The Complete Guide to Getting Your Remote Pilot Certificate for Commercial Drones Your first step to flying drones professionally is earning the FAA Remote Pilot Certificate under Part 107 regulations. This essential credential verifies your understanding of drone safety, airspace rules, and operational procedures, giving you the legal authority to conduct commercial… Continue reading “The Complete Guide to Getting Your Remote Pilot Certificate for Commercial Drones”
Drone Pilot Course Now Free with HeatSpring Membership Starting today, for a limited time, the Drone Pilot Boot Camp is free for HeatSpring Members. The Drone Pilot Boot Camp is different from every other drone course because it combines several key experiences you need to really do the… Continue reading “Drone Pilot Course Now Free with HeatSpring Membership”
HeatSpring Alumni Spotlight: Flying Drones with Ian Ian Ricci enrolled in the HeatSpring Drone Pilot Boot Camp in 2020. He is the Co-Founder and COO/CTO at SolBid, where he uses his flying skills and commercial drone pilot license to do everything from initial site inspections to showing… Continue reading “HeatSpring Alumni Spotlight: Flying Drones with Ian”
Ask an Expert: What Is the Quickest and Cheapest Way to Get Started Using Drones Commercially? In the Ask an Expert series, HeatSpring instructors and industry thought leaders answer a question on the minds of the HeatSpring community. This session, we are joined by Keven Gambold, instructor of the Drone Pilot Boot Camp. He answers the… Continue reading “Ask an Expert: What Is the Quickest and Cheapest Way to Get Started Using Drones Commercially?”
Learn Solar and Drones Together Ten years ago “solar plus drones” would have sounded like a made up thing from the future. But here we are. Today it’s an in-demand combo of skills that you can use to differentiate your career and your solar business.… Continue reading “Learn Solar and Drones Together”
How Drones Can Speed the Growth of Solar Energy With a drone and software, solar industry members can reduce the time, costs and errors associated with designing solar systems. And, as the industry learns more about the benefits of drones, the technology will help move solar energy forward, says… Continue reading “How Drones Can Speed the Growth of Solar Energy”
Exciting New Drone Law Changes Thank you to Greg DePrez from Aeon Unmanned for summarizing some of the recent drone law changes that might impact renewable energy companies. In late December, the FAA issued a series of new rules covering Part 107 drone flight. These are… Continue reading “Exciting New Drone Law Changes”
Students Demonstrate the Promise of Drone Training for Solar Applications During his Monday evening “fireside chats” with students and graduates, Keven Gambold, instructor of HeatSpring’s Drone Pilot Boot Camp gets excited when he hears what students are doing in the field. In the course, which launched about a year ago,… Continue reading “Students Demonstrate the Promise of Drone Training for Solar Applications”
Learning How to Safely Fly Drones In February 2015, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released a list of proposed regulations that paved the way for small drones (or “unmanned aircraft systems”) to enter mainstream civil aviation. The regulations came after many close calls or accidents involving… Continue reading “Learning How to Safely Fly Drones”
DroneDeploy + HeatSpring The world’s most popular drone data platform is teaming up with HeatSpring to get more solar installers using drones. The new free course “How Drone Data Helps Solar Companies” is designed to help growing solar companies understand how other solar… Continue reading “DroneDeploy + HeatSpring”
How to Take Better Solar Pictures With Your Drone This is a guest post from Keith Perry, founder of Hudson Valley Drones. Keith is an instructor in the free course, “Solar + Drones: Managing Lighting, Exposure, and Glare in Your Imagery“. In a previous post, Keith offered up a… Continue reading “How to Take Better Solar Pictures With Your Drone”
New Solar + Drones Course – Managing Lighting, Exposure, and Glare in Your Imagery Creating awesome drone-based 3D models (i.e. photogrammetry) relies on images having similar key points and coloring. This is particularly crucial for accurately designing and analyzing solar projects. A foundational component of this is capturing data with good “exposure”. Join us… Continue reading “New Solar + Drones Course – Managing Lighting, Exposure, and Glare in Your Imagery”
“Drone Pilot Boot Camp” Approved for NABCEP Credit This week our “Drone Pilot Boot Camp” was approved for NABCEP Credit by the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (NABCEP). The course is a comprehensive commercial drone operators course with an emphasis on solar PV and renewable energy.… Continue reading ““Drone Pilot Boot Camp” Approved for NABCEP Credit”
Solar + Drones: What To Do When You Crash Your Drone This is a guest post from Keith Perry, founder of Hudson Valley Drones. Keith is an instructor in the free course, “Solar + Drones: Site Surveying and 3D Mapping Around Trees“. In his previous post, Keith offered up a Solar… Continue reading “Solar + Drones: What To Do When You Crash Your Drone”
Solar Company Guide to Drone Hardware This is a guest post from Keith Perry, founder of Hudson Valley Drones. Keith is an instructor in the free course, “Solar + Drones: Site Surveying and 3D Mapping Around Trees“. Before we go into this in more detail, it’s… Continue reading “Solar Company Guide to Drone Hardware”
Deciduous vs. Evergreen: Solutions for Flying Drones in Every Season This is the third guest post from David Williams, founder of Northwest Drone Pros, in a series on best practices for flying drones around trees. The last post covered “in-flight tips“. David is an instructor in the free course, “Solar… Continue reading “Deciduous vs. Evergreen: Solutions for Flying Drones in Every Season”
Part 2 Solar + Drones: During Flight Tips for Flying Around Trees This is the second guest post from David Williams, founder of Northwest Drone Pros, in a series of posts on best practices for flying drones around trees. The first post covered “pre-flight tips“. David is an instructor in the free… Continue reading “Part 2 Solar + Drones: During Flight Tips for Flying Around Trees”
Solar + Drones: Pre-Flight Tips for Flying Around Trees This is a guest post from David Williams, founder of Northwest Drone Pros. David is an instructor in the free course, “Solar + Drones: Site Surveying and 3D Mapping Around Trees“. Washington is a unique area because we have such… Continue reading “Solar + Drones: Pre-Flight Tips for Flying Around Trees”
“Solar + Drones: Site Surveying and 3D Mapping Around Trees” – A New Free Course for Solar Companies Using Drones Flying around trees is the #1 biggest challenge facing solar companies that use drones. So Scanifly, Northwest Drone Pros, Hudson Valley Drones, and HeatSpring are collaborating on a new free course: “Solar + Drones: Site Surveying and 3D Mapping around Trees“… Continue reading ““Solar + Drones: Site Surveying and 3D Mapping Around Trees” – A New Free Course for Solar Companies Using Drones”
Using Drones for Gathering and Crunching Data in Solar, Other Industries Drones–unmanned aircraft–can be useful tools for PV engineers and those in other industries, especially for large-scale projects that would require engineers to work at heights or cover a large field to gather data. That’s the word from Keven Gambold, who… Continue reading “Using Drones for Gathering and Crunching Data in Solar, Other Industries”