Expectations and What's Coming Fall 2020

The year 2020 has brought several challenges and changes to how we go about our daily lives.  These challenges are quite unique in nature, taking away or changing many of the experiences that we may have expected and not expected this year.  Per the usual, time keeps marching on and Purdue has chosen to open itself to in person classes this semester. I have chosen to return and take the opportunities that come with this. 

The Fall 2020 semester will be the last of my undergraduate college career. I will be a teaching assistant (TA) for both AT 109, Introduction to Unmanned Aerial Systems, and AT 209 Civilian Unmanned Aerial Systems. I will also be producing, instructing and certifying my class mates in operating the C-Astral Bramor ppX that we operate. This semester comes to a grand total of 6 credit hours and will cap off 140 credit hours. This is significant because it will finish off the second degrees that I have been working towards in my 4 and a half years at Purdue.

Bramor Setup Martell Forest Mapping Fall 2019

I began TAing officially in January of this year for the AT 219 course. I learned a fair amount on hands on learning and they types of students that are in the UAS major and those who seek a minor. My biggest contributions to that course was developing teaching material for on of the flight simulators we use, Simlat. This involved creating deliverables like instructional power points and developing checklists for this simulator that we did not have. I then went through teaching 12 groups of 2 students on this simulator. They each spent time participating as pilot in command and as sensor operator of the RQ-7 shadow that we fly within the program.  This introduced large scale, multicrew vehicle operations, and airport operation that they otherwise would not be exposed to.  Emphasis was placed on crew resource management to help encourage students to reach out to one another for assistance during any time of an operation. Aviation is a system of systems that provide multiple resources and safety nets to help pilots. UAS cannot operate on its own and ignore these resources that are made available. 

Moving into AT109 I am expected to assist in helping lab conduct with 20 students. During this semester one of the things they will be learning is the DJI Mavic 2 Pro. One of the final exams for this course will be to show proficiency on this plat form. The purpose of this course it to teach the material necessary to complete the FAA Small UAS aeronautical knowledge exam and develop basic flight skills. Over the course of a students time in the program, they will further develop these skills and be presented with many opportunities to apply these skills in real world applications. 

In AT 209 this semester will cover many things. My role is to act as the lab instructor. There are currently 10 labs ranging from sensor operation, data collection, UAS maintenance and custom purpose built UAS development. 

The C-Astral Bramor training is something new this semester. Previously there was no formal guide or plan for instructing this platform. An individual would learn from exposure to the plat form and operations, trouble shooting with the knowledge they had previously learned on other plat forms. A high standard of operation was always present as there were many levels of oversite to every operation ensuring safety. 

This oversite still exists but there is now a written training program. The program consists of 10 lessons each intended to be done in a two hour block over 2 weeks. Week one is introductions and normal operations. These are intended to break operations down into pieces that are less overwhelming. An approach like this can provide more instruction in individual operations rather than needing to be exposed to the full operation multiple time in hopes of learning the same amount of knowledge quickly. At the end of this week there is a written exam that reviews all Bramor material up to that point. It includes identification of parts, knowledge of aircraft limitations, and requires students to show proof of currency through basic understanding of FAA rules. Week two is all emergency operations and largescale operations. Student teams will learn how to identify and react to emergencies like loss of link, aircraft run away, and inflight fires. They will also further develop mission planning skills, crew roles, aircraft set up and tear down, and how to process the data that they will gather during operations. My vision on this comes from what I have learned in the Professional Flight program and going through type rating like courses on the Phenom 100 and Airbus A320. 

Safety procedures have been set in place to help reduce the possibility of exposure and the spread of Covid-19. Hopefully everyone will stay safe and a lot of great things will come out of this semester.