There’s a point in almost every new public safety pilot’s development where the flying part stops being the hard part.
They can launch. They can land. They understand the controls. They’ve learned how to work the camera, change palettes, manage batteries and position the aircraft where they want it.
Then you put them on a real incident.
The radio is active. Command wants information. Crews are moving. Conditions are changing. Somebody asks the pilot a question while they’re already trying to answer another one. The battery that had plenty of time left a few minutes ago suddenly needs attention.
That’s when things change.
The pilot isn’t just flying anymore. They’re processing information, deciding what matters, managing workload and trying to turn what they see on a screen into something useful for the people running the incident.
That transition is where I think a lot of UAS programs need to spend more time.
A Remote Pilot Certificate is important. It gives a pilot the regulatory foundation they need to operate legally under Part 107. But earning the certificate doesn’t suddenly give someone the judgment that comes from operating at a structure fire, working a search or trying to provide useful information to command when several things are happening at once.
That only comes with experience.
And whenever possible, I don’t think a new rPIC should have to build all of that experience alone.
I’m a big proponent of putting new pilots with seasoned UAS pilots they trust. Not just during formal training, but whenever the opportunity exists to work actual incidents together.
There’s a tremendous amount of information passed from one pilot to another that never shows up in a manual.
A seasoned pilot may look at a launch location and immediately know it’s going to become a problem when additional apparatus arrives. A new pilot might not recognize that until they’re surrounded by people, hose lines, traffic and equipment.
An experienced pilot may notice that a newer pilot has been staring at the same section of a roof for several minutes and has stopped looking at the bigger incident. They may recognize that battery management needs to happen now instead of five minutes from now. They may hear a question from command and know that the aircraft needs to move before there’s any chance of giving an accurate answer.
Those aren’t really flying skills.
They’re operational skills.
They’re also much easier to teach when the new pilot can see them happening in front of them.
I think back to how we learn a lot of things in public safety. We don’t hand somebody a certification, point them toward the most complicated call they’re likely to encounter and tell them to figure it out.
They work with people who have been there before.
UAS operations shouldn’t be any different.
I actually like flying the scene with a newer rPIC whenever the incident allows it.
Obviously, the two aircraft have to be safely separated, properly coordinated and operating in a way that keeps both pilots fully aware of where the other aircraft is. But there can be a real advantage to having two different views of the same incident.
The newer pilot is still running point. They’re the one working the assignment, making decisions and responding to what command needs. I’m not there to take over the flight every time something gets difficult.
I’m there as a safety net.
If command asks for a view of the Charlie side, I want the newer pilot to work through it. Maybe they need to reposition. Maybe they need to change altitude. Maybe they have to think through the best angle before they can give command a useful answer.
At the same time, I may already be in a different position with another aircraft and have exactly what command is looking for.
That creates a great training opportunity because the newer pilot still gets to solve the problem, but the incident doesn’t have to wait on them while they’re figuring it out. If they get there, great. If they struggle, I can provide what command needs and then we can talk afterward about what happened.
It’s almost like training wheels.
The newer rPIC is still riding the bike. They’re still making the decisions and doing the work. But there’s somebody beside them who can keep a small mistake from becoming a much bigger problem.
There’s also value in comparing what each pilot saw from two different positions. Maybe the newer pilot had the better angle. Maybe I did. Maybe one aircraft picked up something the other one didn’t. That opens the door to a much better conversation after the incident about positioning, perspective, workload and why each pilot made the decisions they did.
That kind of experience is difficult to reproduce by simply standing behind a new pilot and telling them where to fly.
There’s another side to operational readiness that matters just as much, and that’s how the rPIC fits into the incident from the Incident Commander’s perspective.
IC doesn’t want another problem to manage.
They don’t want to worry about where the drone is, whether the pilot understands what’s happening or whether the UAS operation is getting in the way of crews trying to do their jobs. They want a pilot who can plug into the incident, understand the operation and start providing useful information without becoming another assignment for command.
That takes more than knowing how to fly.
A good public safety rPIC needs to understand what’s happening around them on the fireground. They need to recognize where crews are operating, what apparatus is doing, how conditions are changing and what command is likely trying to accomplish.
Sometimes IC isn’t going to give you a detailed UAS assignment.
They may simply ask, “What do you have on the Charlie side?”
An operationally minded pilot should have a pretty good idea what that question means.
Command may be looking for extension. They may be concerned about conditions above crews. They may want to know whether fire is moving toward an exposure or whether something has changed since the last report.
The rPIC has to understand enough about the incident to recognize what matters in that view and give command the information they actually need.
Eventually, you want to develop a pilot that IC doesn’t have to worry about. Someone they trust to operate safely, stay out of the way, understand the assignment and recognize important information even when the request from command is only a few words.
When you reach that point, the UAS stops feeling like another piece of equipment that has to be managed. It becomes part of the operation.
That same kind of operational thinking carries over into every other public safety mission.
Take a search operation. A newer pilot may be working a defined area when something shows up on thermal near the edge of the pattern. It could be the missing subject, an animal or a piece of equipment holding heat. At almost the same time, a ground team may be asking the pilot for information.
Now the challenge isn’t really flying the aircraft. The challenge is deciding what deserves attention first.
Does the pilot leave the search pattern to investigate the thermal return? Do they hold position long enough to get a better look? Do they tell the ground team to stand by while they sort out what they’re seeing?
There may not be one perfect answer, and that’s exactly the point.
A big part of becoming operationally capable is learning how to slow the situation down just enough to make a good decision instead of reacting to every request the second it comes across the radio.
That can be difficult for a new pilot because there’s a natural tendency to want to answer command immediately. If IC asks what’s happening on a particular side of a building, the pilot may feel like they need to produce an answer right then.
Sometimes the better answer is simply, “Stand by. I’m moving for a better look.”
And if the aircraft can’t provide a clear answer, say that too.
“I can’t confirm that from the aircraft.”
There’s nothing wrong with that.
In fact, one of the most important things a seasoned pilot can teach a newer one is that credibility matters more than sounding certain. Once command starts relying on information coming from the UAS, they need to know that what they hear from that pilot is dependable.
That means learning how to communicate what matters without turning every radio transmission into a description of everything visible on the screen.
If a warmer area is developing on a roof, command needs to know where it is and whether it’s changing. If something questionable shows up during a search, ground crews need enough information to get to the right area. If an aerial is flowing, command may simply need to know whether the stream is reaching the intended location.
The pilot’s job is to take everything they can see and reduce it to the information that helps somebody make a decision.
That sounds easy until you’re doing it while also watching the aircraft, monitoring battery life, maintaining awareness of the airspace and listening to the radio.
That’s why the training eventually has to move beyond basic flight proficiency.
There is absolutely value in learning the aircraft first. New pilots need time to build confidence with takeoffs, landings, camera systems, thermal imagery and basic maneuvering before we start making the environment more complicated.
But once those skills are comfortable, the training needs to start looking more like the job.
Give the pilot an assignment instead of a flight path. Let the situation change while they’re working it. Have command ask another question. Make them reposition. Give them something that might matter and see whether they recognize it.
Most importantly, give them enough room to think through what’s happening instead of immediately giving them the answer.
Sometimes they’re going to miss something.
That’s okay during training.
Maybe they become so focused on one hotspot that they stop looking at the rest of the roof. Maybe they wait too long to change a battery. Maybe they choose a launch point that works perfectly at the beginning of the incident and becomes terrible once additional apparatus arrives.
Those are valuable lessons when someone experienced is there to keep the situation safe and talk through it afterward.
And that conversation afterward is just as important as the flight itself.
Some of the best UAS training I’ve been involved with happens after the aircraft is back on the ground and the pressure is gone. That’s when you can compare what each pilot saw, talk about why certain decisions were made and identify where the newer pilot started getting behind the incident.
Maybe the experienced pilot saw something the newer pilot missed. Maybe the opposite happened. Maybe the newer pilot chose a better angle or recognized something first.
That’s useful too.
The goal isn’t to prove that the seasoned pilot knows more. The goal is to make both pilots better and, ultimately, make the whole UAS program stronger.
Over time, those experiences start changing the way a new rPIC thinks.
They stop focusing only on the aircraft and start understanding the incident around it.
They begin recognizing what command is likely to ask for before the request even comes.
They notice when their launch location is about to become a problem. They know when it’s time to move, when it’s time to speak up and when it’s better to stay quiet and let the incident develop for another few seconds.
Eventually, IC stops having to think about the drone operation very much at all.
That’s where you want to get.
You want a pilot who shows up, understands what’s happening, stays out of the way, operates safely and provides useful information without requiring constant direction.
And eventually, that newer rPIC becomes the seasoned pilot standing beside somebody else.
They’ll recognize task saturation because they’ve felt it themselves. They’ll hear a new pilot struggling to answer command and know when to give them another few seconds to work through it. They’ll also know when it’s time to step in and provide the safety net that somebody once provided for them.
That’s how a public safety UAS program really grows.
Not by collecting certificates.
By developing pilots who understand the aircraft, understand the incident and understand how the two fit together.
Because when the radio gets busy, the assignment changes and IC asks for something with only a few words of explanation, nobody is thinking about how well that pilot flew a square pattern during training.
They want someone behind the controller who already understands what they’re looking for.
That’s the rPIC we should be trying to develop.