CUD Employee Earns FAA Certification as Drone Pilot

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The work is part Indiana Jones, part mapmaking, and part drone flights — all in service of water quality. In addition to that, Pam Sykes, a GIS Analyst (geographic information system) with Consolidated Utility District since 2015, now holds certification with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

“I found out about the FAA training through my supervisor, Bethany Hall, who has a drone license already,” said Sykes. “We wanted to expand our program, and she showed me the drone school she used. The course takes about 10 hours, and it’s self-paced. The school is based out of Nashville. I took the course, watched the videos, and went through the practice test. The real test runs about two hours.”

With this certification, Consolidated Utility District now employs two FAA-licensed drone pilots – which enables the utility to perform more aerial mapping work than ever. Using video and images from these flights, CUD can more easily perform inspections of new and existing infrastructure.

“Right now, we want to map our water storage tanks,” said Sykes. “We have about five tanks left, and we can also fly over the water treatment plant. Plus, we can map our new and existing STEP system fields and our pumping stations.”

“Flying drones over our water tanks and mapping them helps us locate any damages – which is a great help for our guys. That means they don’t have to climb up there for inspections, so it’s useful for safety. It’s much more than just going out and mapping sites or water lines to make sure everything is operating.”

“Rutherford County is growing so fast that we can’t wait half a year to get aerial footage,” Sykes noted. “We’re growing so fast we need it almost monthly. For wastewater drip fields, pump stations, and our water treatment plant, it helps us get better information that helps us maintain water quality.”

Each drone flight is a two-step process that begins with advance work at CUD’s Engineering Building.

“We start by programming the flight in our office. When we’re at the site, the flight usually takes an hour to 90 minutes. We have to make sure the area is clear and that there are no vertical obstacles such as cell towers or nearby trees. Thankfully, we fly above the tree line. Then we set up our real-time kinematic base station for accuracy, we create control points, and prepare our GPS.”

Kinematic positioning – sometimes called the geometry of motion – improves the precision of data from global navigation satellite systems such as GPS. The measurements from CUD’s drone are accurate to within a few centimeters.

Even now as a federally certified drone pilot, Sykes calls upon skills gained early in her career. “I started doing GIS work about 2006, and I moved to California after college,” she said. “My degree is in anthropology, and I did archeological work for state parks out there. So, I learned on the job, and I used GIS because it was an interesting way to map old sites.”

“When I first started with CUD, I had no clue there was so much involved with water. I thought: Turn on my tap, there’s my water. I didn’t realize there was so much involved, especially with our STEP systems and drip fields. Plus, there’s the work of replacing aging pipes with new ductile iron. My job is really fun because I learn more about Rutherford County than I would ever have known.”