Drone Piloting Foundations

This unit introduces essential drone piloting knowledge and skills, covering regulations, airspace interpretation, preflight procedures, basic flight maneuvers, and operational constraints. It reinforces prerequisite concepts and prepares students for more advanced navigation, mission planning, and commercial operations in subsequent units.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze federal and North Carolina UAS regulations, registration processes, TRUST certificate and Part 107 requirements, and determine certification/registration needs for specific drone types and missions.
• Interpret sectional charts, airspace classes (including Class A and Class B), latitude/longitude coordinates, and Chart Supplement entries to identify controlled airspace, airport proximity, and legal flight boundaries for planned operations.
• Demonstrate preflight and basic flight operation skills by completing drone registration and firmware checks, performing systematic preflight inspections (including propeller maintenance and loading assessments), configuring the remote controller, and executing basic flight maneuvers and simulated emergency responses.
• Evaluate operational risks related to weather and visibility, night flight limitations, maximum altitude, flying over people/property, operations from moving vehicles, and software/technical failures, and develop a mission-specific risk mitigation and basic aerial imaging/videography plan.