Market Expected To Grow Exponentially In The Coming Years

With the establishment of testing sites for UAVs codified in the FAA reauthorization bill, and nearly every aviation analyst saying that unmanned aerial systems are expected to be an enormous business in the coming years, one of the pieces of the UAV puzzle still to be put in place is who will operate the aircraft for all of the agencies and others which will want to fly them.

A person trying to answer that question is Jerry LaMieux. The retired Air Force Colonel, college lecturer, and airline pilot recently founded an education institution focused on Unmanned Aerial Systems. And although it currently offers only online courses, it received international accreditation last fall.

According to an enterprise report in The Washington Times, Col. LeMieux has dreams of a physical campus in Lake Havasu, AZ. In its current online offerings, the Unmanned Vehicle University teaches such subjects as vehicle design and system fundamentals. The FAA said in a recent statement that "pilot training and medical requirements" are in development as it looks as integration of UAVs in the the National Airspace. LeMieux and others hope to be ready to offer those certifications as soon as they are established by the federal government. 

Col. LeMieux already has some established competition. The University of North Dakota has a degree program in unmanned systems, The University of Nebraska-Lincoln founded a "drone journalism lab" to look into the role of the aircraft in news gathering ... good and bad. And a professor and students at the University of Texas at Austin recently hijacked a UAV to highlight security concerns.

In 2011, Embry-Riddle began offering a Bachelor of Science degree in Unmanned Aircraft Systems, focusing on the operations aspect of UAS, preparing students for such roles as pilot, observer, sensor operator, or operations administrator.

(Images from file)

FMI: www.uxvuniversity.com