36 http://www.popularmechanics.co.za _ AUGUST 2017
FLOURISHING IS NOT EXACTLY HOW YOU’D
describe the relationship between com-
mercial drone operators and their
commercial aviation counterparts in
South Africa. This emerged on Day One of
the conference. The impassioned plea
from Commercial Aviation Association
CEO Leon Dillman during his keynote:
become part of the solution.
That problem Dillman was alluding to is
the tight controls the CAA has imposed
on drone flight. It is almost impossible to
become a certified operator under the cur-
rent industry regulations, which require
business plans and multiple-person com-
mand chain organisations as part of the
application. This set-up protects the cur-
rent commercial operations licence hold-
ers, but stifles the industry as a whole,
especially small businesses such as wed-
ding photographers.
Currently, there’s a big push for a tiered
system of operator licences. The good news
is that the broader industry supports this.
The other important concern doing the
rounds at the conference is the holy grail
of commercial operations: beyond visual
line of sight (BVLOS). Retief Gouws of
Denel Dynamics whet appetites with tales
of the Seeker drone BVLOS testing. If you
thought drone technology was a new thing,
you’re wrong. Seeker was introduced in
1986 and retired in 1994. A few are still
in operation, hunting rhino poachers, but
the Seeker was mainly deployed during
the border war.
Technology flows downhill, with the
military at the very top and the likes of
land surveyors profiting from the scraps
of combat. Then it moves into the mines,
agriculture and, ultimately, to the general
public. While all the stands on the confer-
ence expo floor had a DJI Matrice as the
main rig, where you saw custom craft, you
could be sure that it was meant for some-
thing higher up in the heirarchy.
On the land surveying side, the LiDar
systems run into millions of rand. That’s
just the camera, not even the cost of the
drone. Excavation and mining use remote
detonators that can also be considered as
drones because of their unmanned
nature.
The overriding impression is this: if you
could criticise the South African drone
industry of one thing, it would never be
about the professionalism. Naivety, how-
ever, seems rampant.
FlyOx is years ahead of anything our
commercial operators are working on. In
one video that gazed into the future of
drone applications, there was a quadcop-
ter inside an elaborate mesh ball doing
pipe inspections. The technology and its
associated applications is still a new con-cept on our shores, but it seems as though
the wow factor has stunned our innovators
into silence.
Yes, DJI has achieved something amaz-
ing. It keeps on improving its products, to
the point where it has a drone for every
application. But surely there are niche
industries that require something unique?
Why was Takealot not at the conference
to talk about its movements in the drone
delivery space?
The South African drone industry is
alive and well and business may be boom-
ing, but faces a combination of over-cau-
tious regulation and a community of
licensed operators that is stuck in a para-
dox of wanting to ring-fence its economy
and wanting to get more innovation into
the sector. Two-billion-rand industries
aren’t built in a day; fortunately, conver-
sations at events like Drone Con are
laying a solid foundation for the empire
to come. PMDrones do the dangerous,
dull, dirty work and keep
people safe and entertained.
ECONOMIC IMPACT ASSESSMENT
Conducted by Dr Roelof Botha The DJI Phantom is like the iPhone of UAVs,
it changed public perception of an entire
industry and is the reason most pilots get their
RPL.