Page 44 - Australian Defence Magazine July-August 2021

44 STEM
JULY-AUGUST 2021 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
DRONES ARE FLYING HIGH
A few years ago, I spoke to David Mann of drone training company UAVAIR, headquartered in Newcastle with offices nationally, about how the company was helping improve drone literacy across the Army using DJI Phantoms.
EWEN LEVICK | CANBERRA
IRECENTLY caught up with him again to see what has changed in the last two years – which is a long time in the world of drones – as well as with Rob Sutton, Managing Director of drone consultancy Mirragin, to learn how the industry of uncrewed aerial platforms is expanding and what the future of military drones could be.
UAVAIR
UAVAIR is a drone education provider to the Army and has been providing drone training across 11 locations around Australia since 2018.
“We continue to roll out the multi-rotor UAS training program,” Mann said. “There’s an on- line and a face-to-face component for that, and we’ve just got back into doing the face-to face- component.
“We completed some training for 40-odd civil- ian people and RAAF staff who are working un- der Wing Commander Keirin Joyce on the MQ- 4C Triton and MQ-9B SkyGuardian program,
“THE ROLE OF SIMULATORS IS ONLY GROWING IN THE RPAS ENVIRONMENT”
which gave them a bit of an insight into drones – remote- ly piloted aerial systems and multi-rotor aerial systems. We’re doing also some recur- rent training across Army.”
But beyond this training, UAVAIR has been busy ex- panding its reach into mari- time UAS and has joined
a bid for Sea 129 Phase 5 (Defence’s Maritime Unmanned Aircraft System Continuous Development Pro- gram), which is the largest maritime UAV program of its kind on the global market.
The shortlisted companies for Block 1 (which includes seven ‘bricks’ to be operated from the Arafura class OPVs and ANZAC class frigates) were announced in March and include BAE Systems Australia, Insitu Pacific, Northrop Grumman Australia, Raytheon Australia, and Textron Systems Australia.
For UAVAIR, this means trainees will need to learn how to take-off and land a drone at sea.
“There isn’t a huge amount of difference other than take- off and landing on a ship in non-millpond sea states, and
then overlaying the emergencies that would go with that program,” Mann said.
To create a realistic training environment, UAVAIR is looking to simulators – which according to Mann are im- proving in leaps and bounds. The company currently has an online version for small multi-rotors such as the DJI Phantom, which is the introductory drone for Army sol- diers, but is confident that similar systems will become available for larger UAS.
ABOVE: Sue Osborn, Mirragin Chief Pilot & James Finch, Skydio Australia.