The Growing Drone Industry in South Africa

According to the DRONEII insights global drone market report published in 2019, drone technology is estimated to grow from $14 billion in 2018 to over $43 billion in 2024. Since 2012, 3 billion USD has been invested in drone companies worldwide with a record of 702 million USD marked as disclosed global investments. The published report highlights these investments made in South Africa.

South Africa leads the largest drone industry in the African continent where drones are widely employed and used in agriculture, mining, security, medicine, and even in education.

Since the drone market in South Africa is seen growing exponentially in the coming years, UAV Industries, the leading drone pilot licensing school and the first authorized provider of Remote Pilot License (RPL) in South Africa, focuses on educating the students professionally is on top of its goal to provide them with the highest quality drone pilot training at the most reasonable price.

IDRONECT, UAV Industries in South Africa

Lennert Van Kerckhove, Growth Engineer of IDRONECT admires South Africa's booming commercial drone industry to redefine the drone-approach model in the country's current market. With the valuable inputs of Anton Ten Kroodgren, RPAS Pilot and Instructor at UAV Industries based in Johannesburg who has been in the aviation profession for a decade up to the present, South Africa will continuously thrive in drone technology future trends and market opportunities.

According to Anton Ten Kroodgren, UAV Industries started the drone business in South Africa in 2014 to refine the country's drone industry and its regulators to comply with the South African Aviation legislation. UAV Industries bears pride as the only company in the African continent to have certified quality drone training education and drone operating certificate. With its bases in Johannesburg and Cape Town, UAV Industries not only provides competitive drone training across South Africa but also plans to expand the curriculum and its offerings into advanced uses of drones in specific-focused industries such as construction, mining, agriculture, security, and education.

UAV Industries registers drones legally and trains their pilots to be licensed in South Africa's Civil Aviation Authority. Aircraft registrations, compliance, and regulations is a tedious process as laws in aviation are getting more comprehensive in South Africa. With the aviation industry snowballing in the country, there are unreached parts that still do manual processing and the trial-and-error approach. It is quite a challenge to steadfast the drone industry in the country. Only a few people having an intimate understanding of the value of certain regulations imposed in manned and unmanned aerial vehicles.

The drone suppliers and drone businesses should maintain a strong network of communication to support the huge influx of drone users and make the civil aviation industry compliant, Anton said.

"The point is people do not understand the implications of the safety issues," Anton implied in the existing gap between suppliers and drone sellers in the current situation in South Africa.

The process of getting licenses and registrations is for the safety of South Africa because DJI drones in the Sub-Saharan continent are huge. With people being aware of the aviation standards, laws, and responsibilities, only then can the benefits to utilizing the drones-used be fully enjoyed. Specifically, the legal immunity from aviation laws knowing that you are not endangering anyone’s health, safety, and privacy because you are maneuvering safe airspace.

UAV Industries focus on Flight Education

As the leading flight school in South Africa, educating students to fly in safe airspace is one on top of its priorities.

“DJIs are wide in Africa but education is not their focus," Anton added. UAVs training division operates in Johannesburg in its beginnings legally ensuring commercial drones until expanding its services as the first authorized aviation training organization to offer beyond visual line of flight training to Remote Pilot License (RPL).

UAV trained its pilots professionally with the latest drone technology. Students undergo the minimum requirement to complete practical training and theoretical exams to learn basic to advanced flying maneuvers needed to fly competently.

As for flight schools, UAV Industries and those in the drone training market approve curriculums, pro-legislations, and academic standards. UAV is the first drone school that started with legislation where a legitimate CAA examiner would check the students flying competencies for pilot license eligibility.

UAV Industries in Educating Students During the Pandemic

For Anton, the pandemic opened up new opportunities and ways to streamline the drone business. The virus is life-changing but operating the business in the new normal is a new opportunity to innovate despite the challenges of distance learning. The pandemic is beneficial as it requires them to revisit and revise their drone business strategy. There are ways to cope such as shifting to become fully digital and streamlining operations with drone management platforms.

As Anton said, “Use this negative stuff and see it as an opportunity - opportunity to advance.”

The Drone Legality, SACAA

Anton, an RPAS Pilot and Instructor at UAV Industries said South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) has similar regulations with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency and the Federal Aviation Administration.

Since its growing market, Africa has become a drone-prone country. Although drone technologies are cost-effective and widely used in different industries because of their accessibility and interoperability, their biggest challenge comes from getting their CAA approved.

With the many uses for drones, consequently, regulations and laws on aerial legislation need to be strictly enforced. Even acquiring software-based technologies that hasten drone registration approval should be CAA-approved. Anton mentioned, “Compliance and legality of drones used in the country don’t happen overnight, but it is very much needed in Africa.”

This is the core reason why Lennart and IDRONECT find South Africa the right client base for their business. To ease the work of getting paperwork done in aviation such as getting those accurate monitoring reports and complex legislative processes easier for every drone business owner in South Africa. Choosing the sub-Saharan country as the focal point and also with forward-thinking of helping to regulate the global drone industry in the future.

Despite the continuous expansion of the drone industry in Africa, there are other countries in the continent like Zambia with different laws and regulations that do not allow aerial drones in their country. In such a case, licenses and legitimate documents such as SACAA need to be presented before flying.

Drone regulations in South Africa are not too strict. Instead, the unfair trial and inspections are being carried over. UAVs are getting scrutinized with the same standards applied to manned aircraft. UAVs are given extra inspection than their other counterparts that are non-compliant all because it’s progressively modern and different.

Getting a drone management platform makes it possible to administer drones updated with SACAA regulations and equip them with an intelligent system of configurable parameters. This eliminates the current challenges of manual checking of equipment and overall improving efficiency in unmanned aerial vehicles to avoid risk in flying drones.

In Choosing Drones

According to Anton, when choosing the best drones, the vital point is considering the data you should get. Infrared, multispectral drones are all instruments to get accurate aerial imaging. But are you getting a high-precision drone for gathering agricultural data, environmental monitoring, or securing your area?

Drones are improving. They are robust, portable, and collect data but the best drones are those that fulfill your needs.

The Future of Drones

In less than five years, UAVs will be flying for a variety of missions, all of which will be beneficial.

Drones have the potential to change the game across the African continent. Precision farming may use drones to help farmers determine when and where to add fertilizer or irrigate crops. They can be used to prevent disasters in mining as well.

“Drones are the future,” said Anton. The time for unmanned and manned aerial vehicles is getting to merge soon. Every month, new drones and updates are released. Soon enough, autonomous aircraft are on their way to development and every country needs to be ready.