On April 6 and 7 Robin Harrison and Bianca Weber from LandView Drones presented a two-day drone school in Innisfree that was hosted by the Innisfree Agricultural Society at the Innisfree & District Recreation Centre.
The two-day school appeared to be a success with 15 attendees. Attendees had the opportunity to learn every aspect of drone management including the safe and legal use of remotely piloted aerial systems (RPAS). This included a presentation on 101 uses for farm drones, an intro to air law, site survey and pre-flight planning, best practices for emergency management, maintenance, storage, and travel on the first day. The second day of instruction provided attendees with further detail with mapping workflows, data processing, and analysis, livestock uses of drones, an introduction to spraying by drone, and test preparation, and their online Transport Canada Test for their Basic Certificate. The students also had a morning of fly time, where they had the opportunity to operate several different RPAS models outdoors and experience different scenarios that allowed them to gain experience and to understand both site survey and emergency procedures while they took turns as pilots and observers.
”I was struck by how much local attendance we had at this event. I give the credit largely to Carmen and Carson Kassian, on behalf of the Ag Society, who really did an amazing job of hosting our event. They were great to work with and it really shows that there are many progressive farmers in the area,” commented Markus Weber, president of LandView.
Mother and son duo Carmen and Carson Kassian from Innisfree were impressed with the two-day course and how being drone certified will be an integral part of their farm operations.
“I thought the course was pretty good, I learned a lot and learned how to fly drones and all the rules and everything and now I can use a drone to check cows and crops,” said Carson.
Carmen echoed the same as Carson and said, “We learned so many new applications you can do with drones, such as checking cattle, checking your fencing and your fields. You can check spray drift, and assess hail damage. Depending on the type of drone you buy and the type of camera on it, you have you can check types of vegetation,” commented Carmen.