Taking flight: Laurel Ridge Community College, Civil Air Patrol partner at drone demo

Bridgeforth Photography uses drones to capture striking aerial images.

Rappahannock Electric uses drone technology to reduce pole inspection time by 50% for their customers.

Skydio manufactures drones that can be used for military and public safety purposes, and well as historical and wildlife preservation efforts.

These are just a few of the 10 industry professionals who visited Laurel Ridge Community College's Corron Community Development Center Tuesday evening to talk about drones. They shared knowledge and career possibilities with about 60 cadets from the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force.

CAP is not a branch of the military or an Air Force recruitment program. First called on during WWII as a civilian defense service, CAP now aims to provide aerospace education and promote "civic-minded young people."

"People have different opinions about drones and those technologies, right? But you know, like it or not, it's here. They're here to stay, you know, they probably will take over most flight within a generation. And it's just an exciting career field, and you look at all the opportunities that are opening up with drones, you see organizations represented, from power companies, you know, law enforcement agencies, technology companies, you know, we're all using them in different ways," said Matthew Creese, Deputy Commander for Cadets for the Winchester CAP squadron.

Tuesday's event was a collaboration between CAP and Laurel Ridge's new Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (drone) program, which officially launched this semester.

For the CAP cadets, who range in age from 12-21, the demo was part of a STEM kit, a hands-on, inquiry-based activity that accompanies CAP's curriculum. This particular STEM kit was based on drone, or remotely piloted aircraft, technology.

The cadets were split into two groups, one that met with the industry professionals, and one that participated in a hands-on demo with the drones. After about an hour, the two groups swapped activities.

Four Laurel Ridge student volunteers were on site working toward fulfilling the community service requirement that accompanies the college's new program.

"We are very much about giving back to the community, and the students teaching other students is the best way for our students to feel comfortable in what they're doing," said Melissa Stange, Program Lead for the Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems program.

Though the drone program technically graduated its first student in the spring, this semester marks its official start. So far, it's enrolled nine students at the Fauquier campus and 11 at the Middletown campus.

Students who complete the program will receive a career studies certificate, which provides them with the skills and knowledge to operate unmanned air crafts professionally. That certificate can also feed into an Associates of Applied Science and Technical Studies degree for students who wish to further their education.

If a student who obtains both a career studies certificate and an associate's degree wishes to go into aviation, they can then do flight time at the Winchester Airport that counts toward a four-year degree from Liberty University. Liberty is one of Laurel Ridge's transfer colleges and universities.

Brian Gern, a computer science student at Laurel Ridge who is taking classes through the drone academy, manned the new program's information table Tuesday evening. He said that learning about this technology will likely help him when he starts looking for jobs.

"We have a lot of cool classes offered," he said. "Geospatial programs is the program that allows you to plot out what your flight path is going to be. And this is what most employers look for is geospatial programming. ... It is an up and coming technology, and I think we're a little ahead of the curve, but I think as we grow, people will be using more and more drones for more things."

Stange had a similar outlook. When asked where people were using drones in terms of real-world applications, she responded, "Everywhere."

"Fire and rescue ... VDOT (Virginia Department of Transportation) ... water drones, agriculture, you'll see photography's here, engineering ... data science," she said.

For the CAP cadets, a big topic of conversation was how drones can be used in search and rescue and emergency response efforts.

CAP helps support the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Guard in the aftermath of certain disasters.

"We do search and rescue operations. We also do transport missions, and we do ground operations, so we support any humanitarian aids," said Camron Macleod, 19, who has been a CAP cadet for six years. "... About four years ago we sent out about 12 cadets to help in a hurricane effort for humanitarian aid handing out water, food to families who are dispersed by the hurricanes."

Macleod is the photography officer and chief pilot for the Winchester CAP squadron. Though he hasn't used drones during his time with CAP, he said learning about ways to implement drone technology into the work he's already doing is exciting.

"I'm seeing new ways that we're using drones and how we can use them in, like, unison with aircraft, and how the safety between aircraft and drones are and how it's improving, and how sometimes drones are going to start potentially replacing what some aircraft can do, like photography," he said.

Macleod said he hopes to eventually become a mission pilot for search and rescue operations.

Creese said that in his experience, drones are a big part of responding to situations like the hurricane Macleod discussed.

"I'm a colonel in the Army Reserves. So you know, tomorrow I'll be doing hurricane response to Idalia, which is making her way up to, you know, up into the Florida Panhandle ... across the Southwest U.S. So you know, again, it's just a reflexive thing. We use them to do, you know, response, recovery, mitigation. You know, the whole spectrum of emergency tasks. So to me, I see what they're (Laurel Ridge) doing. I'm like, 'Oh, that's great.' It's great that young people are getting exposed to that and, you know, getting a grounding in existing and future technologies," Creese said.

This was a common sentiment among Laurel Ridge staff, CAP and the industry professionals who were present on Tuesday. Nearly everyone who shared comments expressed the idea that this technology is where the future is headed, and that encouraging young people to learn more about it is beneficial.

"Drone operations [are] just growing leaps and bounds. It's the next up and coming thing, I think, in aviation, and ... it opens doors for the students," said Perry Benshoof, Program Administrator for the Federal Aviation Administration's Safety Team (FAAST).

Ted Yergey, a systems engineer for Aviation Systems Engineering in Lexington Park, Maryland and one of the instructors for Laurel Ridge's drone program, agreed, adding that the world of aviation can provide a young person with many different paths forward.

"In the Fauquier (campus), I have nine young men right now that are in the program. And some of them have stated, 'I don't really want to go to college outside of an associate's degree.' But this will give them the opportunity to a trade, in a year, to be able to make up to $70,000 a year. Others, it gets them interested into the computer science side of it, you know, they can start programming, and that kind of opens up a different, different careers that they can go to," he said. "And frankly, if you do want to go on to college, it's a great side hustle. You know, you can start taking real estate imagery, or like this lady over here that does fantastic photography. I mean, you can make money and help, you know, spending money as you're going through college."

— Contact Molly Williams at [email protected]

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