How to know if a Drone Pilot is Current or Proficient

Wondering how to know if a drone pilot is proficient? When hiring a drone pilot, it can be difficult to truly understand if a pilot is proficient, whereas remaining current… is extremely easy.  Learn how to determine if a drone pilot is current or proficient in this article. 

Learning how to fly a drone can be quite a monumental task.  Most would-be drone pilots see the Part 107 FAA certification exam as a difficult obstacle to overcome.  Yet, experienced pilots understand that obtaining your commercial drone certificate is easy, maintaining proficiency is extremely difficult.

Flying a drone is not like riding a bike.  You don’t just put it down for months and pick it up again.  Many drone pilots understand the vast number of problems that can arise in flight.  Without constant practice of flying a drone, crashing becomes much easier.  You forget simple things over time.  These simple nuances, due to the sheer number of nuances, can quickly escalate into total disaster.

As drones become more widely accepted amongst a vast number of industries, many mangers are struggling to discern quality drone pilots from license holders.  As managers are forced to hire on more and more useful drone pilots, they’re struggling to discern a quality proficient drone pilot from a current drone pilot.  It can take managers and executives almost twice as long to discern the quality of a pilot.  How much time and money will they waste before they find a quality drone pilot?

Part 107 dictates that drone pilots maintain their Part 107 certificate with a recurrent test every 24 calendar months.  While this year has caused the FAA to change course in 107 recency, the overall renewal process hasn’t disappeared. Albeit, how will you know if your drone pilot is proficient and current?

Drone Pilot Currency Vs. Proficiency

As more and more drones are put to work over the heart land, the need for qualified pilots will only increase.  Many corporate employers have put their faith in the FAA to help raise the bar for drone pilots. Meaning that managers often hire drone pilots simply because they have a Part 107 certificate.

The part 107 certificate will not inhibit the drone pilot from liability. In fact, the part 107 certificate only ensures drone pilot compliance for your insurance coverage.  Managers cannot expect the FAA to teach drone pilots how to fly, after all, they never have.

Drone Pilot Currency: essentially means that the Drone Pilot is up to date on their part 107 certificate. You can check to see if a drone pilot is current on their Part 107, at the FAA drone pilot database here.

Drone Pilot Proficiency: whether or not the pilot is capable of performing flight operations and duties with easy and without stress. Drone pilots should be calm, weathered and experienced. Performing flight missions is easy, the foundation of habits has been laid.  These pilots are typically systematic when it comes to drone operations.

How to know if your drone pilot is proficient.

While employers have come up with various flight tests, few have seems to pass the test of time. At Drone U, we have come up with various renditions of drone flight tests.  Albeit these flight tests typically have the user perform some sort of flight and send us the flight log and corresponding video. This wasn’t a scalable approach to understanding if a pilot could actually perform the mission duties.

1. The test couldn’t discern a pilots ability to fly close to objects (proximity flights: cell towers, roofs)
2. The test couldn’t discern a drone pilots ability to handle emergency situations
3. The test wouldn’t prove if a drone pilot was able to face and solve problems in the field.
4. The test wouldn’t be able to differentiate if a drone pilot could handle cold or hot environments… or both.

After watching numerous drone programs fail.  After watching numerous drone programs buy the wrong equipment and fail to train new pilots, we had to devise a method to teach drone pilots. Anywhere in the world. We had to test their ability to solve problems in cold environments and warm environments. This is why Drone U branched out to create the only online scenario-based augmented reality flight training. Scenario based trained seemingly solved the problems of “putting” pilots in different environments. After testing the system for the last year, we will finally be releasing it in January.

Example Drone Pilot Proficiency Exams

At this point, you’re wondering if there is a simple method on how to know if a drone pilot is truly proficient.  What is the drone job that the pilot will be conducting for you? What sort of environment will this drone pilot be operating in?  What is the most difficult operating environment that the pilot will fly?  Take the drone pilot and have them demo a flight operation for you.  Now if the pilot provides deliverables to you for a job, it is your duty to pay for the service.  Ensure the test is not an actual job. The pilot may be able to recreate this environment near their own home!

Plain and simple, think of the flight operation that must be performed. Then think of everything that can go wrong. Ok now, look at the rules of flying under Part 107.  It is your duty to ensure the pilot adheres to FAA guidelines while they operate, otherwise you might be liable.