Page 27 - Minister Michelle Hooyboer Winklaar
P. 27
A8
U.S. NEWSMonday 1 February 2016
Drone schools spread in China to field pilots for new sector
GERRY SHIH In this Oct. 17, 2015 photo, an instructor explains the operation of a drone to students at a school cooperation with the gov-
Associated Press run by TT Aviation Technology in Beijing. ernment, people will be
BEIJING (AP) — Joysticks at able to check any upload-
their fingertips, the mostly Associated Press ed personal information in
male students packing the a room from any building
classroom lift their virtual company with drone ser- skill training and regulated has vast farmlands, and in our 3-D map,” said Wu,
helicopters into the air, part vices,” Xu said one recent studying to make sure ev- there is a high demand for whose company also pro-
of a new cottage industry afternoon next to a grassy eryone knows the rules be- drones to be used in pesti- duces surveillance drones
that’s sprung up in China: field where his instructor fore the real operation,” cide spraying because the with five cameras.
drone pilot schools. demonstrated basic moves she said. labor force is shrinking even The rapid development
China is already the world’s with a small radio-con- Drones are touted as as labor costs rise, said of new types of drones re-
biggest drone manufac- trolled helicopter. “I like to game-changers in a range Yang. quires a pool of trained
turer, churning out remote- work for myself. This is a new of industries, including ag- The company said police and specialized drone op-
controlled flying machines and popular line of work.” riculture, logistics, film pro- will use drones for patrols, erators, Wu said.
that range from 3-D urban The opportunities ap- duction and law enforce- while utilities use them for Even as drones offer law en-
mappers to tear-gas spray- pear promising. More than ment. maintaining electricity in- forcement sharply expand-
ing models for police. But it 10,000 new pilots are need- The sector has gotten sup- frastructure or mapping ed capabilities, authorities
lacks qualified pilots to fly ed this year across all indus- port from the central gov- pipelines. in China, as in many other
them. tries in China, but only 1,000 ernment, which is keen on The Shandong Qihang Sur- countries, are scrambling
Young men in particular are pilots now hold licenses, promoting robotics and veying and Mapping Tech- to regulate their use. The
flocking to drone schools said Yang Yi, the general automation to sustain eco- nology Company has used country is now beginning
such as TT Aviation Technol- manager of TT Aviation, nomic growth as labor photographs taken by its to set nationwide regula-
ogy Co., one of more than which also manufactures costs rise. Chinese firms are drones to build vast urban tions on where they can fly,
40 in China, hoping to land and sells drones to private making inroads producing databases and 3-D models which are applauded by
a potentially lucrative job in and public sector custom- unmanned machines be- of cities. Every building can many in the Chinese indus-
an exciting new field. ers. yond industrial use as well. be catalogued, with infor- try.
TT Aviation offers a two- “The drone pilot and the Baidu, the Beijing-based mation about the people “We need pilots with licens-
week intensive course for car driver are the same: search engine, is develop- and businesses behind ev- es, because safety is the
8,000 yuan ($1,200) where They both need systematic ing a self-driving car while ery window stored in a da- biggest concern in the op-
students learn regulations DJI, a Shenzhen-based tabase — a valuable tech- eration of drones. Although
and how to pilot using sim- drone maker valued by U.S. nology for government we have insurance, we still
ulators and real drones. At investors at $8 billion, has bodies like the census bu- need strict regulations for
the end of the course, they cornered more than half reau, urban planners and studying and training to
can try to earn the license the world consumer drone public security agencies, avoid any incidents,” Wu
required by China’s Civil market. said company vice presi- said.
Aviation Administration to So far, more than half of dent Wu Haining. On a recent afternoon, a
operate drones that are TT Aviation’s products are “With oblique photograph group of drone-flying aficio-
heavier than 7 kilograms used in agriculture. China technology and through nados tried out their mod-
(15 pounds) and fly higher els in the outskirts of Beijing
than 120 meters (400 feet). near the city’s 6th Ring
Xu Honggang, 24, believes Road, a highway around
the license will open doors the city about 15 to 20 ki-
to piloting jobs that make lometers (8-12 miles) from
at least 5,000 Chinese yuan the city center. The capital
per month ($780), higher requires permission to fly a
than average. Some expe- drone inside that ring.
rienced pilots bring in dou- “This is only a toy for enter-
ble that amount, he said. tainment, I won’t use this
“I want to build my own for any other purpose,”
said Sun Xiaoqiang, a Bei-
jing resident who has been
flying drones for two years,
when asked about the reg-
ulations.
“I have no bad intentions,
it’s only for entertainment,
so I think they should open
a certain airspace for us.”q
