UMaine Augusta drone course takes flight

When Augusta locals look to the sky at the end of October they might just find themselves sitting in on Maine’s first university-level unmanned aerial vehicle course, as the University of Maine at Augusta announced on Tuesday that it will begin offering the course.

“There is a strong job market for licensed UAV pilots,” UMA President James Conneely said in a prepared statement. “Serving the need to train UAV pilots will most certainly lead to economic growth for the state of Maine, attracting business investment or sparking development.”

The seven-week, non-credit program, which begins on Oct. 27 and is open to both pilots and non-pilots, will give students a path to seek a Federal Aviation Administration remote pilot’s license.

“Applications for UAV’s are varied and growing,” Tom Abbott, project manager for the Small UAV Pilot Training Center at UMA, said in a prepared statement.

These include business applications such as using unmanned drones to conduct engineering inspections, monitoring power transmission lines and pipelines, examining crop health and the forests of Maine using infrared technology and search and rescue operations.

“Maine is projected to achieve 5% of the national UAV market,” Abbott said in a statement. “We think that we can do significantly better than that.”

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