AV News: SkyOp Introduces High School Drone Course

Drone education is becoming more prevalent as the industry continues to grow. One company feels it has a comprehensive drone curriculum that would be a good fit at any high school in America. SkyOp was founded in 2014 when Bryan Pitre and Dan Albert realized there was a lack of training for drone pilots in what was still a relatively new industry. SkyOp developed drone education courses that its customers could use to train drone pilots. Things ramped up in 2016 when the Part 107 test made it easier for pilots to fly drones commercially. SkyOp offered test prep courses for the Part 107. Now, SkyOp CEO Jon Thies says the company’s main focus is on an all-encompassing high school course that takes students through all of the essential steps to becoming a professional drone pilot. “What’s unique about our courseware and our curriculum for high school students is it’s really focused on the application of the drone," Thies said. "Our courseware doesn’t cover building a drone or programming a drone, per se. It focuses on using the existing technology that’s already been developed and is available. But it focuses on how can they use that either as a drone pilot or in an industry that they might be interested in.” - Jon Thies The high school level course was newly launched by SkyOp. It contains 300 hours of classroom instruction, with the course teaching everything from the basics of drones to photo and video editing to helping prepare students to pass the Part 107 test. All of the courses use the DJI Phantom 4 Pro for the hands-on portion. The SkyOp course also teaches students about autonomous flight missions and gives an introduction to Pix4D, a mapping software used for a variety of industrial purposes. “In the end, the intent is you’re teaching the students and giving them enough exposure to what drones are, how they can be used in the United States in the national airspace," Thies said. "And then you get into the capabilities of them. You’re giving them a taste of what drones could be used for in their future jobs.” - Jon Thies SkyOp’s high school drone training curriculum was rolled out earlier this month and Thies says five high schools have already adopted the course. The goal now is to get more high schools throughout the United States to incorporate the SkyOp course into their curriculum. “We really want to see this get picked up and implemented into as many schools as possible because this will be big for the drone industry as well as the United States," Thies said. "The more students that are learning about it in school and coming out of school with a Part 107 license or with the knowledge of how drones can be adopted and used, it’s going to just help further the drone industry.” - Jon Thies