T510

It's not "in language", it's CASA abbreviations. They seem to add a few more each year, just another thing to keep on top of with aviation.

Drones are aircraft (Well some aren't but that's a whole other topic) As such drone pilots are aircraft pilots - seems like Aircraftpilots.com is a suitable place to discuss drones Drones are going to have a huge impact on all aviation moving forward, the fact that Airservices are currently developing an Uncrewed Aircraft Systems Traffic Management system shows that. Their report indicated they expect commercial drone flights will increase by an average of 20% per annum over the next 20 years, the main area being logistics and goods delivery. It's aviation lingo using CASA abbreviations, CASA has an online glossary if you are having trouble keeping up 😉 😈 https://www.casa.gov.au/resources-and-education/glossary

100% agree with that. How can CASA regulate an industry that makes multiple significant advances in the time it takes CASA to write and implement new regulations. Hopefully there will be some significant improvements in the way drones are regulated in the not too distant future

I know, I was being flippant about the sub 250gm drone rules as most sub 250gm drone users are. I shouldn't spread misinformation. If the real estate photographer has a RePL and ReOC they could legally be flying within the airfield boundaries, unlikely but possible. I started flying drones nearly 26 years ago now, Back then there was no licence and most of our flying in Australia was done from uncontrolled airfields. My first ever drone flight I watched it take-off then it was BVLOS for 6 hours before it returned and we landed it. I have a similar skill set to you it would appear, but in addition have CRP, CRI and IREX amongst the other endorsements in my C.V. I had to do my IREX to get permission to fly BVLOS before CASA created the BVLOS OCTA standard.

What they are doing is completely within the regulations, regardless of whether it is sensible or not. If it is under 250gm they can fly pretty much anywhere You can find it on the CASA website here https://www.casa.gov.au/drones/drone-rules/flying-near-airports#Controlledairports "A non-controlled airport does not have an air traffic control tower. Many airports in Australia are non-controlled. You can fly your drone within 5.5 km (3 NM) of a non-controlled airport and in the approach and departure paths. However, when you become aware of an aircraft, you must: not launch your drone safely manoeuvre your drone away from the path of the aircraft and land as soon as possible. We measure this distance from the centreline of the runway."

When I was working in Alaska a lot of the cars were fitted with these 12v heaters. https://www.amazon.com.au/OAOJUBR-windshield-cigarette-defroster-detachable/dp/B0DSCGQ9SZ/ref=sr_1_6?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.UXyOOFX11FGTHrWOCTIL5VbzPDy7bytBdPn7ta7fOUBJQ99eyYbgG49yuAOogJNDiGVDmnv98BRC93nj6mSW0DPkvHcFtoJcvA_1BUgD972aixlKNDTvvwm_hH45j_pTBwX7uIolH3V4A1rxX9cUd2QzjJpveKlUpEXpm6Nf-JeHZNEJ0lzpHEIfWytZDM9V0qmjApdyG75dih2Zuhj4JV3lF2HRhn91Nj53x2HOAQYT5_BMlsnmJUrjT39NNxJ_Wf_e2-AJZxfKPN3InjfMXlEza08hNq7W6NELsS03OOA.7motdO6DA7hlCB1-Hts_Ha1bn_mcAk9_xpITMjobx84&dib_tag=se&keywords=12v+heater&qid=1763087361&sr=8-6

You underestimate the ability of modern unmanned flight controller, There are already companies specializing in converting manned aircraft to unmanned. There is even a company supplying kits so you can convert your own aircraft to unmanned. It's already happening in real life and the flight controller does all the heavy lifting so the pilot only has basic controls to concern themselves with. A vast majority of drone tasks can be done autonomously. Your typical drone ag pilot does all his work before hitting the take off button, including a survey flight of the area with a suitable drone. Then he just monitors the telemetry to make sure he got all the preflight programming right. Flying manually is far to inaccurate compared to autonomous flight Drones are not the only answer but they make sense for some applications. You massively over estimate the requirements to be a drone pilot, I train heaps of them and they are not that qualified. The current RePL syllabus is based heavily on the PPL syllabus. That said, these days a drone license is treated more as another accreditation, like a fork lift license. Most of the people I train are surveyors, agronomists, farmers, engineers, geologists, emergency services, educators etc. The drone license is something they need to use a tool that simplifies their job or makes it easier and more accurate to gather data. Typical wages for a basic drone pilot are in the $35-$45/hr range. As for the spraying side, that is a whole separate issue with different chemical licenses and standards for each state. I believe the AAAA is working on an unmanned version of their SpraySafe accreditation at the moment. There are plenty of operators offering broadacre spraying services, often using swarms of 3-5 drones per operator. Google will show you heaps of them. Personally I can't ever see drones replacing all flying industry tasks, the current push apart from military applications seems to be ag and unmanned freight. It will be very interesting to see what happens with the UTM (Uncrewed Traffic Management) and airspace changes that Airservices has been working on.

The scary thing is the lack of quality in a lot of the generic Chinese brands. I have used DJI products and they tend to be a good thing, easy to operate and for the main part do what they say they will do reliably. XAG, are good but a couple of rungs below the DJI equivalent. Some of the cheaper brands I have been contracted to assess are unreliable with poor build quality and confusing pilot interfaces. Probably their only saving grace is they tend to fail pretty quickly so they are no longer an aerial hazard.

You haven't hit a nerve, this is/was a thread about drones, I missed your thread drift in to general aerial ag work You are way behind the times with this comment unmanned R22 Spray Helicopter https://www.fairlifts.com/helicopters/introducing-the-r22-uv-uavos-advanced-unmanned-helicopter-for-precision-agriculture/ R550 https://rotor.ai/r550-sprayhawk There are also a few unmanned spraying aircraft in the 600-1000kg mtow range available. The only reason we are not seeing these unmanned aircraft in Australia at this stage is the current regulations

Maybe historically contractors were used but now most have their own spray equipment. Both my neighbours on under 200 acres have their own spray rigs

Skip, Your "speculation" provided no evidence at all. You speculated that a ground unit can operate at a fraction of the expense of an aircraft but do you have any idea as to the operating costs of a large spraying drone? A 2 year old John Deere 616R sprayer will cost you over $1 million to purchase There a plenty of successful Ag drone operators in Australia already but like manned Ag operations they will never be the only solution. Anyone who thinks drones don't have a place in agriculture is incredible short sighted.

We have around 6 drone ag companies already operating in Gippsland, anyone who thinks drones are not going to be competitive in Ag industries is delusional They are even using drones for planting

You can fly up to 150kg MTOW with a Remote Pilot Licence (RePL) over your own property as long it is not for reward, anything over 150kg requires an experimental certificate and needs to be registered with CASA. You can fly up to 25kg MTOW over your own land with no training or licence required A 150kg mtow drone is huge, the T100 is 3.2m prop tip to tip and 1.8m with the props folded. That said there are lots of operators using drones without any regards for licencing, registration or the regulations. It's a huge problem in the industry

For $30k the new Agras T100 from DJI can carry 100L for spraying or 100kg for spreading and this is after they reduced the MTOW to fit in to CASA's weight categories. It will spray 30-40L/min at a 10m spray width and runs terrain following radar for consistent height above the crops. Once CASA changes the regulations I would expect to see sub 600kg ag drones start to become more common in Australia