Q&A WITH OLIVER LANE

Popular Mechanics: How did you get into

flying drones?

Oliver Lane: I first entered the industry in 2014 when I flew a DJI Phantom. The Phantom series was a little primitive in that you had to attach your GoPro camera to it to capture images or footage. The Phantom 4 was one of the first drones that incorporated everything into one package. I was working as a game ranger at a reserve at the time, and realised that I had really good subject matter all around me in a beautiful natural landscape, and that capturing it all from above was a really good idea. PM: How has the drone pilot industry in South Africa fared in the global context?

OL: We’ve been relatively slow on the uptake.

There are a lot of misconceptions out there, and actually obtaining permission to get drones into specific spaces is still a massive hurdle. In the beginning, drone enthusiasts didn’t have any of the off-the-shelf packages that are available today. You needed to import separate parts from China and build your own. Before that, in the mid-2000s, people used radio-controlled helicopters, and attached their cameras underneath. It was all rather primitive in the beginning, but we’re slowly catching up. Interestingly, it’s almost come full circle, as it’s now the ‘in thing’ to again build your own drones. PM: Military drone applications may have cast a negative light on the industry, however, in the commercial sector and beyond, drone use has made positive contributions. Tell us about some of these.

OL: For one thing, substituting drones in for helicopters has been a major positive – you can now attached cinematography-grade cameras to drones, and capture so much detail. The cost-saving of not having to commission a helicopter is immense. With the increasing payloads of drones, they can now be used for photogrammetry, LIDAR (which is a remote sensing method), aircraft inspections, building inspections, firefighting, engineering, package deliveries, conservation efforts and anti-poaching… The list is nearly endless.