This is The Business Village People Podcast. Hello, I'm David Markwell and welcome to the fourth edition of the Business Village People Podcast. And if you've missed any of our other episodes, all you have to do is to search for us on. Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts from, then you'll be able to subscribe like it, and you'll never miss another episode.

If you're a first time listener, welcome aboard. This podcast is about the people, the businesses, and the services available at the Business Village here in Barnsley, south Yorkshire. Our aim is to be informative. Entertaining showcase success and promote collaboration. Okay, let's go. In this episode of Business Village People, we meet the former R E F Squadron leader, who now runs Civil Aviation Authority accredited courses to fly air drones.

We chat to the newest member of staff at the business village. She's called Sam. She's a cleaner in building one, and she shares with us. Her moving story about losing her son Lucas, and the business Village's obsession with dogs continues. We joined Polly, Georgina, and Nicky on the doggy photo shoot, but not on a catwalk.

This is the Business Village People Podcast. First up, we head out to Cawthorne, to a football field that overlooks the Splendid Cannon Hall. And on a beautiful summer's day, I had the opportunity to learn how to fly a drone. Courtesy of the Drone Pilot Academy. Were based in building four. Of the Business Village.

My name's James, Ixer. I'm from the Drone Pilot Academy. We're recognized by the Civil Aviation Authority as a recognized assessment entity, which means that we can teach their theoretical syllabus and get people a c a A recognized qualification in order that they can use their drones within congested areas.

These, it's an enjoyable course because we break up the PowerPoint. By reinforcing it with some practical flying lessons as well, so people come away having a, had a great time. It's not like a, you know, dare I say, a health and safety course where people are forced onto the course and they must do it for an accreditation with the drone course, people really want to be on it.

So it's a pleasure to teach because you've got an audience there that are enthralled by it and really excited about using drones and the benefits that come with them.

My aviation interest started at the age of probably 10, and I was itching to join the Air Cadets, but I couldn't join until I was 13. As soon as they allowed me in, I joined Barley Air Cadets. I was there for many, many years. They taught me how to glide. I got a flying scholarship with them, and then when I went through university, I joined the SS University Air Squadron and they taught me.

To fly a basic flying training, which was a bulldog back in those days. So effectively I did the basic, uh, the first part of pilot training whilst at university at weekends. And then what happened? Then? I had a 17 year career in the Air Force. I was on Puma helicopters for the majority of it. A fantastic career.

Loved it. Went everywhere, all over the world as advertised when you joined the military. Had a great time, but my family was settled in Yorkshire. And all my future postings were gonna be in the south of England. So I decided I'd had my fun and it was time to give a bit back to the family. So that's when I hung up my flying gloves.

I went on a resettlement course where they teach you to be a civilian in two days. It's a bit like Morgan Freeman leaving the Shor Shank Redemption. When I was on that course, there was a couple of Royal artillery soldiers who were using drones for weddings at weekends, and I. That sparked an interest. I went online, had a look at what drones could do, and the potential, and thought this is something I really need to get into at this stage.

You know, it was at the infancy. I could see the applications. I luckily got the, the Royal Air Force to pay for my course. Much of it I knew already from my background, if I'm honest, I wasn't too impressed with the course. So when I, when I'd finished the course, I went straight to the CA and said, I want to be a training academy.

There was no practical training whatsoever on the course. The ca quite rightly said, well, you've, you've got a load of experience, but not in drones, so why don't you go away, do a year in, in industry operating and then come back to us? And that's exactly what I did. I set up my own business, operated for a year.

And then went back to the CAA a year later and got the accreditation. And that, as I said, when I started 2015. And that was one of the longest standard ca accredited training providers. But you didn't just, when you were in the r e f, you, you weren't just a pilot, were you? No. So in the, in the, uh, I mean, we're talking Wing commander, aren't we?

Yes. So, um, and that's one of the reasons I I ended up leaving in the end was because your flying gets interspersed with, uh, ground tours and desk to desk tours. So I was doing desk jobs, you know, I was looking at, um, capability and planning, you know, looking at future, uh, what, what replaces a Chinook? It was a Chinook, but, you know, um, they need replacing.

So big investments, big projects like that and programs. Um, Wildcat, Apache, all those sort of things. You must have been in charge, some big budgets then. Oh yes. The uh, the Chinook budget was something like 1.6 billion, so it was, uh, it was pretty heavy that one.

As you can see, it's really small. The arms fold out on it. The design's brilliant, isn't it? Yeah. It's got a little camera cover. You take that off it's own built in tests, so there's a few checks that we'll go through before we fly. Um, and I will give you a safety brief as well before we go. Um, but it's got its own health management system.

I've got a controller here, um, with an inbuilt screen, so that's all you need. It just comes and it comes in its own case as well with, um, with the extra batteries as well. So everybody who flies needs to do a flyer id. Uh, with the CAA it's a quick tutorial and a 40 question test. So it doesn't matter what drone you fly, you need to do that home.

Something a bit heavier like this, then you need, need to do, uh, uh, one of our courses. Aircraft location set is home point. So it knows where it's home. Point is home point, updated, absolutely. And map to confirm, uh, to fly up to 30 meters if there's a problem when it comes, if the signal is broken. I can set the maximum legal distances.

So 400 feet is a legal distance. We can fly up because most civil aircraft fly down to 500 feet, so that gives you a hundred foot safety buffer. Not withstanding the types of aircraft that I used to fly, which can fly at 50 feet. So we're not totally safe. We do have to have a good look out for, um, other aircraft, particularly military.

And then the max flight distance legally is 500 meters. But at all times, we must keep sight of this drum. Happy. Yeah. All happy with the safety brief I've given you? Yes. Right. Let's, uh, stand back. Taking off. There we go.

And are you recording this now or, uh, I'm not recording it. It's very easy to record it fly me. That's close. Yeah. So that's the full zoom there. And see. Both are receding airlines. Could you take a picture of that? Yeah, look at the camera and take the picture. There we go. Let's imagine we we're too lazy to land it ourselves so we all, or the signal is broken.

Yeah, I'll initiate the return to home. I'll press and hold the button there for three seconds. Return to home. Um, we'll see how accurate the landing is, but it should land on that pad, which as you know, as you can see, is quite a small pad, so it goes up to 30 meters as I entered into the controller. It flies along

above his head's down at 30 meters. Yeah. Do you know what, it's an illusion. It looks like it's above your head, but it's not. But it's not. So if I, if I scroll the camera down Yeah. We're to one side. Yeah. We're off to one side. And that's one thing. Even though legally we can fly over our heads, uh, because we're involved people, part of the mission, it comes, it's not something we typically do.

Going into land. Exactly where it took off from.

Clever, beautiful.

And if you want to find out more about the Drone Pilot Acadamy , you can call them on oh eight hundred three eight oh zero zero zero seven oh eight hundred three eight oh zero zero zero seven. Never miss an episode of The Business Village People Podcast. Simply subscribe and follow from wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you. Now it's time to meet the newest member of the Business Village team. Sam started working here a few weeks ago as a cleaner in building one. She was born in Germany, arrived in Barnsley at the age of 11, and had to deal with the sad passing of her son's life. Lucas, this is Sam's story. I brought up in Germany.

I was born in Germany when my dad been in like armed forces. Then we moved back to England when I were 11. So since like 19 90, 91, just after at World Cup and moved, which weren't good things. We lost, didn't we? Yeah. 1990. 90, 91, just as I think it were, if I get this correctly, Berlin Wall were being knocked down.

So they were so happy to see you leave. Yeah. That they not the wall down. Well did we got this wall down? Now we'll be waiting of you. Is your family originally the come back? Yeah. Sheffield. Oh, Sheffield. My dad were brought up. In obviously areas obviously south and my mum's family, they are all from like Sheffield area apparently when, cause my mum, my mum's dad, they traveled all over.

Granddad came out of the army and they moved back to Sheffield. But they lived on this street and apparently my granddad thought it were, they were stuck up so they decided they move. So