Texan Mosaic

Story by Raston Copeland, COMM 2311-601

Is it a bird?  A plane?  No, it’s a drone.  It’s one that students use to train with at South Plains College.

And you could learn to fly and build a drone at SPC.

Associate Professor of Industrial Manufacturing and Emerging Technologies Billy Tackett is teaching SPC’s Drone Pilot class this fall.  

He says students start out using small drones they’ve nicknamed “mosquitoes”. The blue and white one in the photo below is taken from the internet.

These smaller models, Tackett says, are versatile, hardy, and “crashable”.

“Most that take this program have never flown a drone before,” he says, “and crashing is more than common.  This allows the students to learn the basics of flight and control while not having to worry about damage to the drone or injury as these are really small and safe.”

By midterm, Tackett says, students in the pilot class have to pass a flight test to demonstrate they understand drones and control them.

“When they pass,” he says, “they are given their intermediate drone. This drone is outdoor capable and at the end of the semester each student gets to keep this drone.”

The “intermediate drone” is the dark one shown below.

In some semesters, students can take both the Drone Pilot Preparation class as well as the Drone Assembly and Rigging class by registering through SPC’s course catalog.  As Tackett explains, that means students can learn how to fly and build a drone at the same time.

If someone just wants to earn their drone pilot’s license, they could register to take just an FAA Part 107 Drone Pilot Licensing Course through Workforce Solutions. 

To get to that course description, start at SPC’s homepage and click on Degrees & Programs under the Explore Programs tab.

On the next screen, scroll to the bottom and look for the Continuing Education link. 

That link takes you to the Community & Business page and Drone Pilot License appears as one of the squares.   Click on that square.

The job opportunities for drone pilots appear to be skyrocketing. 

Jay Warnick, SPC’s director of Continuing Education and Workforce Development, says Workforce Development started offering the piloting class about a year and a half ago.

“Although the job market in Lubbock is soft right now for licensed drone pilots,” he says, “this will change in the coming years as more and more industries and jobs are beginning to incorporate drones in their daily work activities. Additionally, we are seeing drone companies moving into this area that will have a high demand for drone pilots like the Matador UAS Consortium between Matador, Texas Tech University and South Plains College.”

In May, Flying Magazine, an aviation publication, offered a list of which industries offer entry-level drone pilot jobs.  The list includes: real estate, advertising, film making and photography, agriculture and forestry, construction and infrastructure, surveying and mapping, and public safety and emergency response sector.

The same publication in the same month said the global commercial drone market is expected to balloon, from $20.8 billion in 2021, to $1.2 trillion in 2030. 

Here in Lubbock, Brady Newton, who graduated from West Texas A&M, earned his Part 107 license a little less than a year ago.  The pictures here are shots of the drone he uses to fly over crops to spray with pesticides and fertilizers.

Newton says he’s worked for the same agriculture-tech company for about six months now.  He says his starting salary was $70,000 a year.

This fall, Billy Tackett says there are about a dozen students in his drone pilot class. After midterm he says students started going outside to explore and experience the influence of nature on fight characteristic.

“In fact, we even purposely go out on poor flying days,” he says, “as learning to fly in bad conditions will help to better understand and handle the good conditions.”

By the end of the semester, Tackett says each student uses an SPC higher end drone like the one shown below to go to an altitude of 400 feet and take pictures and videos of surrounding areas.

The final exam in Tackett’s pilot class is the government (FAA) exam for the Part 107 license.  All have to have a Part 107 license to fly commercially.

“This is a new industry,” Tackett ways, “and it is hard to say where it will lead. But already insurance agencies, power and electrical inspection, farming, police, and even the dog catcher in Lubbock use them.”