Howdy All,
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, the company I work for has just gotten a large, fairly long contract. So they are looking for people. They have been bringing people in in anticipation of getting the contract. They still need more people. One department that is expanding greatly is the pilot department. They want to have about 100 uav pilots by the end of the year. I think they have 60+ right now. Check our website for job oportunities. Maybe I will see some of you right here in El Mirage :-)
www.uav.com

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Frank X. Morris
17 Kia Niro
08 Jeep Wrangler 4 door unlimited

Shame, interesting enough but the commute would kill me.

Is this anything like Microsoft Flight Sims? I could do that job from home across the internet.

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1989 300 SEL that mostly works, but needs TLC

Howdy Moneypit,
Yes and No.Yes!¡ You sit in a groundstation in front of a monitor. No!¡ You have a real airplane flying somewhere in the world.

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Frank X. Morris
17 Kia Niro
08 Jeep Wrangler 4 door unlimited

NASA UAS folks think pretty highly of you guys. I heard several presentations in which NASA singled ya'll out. High praise and surely well-deserved.

Congratulations.

B

What is the general pay Frank?

Experience required?

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1985 CA 300D Turbo , 213K mi

Private Pilot here, but I can't move to California. I'd be happy to fly an airplane remotely.

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85' 300D No inspection, No registration fees, Cheap insurance
"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're going to see some serious %$&^."

The big stumbling block for their use in the USA is they are forbidden Class A airspace over populated areas. Not much use for LE or S&R in a city. But go above 18,000 and you're golden. You're also into a big UAS & support crew and IFR pilot and tactically, dealing with issues of resolution and the inability to see into the city canyons between buildings except when perfectly aligned.

The itty-bitty UAS's are really cool and have a surprising range of sensors that are available to the public. I saw some great CIR imagery from a UAS. Also, a scientist from ODU (Chinese name escapes, perhaps Zhoung?) had a really innovative on-the-fly navigation system that compared DGPS with inertial and photogrammetric position ON-THE-FLY. It was pretty darned amaing. This allowed 3 independent refernce systems that were constantly compared with each other to transmit position to the operator. It provided 1.5 meter resolution (x,y,z) maps as it flew. That is a hell of a tool. Good enough for S&R or artillery targeting.

I would love to have talked about this stuff with the people under more restrictive circumstances.

B

Howdy Bot,
Thanx, A lot of people work hard to keep a high standard.

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Frank X. Morris
17 Kia Niro
08 Jeep Wrangler 4 door unlimited

Howdy MM,
That is a hard one to answer. I'm in facility maintenace so I have never heard anything firm about pay. Lower management I would say makes $70,000. Middle management above $150,000. Upper guys $250,000++++++++++.

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Frank X. Morris
17 Kia Niro
08 Jeep Wrangler 4 door unlimited

Howdy Ara T,
Depends :-)

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Frank X. Morris
17 Kia Niro
08 Jeep Wrangler 4 door unlimited