The drones have arrived - The Institute for Drone Technology™

Who’s controlling your airspace?

There’s a buzz in the air. Perhaps you can hear it above your organisation’s assets? If not yet, you will soon. The question is, when you do hear it, will you be prepared? 

That buzz (or is it a hum?) is the noise of a drone – aka a ‘remotely piloted aircraft’ or RPA. While they may have had a reputation as toys, drones are quickly gaining popularity in business and government applications. In the next few years we’re going to see drones play an increasingly important role in logistics, such as for deliveries to remote locations. There’ll be plenty of innovation in this space too.

Don’t get caught out.

The seemingly overnight advent of drones has caught many enterprises, large and small, off guard. Many managers are unaware that operating drones without the appropriate accreditations and licences is both illegal and dangerous. 

As the manager of a workplace, you are responsible for ensuring that any machinery (including drones) operating in or around that workspace is doing so in accordance with the relevant regulations. Allowing unauthorised drones to operate in and around your workplace could leave you and your organisation open to legal risk, not to mention the consequences of something going wrong.

Drone management lets you take control

The best way to stay in control of drone use is to implement a robust drone management system. Dronesafe®, implemented across your enterprise, provides a ready-made best-practice solution to the safe and accredited management of all drone activities above, in, or around your properties. With tools for management in the office and pilots in the field, it covers every aspect of drone management from recording operator certificates (ReOC) and pilot licences (RePL) through to aircraft pre- and post-flight checks to flight planning and recording.

Importantly, while providing ample rigour, Dronesafe® is also flexible enough to support diversification of drone use into new areas of your business, creating a stream of innovation opportunities. 

A good drone management system will allow your organisation to create its own rules – within CASA regulations – about who flies what, where and when. It will give management real-time transparency of all drone use, whether by in-house pilots or contractors. And it will allow you to mitigate the risks and ensure your insurance cover is robust. Dronesafe® does all of these and more.

An opportunity to monetise

For some enterprises, implementing a drone management system offers the potential for monetisation of the airspace around and over their assets. Sports and concert stadiums, local government and universities are three examples of where this opportunity might exist. 

By offering access to your Dronesafe® platform as a service, you can allow, say, a concert promoter to piggy back off the back of all the work your business has done to get itself ‘drone ready’ – while at the same time ensuring that external operators using your airspace are doing so safely and within the regulations. The audit trail provided by Dronesafe® would give both the operator and your management peace of mind.

The drone industry is still in its infancy which means there are a lot of cowboys out there. The best thing your enterprise can do to avoid surprises is to take control of your airspace with an effective drone management platform.

Drone management also puts you on the front foot whenever anyone wants to use a drone over your land. You make the rules … not them. 

Want to know where to start? Contact The Institute for Drone Technology™ is a drone consultancy, a RTO (no 45181) and approved CASA training provider.