SA’s industry for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) — better known as drones — has overcome its teething problems and is starting to grow, albeit slowly and with many challenges ahead.
The FM reported in 2007 how Prof Barry Mendelow of the National Health Laboratory Service had developed the world’s first medical drone, intended to send blood and sputum samples as the crow flies to its laboratories over rough terrain like parts of the Eastern Cape.
But the SA Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) was not yet prepared to deal with having drones complicating its airspace, so the initiative floundered. It was Rwanda that took the honours in establishing the world’s first medical drone service in October 2016.
Today the CAA has caught up. Last year it gave authorisation for the Western Cape’s Emergency Medical Services to fly drones in search-and-rescue operations, the first state entity granted a remote operator’s certificate. Hikers lost or in distress have been found by drones and helped to safety.
The CAA is certifying a huge UAV, half the size of a small aircraft, to carry vital supplies in payloads of up to 380kg as far as 500km for the World Food Programme’s relief efforts in Africa. That’s a far cry from its original regulations in July 2015 that outlawed the delivery of cargo and flights beyond visual line of sight — about 500m — and imposing a paltry 7kg take-off weight limitation.
SA now has about 90 commercial drone operators certified, though it lags far behind Australia’s 12,000 licensed drone operators. Shaun Ledlie, of the Drone Council of SA, which intercedes with the CAA, the government and other involved parties, said at a recent Bussynet drone and UAV conference that the CAA had been highly rated by the International Civil Aviation Organisation with assessments well above those even of the US and Japan.
He said the CAA so far has a perfect safety record with drones — then showed a BBC cautionary advert of a helicopter that crash-landed at a hospital after having been brought down by a boy’s recreational drone.
However, Kim James, director of UAV Aerial Works, which often flies reconnaissance drones for the police, warned that she had recently seen a university geology team flying drones over helicopters at an airfield. This is outlawed because drones may not operate within 10km of any aerodrome.
The conference was told that SA Air Force pilots flying rescue operations after the KwaZulu-Natal floods were worried about the possibility of drones hitting their helicopters. Many recreational drone flyers, the conference was told, have no idea when they are breaking the law, which carries stiff penalties.
Key to advancing the military and commercial drone sectors are accelerated skills development programmes
Ledlie says SA has the basis for a vibrant commercial drone industry, but it is languishing because of a lack of investment. He notes, however, that the country has many professional UAV operators who share their knowledge and have support from the government, especially for the sector’s job creation. There are also new academic UAV innovation hubs such as the one at the Durban University of Technology.
But challenges remain, including that state procurement tenders are tailored to suit a handful of large, established drone operators, which excludes the emerging sector. Also, most of those attending the conference said they have not read the Aerospace & Defence Ecosystem Masterplan, which has been passed by parliament though its implementation is in limbo.
The plan states that in the drone sector, “major growth is expected in nonmilitary applications in the short term. SA has access to technology and markets and is in a position to substantially leverage its assets to take a strong regional and export (as well as local market) position in the design, manufacture, testing, piloting and maintenance of drones, which are used in a large number of applications, ranging from the delivery of critical medical supplies to remote areas to the delivery of pizza to a local suburb.”
Deloitte has predicted that the global drone industry would be worth $45.8bn by 2025. The masterplan suggests ways for SA to ensure it gains a sizeable slice of that pie, by, among other things, reviewing tariff protection levels to allow local commercial drone manufacturers to compete against Chinese imports, and by investment in the Centurion Aerospace Village, a densification of drone and other aerospace facilities.
Key to advancing the military and commercial drone sectors are accelerated skills development programmes, ranging from Inspire Africa’s drone workshops for schoolchildren, through SA Flying Labs’ projects on closing the digital divide, right up to the sort of professional support given via James’s Women & Drones Africa initiative.
But the biggest driver of sectoral growth would be demand, as James argued: “Until the end user integrates drone technology to scale, we will be behind.”
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