Sinclair Community College was granted a Certificate of Authorization at the end of July to fly Unmanned Aerial Systems at Wilmington Park.
“What we were granted approval [for] was from the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) for designated air space at the Wilmington Airport to fly two of our UAS platforms,” Deb Norris, vice president for Workforce Development and Corporate Services said. “It was big news to us, it is a very disciplined process, a very rigorous process to apply for and receive, because this is about an Unmanned Aerial System in the national airspace.”
UAS have been described to be the third wave, the first being powered flight and the second being the jet engine, she said.
“We like to think of it almost as this enabling technology that will change some of the way we do work,” she said.
Although the field is evolving and the applications for the technology are still being discovered, Sinclair hopes to eventually become a national center for UAS.
“We were the first community college in the state of Ohio to be granted a COA (Certificate of Authorization), and that was at Springfield and this would have been probably about three years ago,” she said. “At that time, that COA was targeted to training. Now, the COAs allow more than training. We can do testing and a little bit of research.”
Sinclair Aviation students and individuals involved in Workforce Development are able to have hands-on experience with UAS, by being an observer while flights are in progress. Students are not able to fly the UAS, because the FAA requires a certified pilot control the platform, which controls the UAS unit.
“We’ll be able to capture data from our sensors,” she said. “And that (data) we can use and integrate into our sensors and into the curriculum so that they can see what that data will look like.”
Jeff Miller, assistant vice president of Workforce Development and Corporate Services said the UAS have the ability to reach 2500 feet in the air and that this technology can be a cheaper and more effective way to gather intelligence.
“Our vision is to build a national center for UAS training and certification here at Sinclair,” Norris said. “And we kind of have this three-legged stool to do that. So we’re going to have curriculum, simulation, capability and the ability to fly in airspace.”