by the FAA, but often required by many corporations to operate from their land.
   1. Insurance can be broken up into hull and liability insurance.
3. The FAA also insists that drone pilots not fall prey to the hazardous attitudes, otherwise they may be unable to fly as they create “error chains.”

Common Characteristics of Qualified Drone pilots

1. Typically able to handle conflict well – Drone pilots are always accosted in public, they need to be able to keep calm, communicate and continue to operate.   They have emotional intelligence.  One common trait to watch for is how the pilot handles failures or glitches when flying.  If the drone needs a firmware update, did that upset the pilot?
2. Typically have an attention to detail – Flying drones requires understanding a lot of information and acting on it…all at once.  With a pervasive attention to detail, these pilots are able to remember vast amounts of information and recall it.
3. Passion – We have found with most of our enterprise customers… that their most successful pilots have a passion for flight.
4. Typically drone pilots are creative, but can listen and follow commands.
5. Ability to keep calm under pressure – Flying is hard, flying with an audience is harder.  Professional drone pilots are able to operate in an “emotion-less” system.

Drone Pilot Operating Qualifications

1. Drone pilots should know the legal limitations of flying their drones
   1. Line of sight operations
   2. Visibility limitations
   3. Altitude limitations
   4. Airspace limitations
2. Drone pilots should have systems of operation
   1. Rules of takeoff to avoid common orientation errors
   2. Methodology to test a battery and know if they will have a safe flight or not.
3. Drone pilots should also be able to fly their drone in natural “bird-Like” flight motions. This will showcase a deep knowledge and practical understanding of complex flight motions.

As many mangers and hiring professionals are counting on drone pilots to provide knowledge, how can we expect them to know how to qualify drone pilots?

With this tool below, you can actually test drone pilot knowledge.  No matter the drone, there are common systems, common parts, common operating techniques and common principles.  They should know operating limitations, how to test their drone and what not to do. Otherwise, the drone pilot will come across a precarious situation and fail.  The drone pilot who was supposed to limit liability may have just caused it.

Tool: Qualify drone pilots with this knowledge test.

Have your drone pilots take this test below.  Drone Pilot project managers can test their knowledge as well.  Once the pilot has completed the test, their grade will be out of 150 possible points.  We would argue a professional drone pilot should be able to get more than 100 possible points.  These questions were derived from our network of drone pilots.  Thanks to our data pool on these pilots, we are able to discern the stickiest points of learning how to fly.

If you’re ready to qualify drone pilots, send them this quiz link or take the quiz below. Make sure they take a screen shot of their scores.

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