Sky-Futures Approve First Batch of American Remote Pilots and Inspection Engineers at UK Training Centre

Sky-Futures, the global leader in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Oil and Gas inspections has this week approved three new Remote Pilots, including the first two Sky-Futures USA Remote Pilots. Qualifications have also been awarded to three Inspection Engineers who have all completed the Inspection Engineer Camera Operator Course. Sky-Futures extensive in house training course includes ground school, flight training and industry specific inductions, all of which need to be passed to Sky-Futures training team satisfaction in order for the qualification to be awarded.

Sky-Futures new US team members will support the growth of operations in the USA following Sky-Futures award of an FAA Section 333 Exemption in March this year. They join the Houston Office headed up by Jay Forte, Vice President Operations, to form the core of the US business.

Jason Forte, said:

‘Following Sky-Futures 333 Exemption from the FAA earlier this year and the opening of our Houston office in March, we have been growing the team in order to support the expected growth in operations in the largest potential single source marketplace for Sky-Futures service. We are pleased to welcome two new experienced and ambitious Remote Pilots to the team alongside an Inspection Engineer with over eight years’ experience. They have received world-class training in the UK and will enable Sky-Futures USA to continue to deliver the same exceptional standard of inspection that Sky-Futures’ clients expect globally.’

Sky-Futures was the third UAV operating company to be awarded UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) National Qualified Entity (NQE) status in the UK, and enables the company to train prospective Remote Pilots to a CAA approved competency level for visual line of sight UAV operations. The Remote Pilot training programme takes place at a highly specialised location in the UK, with facilities including free standing structures over 100 ft. Such a facility enables the S-FRP instructors to build up trainee Remote Pilot and camera operating skills by simulating the complex, challenging and dangerous environments they will encounter when inspecting infrastructure both onshore and offshore for Sky-Futures Oil and Gas clients. S-FRP instructors are highly experienced with 1000’s of hours of UAV flight experience.

Nick Rogers, Sky-Futures Chief Regulatory and Training Officer commented;

‘All of our newly trained Remote Pilots and Inspection Engineers come from a range of backgrounds and industries where they have already gained many of the skills required in order to be a successful Remote Pilots and Camera Operators in the Oil and Gas industry. Our training centre further develops the Remote Pilots flying skills by testing their skills on facilities that replicate the challenging real world inspection scenarios that they will find working at oil and gas facilities onshore and offshore.’

About Sky-Futures:

Founded in 2009, Sky-Futures is the leading specialist oil and gas drone inspection provider globally. High definition (HD) video, stills and thermal imagery data that the drones collect is fed into the company’s proprietary data platform. Following analysis, the information is delivered to the client as a technical report. Each part of this process is overseen by Sky-Futures’ highly qualified, in-house team of global industry experts in flare systems and structural engineering.

Sky-Futures has over 8,500 hours of aviation experience, providing live flare, structural and under deck inspections onshore and offshore. The business is growing fast, and is set to continue to scale as the world’s leading drone inspection operator in oil and gas. Sky-Futures already has a footprint of over 30 clients globally, and works in over 10 countries across five regions of the world.

The business is headquartered in London with offices in Houston, TX in the USA, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and Aberdeen in Scotland.