Sinclair nears clearance to fly another UAV
Sinclair Community College is close to scoring permission to fly another model of unmanned aircraft.
The school is pending clearance of a Certificate of Authorization from theFederal Aviation Administration to fly Altavian Inc.’s Unmanned Aerial Systems, or UAS, at Wilmington Air Park, said Deb Norris, vice president of workforce development & corporate services at Sinclair. Final authorization is expected within weeks.
Altavian Inc. is a Gainesville, FLa.-based UAS company that produces platforms including the Nova Block III and the Condor for industries including precision agriculture, law enforcement, infrastructure monitoring and natural resource management, according to its website.
In order to fly an unmanned aircraft, the school must receive a Certificate of Authorization for each individual model of unmanned aircraft at each individual location it wants to fly them. Right now testing of the unmanned aircraft is done on a limited basis under very restricted conditions using the certificates.
This comes as Sinclair looks to aggressively grow its training programs to operate UAS’s. Sinclair’s board approved $1.4 million in funding for its UAS program earlier this year. The school is the first community college in the state to receive such a clearance to operate UAS’.
The school already has two authorizations at Wilmington Air Park to operate the Vireo and the SPEAR UAS models. It has several more clearances to fly aircraft at the Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport.
The Dayton region, through the Dayton Development Coalition, has been working to get areas in Ohio and Indiana area designated as an FAA test site, which would make it much easier to fly and thereby draw a whole crop of companies dedicated to designing and manufacturing the aircraft and other related products.
http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/news/2013/09/12/sinclair-nears-clearance-to-fly.html
