Why Airline Pilots are Retraining to fly Drones

Wayne Condon is Group CEO and Chief Pilot of UAV training Australia. He spotted a gap in the market, to launch one of the country’s first and now, most respected UAV pilot training schools 10 years ago. He has seen firsthand how the drone (or UAV) industry has seemingly come out of nowhere, to revolutionise huge aspects, not just of aviation, but many other industries too. He has also seen firsthand how COVID has accelerated the progress for the industry and made many traditional airline pilots consider making the switch to UAVs.

If we step back in time only five years ago, remote pilot aircraft systems, or drones, literally weren't even on the shelves at department stores like JB Hi-Fi or D1 Stores around Australia, and it's really taken off rapidly. A lot of people are on the crest of this wave.

Drone usage is certainly on the increase. Whether it be private use or organisations realising they can achieve outcomes faster, safer and more efficiently by using drones to gather data, the industry is growing at a rapid rate.

These days drones are being used across a multitude of industries for various reasons. For example, marine biology, agriculture, for data and research purposes. The Defence Force is playing in a big space with the new Boeing Loyal Wingman project just released.

Real estate agencies and surveyors are using drones. Law enforcement agencies and councils are using drones to monitor areas. So, besides the normal office space, nearly everyone these days has some form of a remotely piloted aircraft system platform as a secondary tool to their operations.

But it’s not just all about the drone. The technology and data capture drones can also now provide is changing the way organisations work.

We provide support to one of our largest clients, HQ Plantations in Queensland for both forest management, surveillance and fire operations. One of the drones we use has the capability of 3D imaging. This imaging is basically using infrared technology capability of 200 times zoom and a light laser range distance finding system. Where they were using manpower to go and walk or do things by hand, we did a hectare of operation for them the other day that normally took up to six hours and this took the drone nine minutes to do the same job.

COVID has had a devastating impact on many individuals and organisations. However, for us it has seen our businesses grow at a rapid rate. As organisations adopt new technologies and begin to implement drone solutions into their businesses the demand for qualified drone pilots has increased and one logical way to fill these positions was to look for individuals with aviation backgrounds…. Pilots.

We've got pilots with over 18,000 hours working with us, from A380 to 777 captains, who bring with them the basic aviation skill sets - understanding how to read the weather, situational awareness, risk management, human factors and how to do flight planning.

What our senior staff did was retrain them in how drones actually work and how to fly and operate a drone, or remotely piloted aircraft system. Many under the civil aviation requirements didn't need to do the theory component. They only had to do practical elements. However, they realised early it is a totally different platform. It's not like sitting in the cockpit of the Dreamliner where everything's at your fingertips, and you can see it. With a drone, besides controlling from a platform or from a control station, you can't actually feel what the drone is doing in the air. You have to know more theory in relation to flight to that aircraft, then actually sitting in a conventional aircraft itself.

Most airline pilots flying in IFR airspace and most of our test pilots are flying in G class so it's a totally different set of rules. They had to understand restricted airspace and different prohibited areas which when flying bigger aircraft don’t exist. A lot of these seasoned pilots had to go on a backwards journey to learn all the basic training they would have picked up in their commercial pilot training when stepping out to be airline pilots.

The one thing they all say is, it's really hard to get their head around how these things fly when you're not sitting in them, because when something goes wrong, at least with an aircraft it gives you an indication. With a drone, you don't feel it. You can only see something with a heads-up display, or your instruments system saying there is something where there is an error. It's up to you then to work out how to fix that.

Those who have come from a conventional manual, you pull out the pilot operating handbook and start going through your system procedures. Whereas a drone pilot doesn’t have the luxury of pulling a pilot operating handbook because most of the times you are flying, yourself and another pilot, and it's something you don't have readily at your fingertips. It’s all about analysing what's going wrong. Some of the technology we are using is very sophisticated with artificial intelligence. There’s a lot to learn. I think that's been a very steep learning curve for people coming in from conventional aviation into the RPAS drone world.

The biggest thing is, if you consider your human factors, the five senses, sight is one of the biggest things we use in everyday life. When you're flying a done or an RPAS, you are literally looking at a heads-up display, so you lose that sense of feeling. What is the drone actually doing itself? I've seen people flying a drone sideways. They're oblivious thinking the drone is flying straight and level and the payload is based in the direction of flight. When they get closer, they realize the whole

UAV Training Australia.

drone has been flying at a 90-degree angle through the air because they've lost situational awareness and didn't realise.

In the last 12 months, our organization has trained close to 500 year 10, 11, and 12 Queensland school students in our Drones in Schools program - that's a lot of students. This year there is even more rolling into 2022. The kids of today are very good at artificial intelligence. They're very tech savvy and their hand-eye coordination is all about working with computers. A lot of kids we've spoken to now aspire and want to work within the drone or the unmanned aerial systems platform. Defence has rapidly identified that with the launch of the Boeing Loyal Wingman, which is almost the size of a FA18 but actually an unmanned aircraft. The public can see this live now. It's an impressive aircraft and they'll be recruiting pilots through this system.

Close to 10 years ago, I was involved in the manned side of aviation with an AOC, and a charter company but there were many other people were doing the same. Then I started working in areas with the Defence Force and other agencies and we started talking about drones. The biggest thing I started to see is there wasn't too many people out there doing it. Information and training were hard to get hold of. Companies like DJI didn't exist. We did a lot of research and development in this area and decided to change take and merge our AOC components of manned aviation into an unmanned or remotely piloted drone platform.

At the time the Civil Aviation Safety Authority didn't have a UAV branch. When you’d speak to them about drones, they would scratch their head and go, "Look, you need to speak to someone from the helicopter section." There was just nothing out there.

We’ve all watched the Jetsons as kids and laughed. We are beginning to see this become a reality. We've already got organisations like Uber Air looking to fly short passenger air taxis. You've got Careflight up in Queensland, looking at air flying ambulances without pilots, Wing doing drone delivery trials in QLD and ACT, and DHL is already doing delivery in the US so we watched closely how this was evolving.

I used to go to meetings with CEOs of large aviation companies and talk about drones. I remember them walking out the door because they didn't believe what I was saying, thinking they we were going to replace people. It’s not replacing somebody, it's literally adding to their tool kits in a better way, another platform they can use to their advantage. Now it has literally overtaken the conventional world. I think that's the biggest and hardest thing I'm finding at the moment is the sides of military area. There are not too many civilian organizations you can go to for guidance, because you're already at the top of the pinnacle waiting for that next wave to come through to lift you up to that next level again.

The manned world, or conventional world, has been there for a hundred years. The military has been the biggest user in the last 20 years, but in the commercial space, it's only the last part of 10 years people have actually taken notice. The first thing most of the fire agencies say during a crisis is, "Get the helicopters up." And we're saying, "What about the drones?" They go, "Oh, that's right. We forgot about those things called drones."

The curve, or wave, started picking up when manufacturing costs reduced compared to conventional aircraft. The biggest thing is to have a drone in our fleet - that's worth about $50,000. A lot of people gasp when you say that, but

The Unmanned Aerial Systems Flight Test Range at Cloncurry QLD.

incidents are very minimal and without any human input it is amazing. Australia is in a particularly good position to take advantage of this revolution particularly in areas of rapid medical supplies, or incident control because we're such a big nation. That distance is vast. We are in an area where we can really accelerate these systems. For example, in Queensland, they've built a drone testing centre near Cloncurry. They're spending millions and millions of dollars for people to test drones out there. Australia is in a very good position and leading the world in a lot of these areas. Even the qualifications and experience these people have is really unrecognised to the rest of the world. to have the equivalent in a helicopter is about $1.8 million, and it'll do exactly the same with the camera gear, except we don't have a flight crew, and we don't have a big turbine engine on board. The biggest thing is that cost where that leap, to get a helicopter up, one of their clients spent an excess of a $100,000. The drone would have cost them $4000 for the same amount of flight time. As technology has changed, it has become cheaper. Most people have only started buying 4K TV, but the drones have had these in place for nearly eight years. We've had to wait for that technology to catch up so we can actually view aerial mapping and 4K capability because it wasn't developed from a retail point of view. It’s definitely the cost that has made it more obvious and they're still not a cheap platform, but people seem to embrace it. People have gone out and spent $1000 on a Mavic Mini or a Mavic Enterprise or Mavic Pro Series for their kids. When I was young, that was a lot of money. Now, it just seems to be, "let's go out and buy it." The potential for growth in this industry will keep developing rapidly. We’ve got everything from sixth sense artificial intelligence, where a drone has the capability of flying through an object and working out artificially exactly where everything is right down to 0.1 of a millimeter of distance. aircraft, like altitude, speed and take off. One of our latest drones even tells the weather, wind speed and direction. If you don't embrace technology, you get left behind. When it first came out, I was shy of the iPad or the Apple pencil and how things work. Now, if you are not up with that you are literally getting left behind. In the drone space, as these two merge, it's going to become common practice. There are drones now with AI technology already built in. It's up to the end user to understand how it actually works, and it's evolving quickly. They’re doing stuff overseas now you would never thought would ever exist, and they are asking themselves “Why weren't we doing this five years ago?" People don't embrace technology at the time, or they're very reluctant because of the way they've been involved in that process. How many smartphones have evolved over the years and how many have changed from number one to number 12. That’s what drones are doing right now. Technology advances quickly. You only need to look at how many different drones have been developed since the start of the COVID outbreak and how much they have changed in each and every version. The technology of artificial intelligence, the electronics and everything that's built into these things, is getting far more superior, flight time is getting actually longer. The Cloncurry UAS Flight Test Range The Queensland Government is investing in the first stage of an Unmanned Aerial Systems Flight Test Range (FTR) in North West Queensland, based at Cloncurry Aerodrome and QinetiQ have been appointed as the range operators. The Range is the first of its kind for Australia, and will provide the ideal location to test, trial and evaluate your unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and payloads. Construction is currently underway and the Range will be available for commercial bookings from mid 2020. I spent some time last year overseas with an organization training in Europe, their chief pilot program. And it didn't come close to our standard CASA licensing course. They didn't realize how in-depth Australia actually goes and how much they've actually implemented or put into place This phenomenon is growing bigger. If you buy a drone today, it's going to be different within a few months. That's how quickly these things are moving. I absolutely love what we're doing in both a training and operational capacity. Being involved with Defence, Government agencies and other commercial organisations is exciting! It’s so new people talk about it, but you're literally at the tip of that spear. And that's the bit that's enjoyable. Seeing people embrace the technology and opening up their eyes to what is now becoming the norm is fantastic. The thing I like is it’s not going to disappear. Some of those organisations who weren't interested, they're now heavily invested in drone capability. I'm looking forward to going back and meeting them again. They've realised, if you don't keep up with technology, you get left behind. You do feel a little bit like the Wright brothers, where no one's actually flown it. So people look and go, "What happens when you press that button?" You go, "Well, I'm going to tell you in a minute." You all cross your fingers. You've got speed grips in buses and safety is just getting to a point where

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Blackwoods supplies more than 300,000 products, including Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), safety workwear, workplace tools and equipment, industrial cleaners, lubricants, adhesives and much more. It also offers inventory management, shutdown solutions and technical support, both onsite and offsite. In helping to build a better and safer Australia, Blackwoods, buys nearly 90% of its products from Australian organisations, and nearly a quarter of its products are Australian made. This includes products manufactured by Indigenous Australian businesses that are all Supply Nation certified.

A proven track record with the Australian Defence Force for more than a century

Blackwoods is an approved MRO provider and on the panel of SON3404661, the standing offer panel for the supply of general maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) related spares and consumables to the Department of Defence. Nowadays, Blackwoods works meticulously with its Australianowned partner, Envirofluid, which is a recognised supplier to the defence forces both in Australia and New Zealand. Envirofluid's non-hazardous and eco-friendly range of chemicals are approved by Good Environmental Choice Australia (GECA) and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP), and they have also been codified to NATO standards. Blackwoods and Envirofluid help the Australian Defence Force with problematic areas of chemical supply. Specialised staff provide knowledge and advice across a range of areas including inventory, dangerous goods storage, WHS regulation, corrosion damage to assets, and disposal. The expertise and commitment provided by Blackwoods and Envirofluid helps improve efficiency and workflow while achieving WHS and environmental compliance. Importantly, health and safety underline every step of every process.

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Govt to establish three 'cyber hubs' to uplift smaller agencies

In Defence, Home Affairs and Services Australia.

The Federal Government will establish three ‘cyber hub’ pilots in some of Canberra’s largest IT shops to provide cyber security services to agencies with fewer resources.

Employment Minister Stuart Robert revealed the step change in government cyber policy during his keynote to the Australian Financial Review Government Summit recently.

He said the hubs will allow “leading agencies such as Defence, Home Affairs and Services Australia” to provide services to agencies without the “breadth and depth of skills”.

“In some cases, we know that certain agencies cannot compete for skills and resources in the marketplace and we must develop alternative ways for meeting their needs,” he said.

Until now, agencies have largely been left to their own devices on cyber security, with the Australian Signals Directorate only stepping in to provide advice and assistance.

While it is not yet known how the cyber hubs will operate, the shift towards consultancy-like services should go some way to lifting the government's troubled cyber security maturity.

Agencies, particularly small and micro-sized ones, have consistently struggled to meet the government's mandatory cyber security requirements, leading to a patchwork of resilience.

It is also not clear how the hubs relate to the “secure hubs” that last year’s cyber security strategy said would “centralise the management and operation” of government networks.

Robert, who retained oversight of digital policy in a machinery of government change earlier this month, also suggested that such a model could extend to other IT services in the future.

“We can see a future where such hub models may be established for other types of scalable services, not just cyber security,” he said.

“This may include broader ICT functions – such as secure email, or corporate services."

The government already has this to an extent, having established six shared services hubs for corporate services following the carve-up of the former Shared Services Centre in 2016.

Robert said any further shift towards a hub-based model would be “informed by the whole-of-government architecture and the digital review”.

The Digital Transformation Agency is currently developing the architecture, which will “map out all the strategic capabilities” required by government, after a slow start last year.

It is happening alongside a digital review of agency capabilities looking at “what level of skills exist, at what levels of maturity and how differently agencies are currently performing”.

Robert said both works would help the government to “understand how we start planning the future at enterprise scale across whole-of-government or whole of nation”.

Consistency drive

Robert also used his address to highlight the need for greater consistency across federal, state and territory digital and data capabilities.

He said a recent move by the DTA within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet would assist this by sharpening the government's focus on whole-of-government needs.

“We are now taking a whole-ofgovernment – and, where appropriate, a whole-of-nation – approach to building scalable, secure and resilient data and digital capabilities,” he said.

Premiers have already begun work to achieve this vision, having agreed to create an intergovernmental agreement to facilitate greater data sharing.

Robert said the agreement was about “building a national asset that will facilitate a step-change in data sharing between jurisdictions”.

“It will support policy development and service delivery by all levels of government, including at key points in people’s lives or living through a natural disaster – quickly and seamlessly,” he said.

“This will reduce the need for Australians to try to navigate between different tiers of government and enable them to get on with their lives.”

Robert likened the current approach to data and digital to the different rail gauges between states and territories before unification.

“Right now we have a digital infrastructure ‘system’ spread across all levels of government,” he said.

“That is akin to Australia’s railway systems of old that were typified by the proliferation of narrow, standard and broad gauges right across the country.

“It took decades to fix the disparate systems across states and it wasn’t until almost 100 years after Federation that mainland capitals were joined by a standard gauge – with resultant economic uplift.

“So, the question ahead of us is how do we leverage all these different strategies to deliver a seamless platform for government?"

Robert pointed to myGov as an example of national digital infrastructure, with more than 2.5 million Australians now regularly using the portal.

The government is currently building out a new portal, myGov Beta, in a bid to offer greater personalisation of services.

“Building on what has already been done with myGov, we are putting in place the required capabilities for this platform to become a single front door for government,” Robert added.

Justin Hendry / IT News

Former ASIO head David Irvine on the cyber threats Australia faces

Update to protect yourself from cybercrime

The warfare of the 21st century” is going to be “fought in cyberspace before kinetic shots are fired” says leading national security expert David Irvine.

And perhaps the fight has already begun, with Australia’s institutions, businesses, and citizens subject to a near constant barrage of cyber attacks.

Previously chair and now a board member of the Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre, Irvine has a deep knowledge of the cyber risks posed to Australia and Australians by both nation states and criminals.

His career has included heading both ASIS, which manages Australia’s overseas spying activities, and ASIO, responsible for domestic protection.

Irvine describes cybercrime as a “massive issue”, and say that compared to countries like “China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea” the west is lagging behind in its defensive cyber capability.

“I think almost every Western country is probably behind the game in its defences.”

Part of this is the nature of cyber incursions. “One of the rules in cybercrime is that the criminal is always half a step ahead of the protector.”

What can be done? Last year the government committed $1.67 billion over 10 years to combating cybercrime, but Irvine calls in particular for a “public awareness campaign” to get the message through strongly.

“I think back to the old days of HIV and the Grim Reaper, and my sense is that we actually need a very hard hitting campaign that brings home to individuals and businesses the threat that they are under and the sort of resilience that they need to develop as individuals, as companies, and as a nation.”

Irvine is also chair of the Foreign Investment Review Board, and is a former ambassador to China. He says of the current tensions with China, and warnings about “the drums of war”:

“Ultimately, I think we depend on China and the United States to develop a modus vivendi which concedes some interests but protects others. Because the alternative is really too horrendous to contemplate.”

The Conversation/ Michelle Grattan

Updating the software on electronic devices is one of the easiest and most important ways Australians can protect themselves from cybercriminals and defend against online threats.

Assistant Minister for Defence, the Hon Andrew Hastie MP, said just as we shouldn’t leave our doors and windows open at home, we shouldn’t leave our devices with outdated software and apps.

“Cybercriminals are constantly taking advantage of gaps in security to steal data and money from devices we use every day,” said Assistant Minister Hastie.

“Software developers regularly issue updates for their products to plug these gaps when they are identified, as well as to improve functionality.”

“Shut the door on cybercriminals by regularly updating your device software. Better yet, set up the automatic update feature so you don’t have to think about it.”

Easy-to-follow advice on how to update common software on Microsoft, Apple and Android devices is available at www.cyber.gov.au.

Updates is the latest theme in the Australian Cyber Security Centre’s Act Now Stay Secure campaign.

Cybercrime can be reported through ReportCyber which is managed by the ACSC on behalf of law enforcement agencies, providing a single online portal for individuals and businesses to report cyber incidents.

Untapped potential being recruited for vital cybersecurity jobs in $5 million project

The nation’s frontline defence against cyber attacks, foreign spies and ransomware could be fought by a group of highly trained autistic Australians after the launch of a $5 million project designed to use their “untapped potential”.

As many as 1000 autistic people will be assessed and trained in areas including cybersecurity and data analysis as part of Project Possible from WithYouWithMe, with the results closely watched by Australia’s Defence Department.

And autistic entrepreneur Rhett Ellis, who retired at age 24 and joined the project as an adviser, said it may not only address unemployment problems felt by 80,000 autistic Australians but could also tackle a dangerous “skills shortage of 16,600 cyber workers by 2026” and shore up Australia’s defences.

Mr Ellis said employing autistic people for cyber security roles had already proven successful overseas, such as JP Morgan Chase’s Autism at Work program that found autistic candidates were 48 per cent faster and as much as 92 per cent more productive than their neurotypical peers.

Edith Cowan University lecturer Dr David Cook said autistic people were often uniquely suited to these industries as they could be highly focused and “intensely valuable at solving problems”.