Assessment

At the end of the course, each participant will be asked to demonstrate basic remote piloting skills.  After you fly, we'll have a short debrief of your performance.

• Demonstrate ability to plan for and carry out a simple, photographic mission.

• Demonstrate effective use of the Flight Risk Assessment Tool (FRAT) checklist.

• Demonstrate effective use of operational checklists for aircraft, including pre-, during-, and post-flight elements.

• Crew resource management (e.g., briefing and use of visual observers).

• Demonstrate situational awareness during an entire mission.

• Perform basic flight maneuvers demonstrating competence in flight, including …

  • Takeoff and landing, including flight control checks after takeoff

  • Vertical box, with aircraft in any number of orientations (e.g., rotating 90 degrees on each leg)

  • Horizontal box, with aircraft in any number of orientations (e.g., always facing the inside of the box)

  • Multi-dimensional movement, such as moving vertically and laterally at the same time, circling oneself (or an object) while keeping the camera focused on you (or the object), tracking something like a road while facing perpendicular to the road and maintaining distance from road (i.e., flying sideways at a consistent distance from a linear object).

  • Complete a simple photographic mission (e.g., photograph a set of objects in a particular sequence)

• Provide reasonable actual responses to hypothetical emergency scenarios (e.g., one of your visual observers calls out that a hawk is flying toward your aircraft).

• Provide reasonable oral responses to potential emergency scenarios.