DartDrones offers ‘Santa Certified’ flight training for new drone owner
Hiawatha Bray
If you’re planning to buy someone a remote-controlled aircraft as a Christmas gift, Abby Speicher hopes you’ll spend a little extra and buy some lessons, too.
Speicher is founder of Woburn-based DartDrones, one of the few companies that offer flight training for drone pilots. Her company’s “Santa Certified” program is offering lessons to new drone owners in 20 US cities, including Boston.
Santa Certified doesn’t actually teach people how to fly, but when and where. It’s a two-hour indoor course covering the Federal Aviation Administration’s “rules of the road” for recreational drone use. And plenty of people need to learn the rules; the federal government has predicted that Americans will buy a million drones as holiday gifts this year.
“The FAA thinks of drones as airplanes and people need to be aware of the aviation laws,” Speicher said.
