#4 - My Drone Piloting Journey

The other week, I was standing in a Sturgeon County stockpile property collecting photographs with a drone to measure the volume of two large piles of aggregates used for gravel road construction. And as oft occurs, a random thought drifted between the ears...how did I get here?

As many of my friends and colleagues know, I have been an Army Reserve officer for many years, and currently teach a course called the Army Operations Course. We use adult learning models and one area that we have recently integrated into the course is that of self-reflection. Reflection if done regularly and using a repeatable process can be a powerful tool in self-development. So perhaps that random thought wasn't so random.

I am a nerd for tech so at least part of the answer is simple. Drones are 'techy' so I am by default, interested. But it is one thing to be interested, and another to carve a path to provide a professional service that earns money. I often see on drone related Face Book pages, interested folks who want to start a drone business. While I appreciate the desire to be an entrepreneur, the reality is that, and here is the punchline early, flying is the easy part. Becoming an expert in the data that the sensor provides is the key to success. No one cares how great the flight was if the photographs are terrible. Fortunately, by dumb luck or my brain being especially cognitive one day, I realized this piece of wisdom early in the journey and my days on the Dunning-Kruger Mount Stupid were mercilessly short.

Learning to fly was the first step. There was a basic online course over a winter and an exam to pass. I failed my first attempt at the exam, which hurt the Gilson' pride but did serve as a wake up call. A shout out to Coastal Drones (Drone Pilot Training - Get Certified with Us), whose online flight training was first rate. I then bought my first drone, a DJI Air2S. I spent the next summer practicing and learning. During that summer, I started to think about how drone imagery could become a service line for Jeneric. We already provided images to our clients, so this would just be another data source. I started trying out inexpensive drone apps that would fly waypoint missions to collect images for photogrammetry. Online apps allowed for introductory attempts at creating orthomosaic images. I was hooked.

There is a saying that I have used often and for a long time: "The more you learn, the less you know." This saying reflects that as you learn and are exposed to more things, you begin to realize that there is a lot more knowledge than you can even comprehend. I wanted to learn more. Evenings were spent watching Youtube videos on photogrammetry, and drone surveying. I realized that my photogrammetric products were only be as good as the sensors and spatial data used to create the orthoimages. Now I was into learning about surveying, GNSS receivers, RTK, PPK, NTRIP, casters, GCPs and checkpoints. What software package to use - stick with Web OBM, or the DJI Terrasoft, Pix4D or Metashape? More research online. What drone to buy? oh my!

The next drone purchase was the DJI Mavic 3 Enterprise. This drone has a mechanical shutter camera idea for commercial photogrammetry. This is the drone I still use most and it has over a 1,200 flight kilometers on it in the past two years. But many of our clients have sites within restricted airspace not accessible to pilots with just a basic certificate. So the next step was getting the advanced pilot certificate. Another online course followed by a flying test conducted by a Transport Canada certified flight reviewer. Great, now I could operate almost everywhere I could possibly need to fly. I also studied for and passed an exam to received my Restricted Operators Certificate - Aeronautical, a radio licence required to use aircraft radio systems.

I started to really offer our services to our existing clients and fortunately, many were amenable and used us. We were encouraged as we were able to recover our investment costs for the M3E and the associated equipment mostly in the first year. But there were still gaps in our quality and range of sensors. DJI offers the Mavic 3 with multi-spectral lenses that are used for vegetation mapping. Since plant health is a key indicator of how well a reclamation project is working, I thought that this a natural fit into our service line. So then I had to become knowledgeable in spectral analysis of vegetation. More reading and research. You can't sell something if you don't know what you are talking about. So Jeneric now owns and operates the DJI M3M.

Meanwhile, I was still learning about surveying. I bought two survey quality GNSS receivers that can be used for both drone and elevation surveys. More effort was invested in learning how to properly survey and now, Jeneric offers our clients a service to map location and elevations of groundwater monitoring wells and borehole sampling locations.

Last spring, I bought my most expensive drone. A DJI Matrice 30T, where T means thermal. This winter will see me taking a Level 1 Thermography course so I can better understand and use the sensor. The next bound is a LiDAR sensor. This is a big ticket item for a small company but that is a goal. When I look back now to where I was a few years ago, I could little imagine where I would be today. So anything is possible.

So as I reflect on my drone journey, I realize that I was well positioned to be successful due to my experience as a geophysicist, and having our own business with clients that may need or use drone based data. But it wasn't just luck, I have spent countless hours learning a wide range of topics, I have flown lots of practice sessions, and spent money on training, equipment and software. But what I do know is that I still have so much more to learn.