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With all due respect I have a problem with your statement. Education today is so critically important, it can mean the difference between a good career, or a mediocre existence in a dead end job. Many good paying careers aren't accessible without at least a bachelors degree. I'm in my seventies and I'm still taking on line courses, why, because I love to learn. Look at the military, no college education, you won't ever be an officer.
Yes there are educated idiots, we all have probably met a few, some even teach, but the reality is the average college grad is going to do much better in life than those without. End of soap box.

I hear what you are saying and don't disagree with you. Education is an important thing. My salary is based upon people continuing to educate themselves. Unfortunately today, education has become a business. We sell knowledge; even if that knowledge is a dead end degree that serves no other purpose than the knowledge (philosophy and a host of others). Don't misunderstand; I've taken my share of those courses and found them to be interesting but even with a PhD, you aren't going to find a lot of employment opportunities with a dead degree and there are a lot more than you would think. Sadly, the business sells the plans and it is up to the consumer to determine if the plan is a valid one that can become a career (that will pay off those student loans that continue to climb) or just a load of crushing debt. Sorry for the soap box. Oh, and the "educated idiots" are usually removed from the classrooms and become administrators which run the nut house where I work....
 
With all due respect I have a problem with your statement. Education today is so critically important, it can mean the difference between a good career, or a mediocre existence in a dead end job. Many good paying careers aren't accessible without at least a bachelors degree. I'm in my seventies and I'm still taking on line courses, why, because I love to learn. Look at the military, no college education, you won't ever be an officer.
Yes there are educated idiots, we all have probably met a few, some even teach, but the reality is the average college grad is going to do much better in life than those without. End of soap box.
Lighten up, we were all joking...
"Look at the military, no college education, you won't ever be an officer."
From an NCO's point of view, being an officer is not the end all or be all of military service. About half of the officers I served with couldn't find their behind with a GPS and a flashlight. Many good ones though. The best were the aviators warrant officers, good joes and funny guys. One took me up in an OV-1 Mohawk for a hell of a ride.

Without my masters I would have never reached the office of chief of police nor become an adjunct faculty making good money.
 
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Lighten up, we were all joking...
"Look at the military, no college education, you won't ever be an officer."
From an NCO's point of view, being an officer is not the end all or be all of military service. About half of the officers I served with couldn't find their behind with a GPS and a flashlight. Many good ones though. The best were the aviators warrant officers, good joes and funny guys. One took me up in an OV-1 Mohawk for a hell of a ride.

Without my masters I would have never reached the office of chief of police nor become an adjunct faculty making good money.

You I don't worry about unless you slip a cog and switch to administration. Then I might consider putting you down out of kindness...I said I would never do a Masters and here I am, almost ready on pulling the trigger for a remote sensing degree.
 
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I hear what you are saying and don't disagree with you. Education is an important thing. My salary is based upon people continuing to educate themselves. Unfortunately today, education has become a business. We sell knowledge; even if that knowledge is a dead end degree that serves no other purpose than the knowledge (philosophy and a host of others). Don't misunderstand; I've taken my share of those courses and found them to be interesting but even with a PhD, you aren't going to find a lot of employment opportunities with a dead degree and there are a lot more than you would think. Sadly, the business sells the plans and it is up to the consumer to determine if the plan is a valid one that can become a career (that will pay off those student loans that continue to climb) or just a load of crushing debt. Sorry for the soap box. Oh, and the "educated idiots" are usually removed from the classrooms and become administrators which run the nut house where I work....
:D My last real; job was Police Chief at a college....wow! The last PhD I insulted (which I did often) I told, in front of others at a meeting where he presumed to teach me policing, "A PhD means you are an expert at one thing, not everything. Got called to the president's office for that one. :mad:
 
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You I don't worry about unless you slip a cog and switch to administration. Then I might consider putting you down out of kindness...I said I would never do a Masters and here I am, almost ready on pulling the trigger for a remote sensing degree.
Well I was police chief twice so I did dabble in the black arts for a while....How's the FF6 doing?
 
:D My last real; job was Police Chief at a college....wow! The last PhD I insulted (which I did often) I told, in front of others at a meeting where he presumed to teach me policing, "A PhD means you are an expert at one thing, not everything. Got called to the president's office for that one. :mad:

I hear ya. The PhD makes you an expert on a very small slice of a broad field. Unless walking on water and parting seas with your mystical presence is part of your degree plan, then you put your pants on just like the rest of us. lol
 
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Well I was police chief twice so I did dabble in the black arts for a while....How's the FF6 doing?
As a matter of fact, second test flight today. I did the transition and it went a lot smoother than the hover testing. It is a lot lighter than I am used to and certainly takes more skill and finesse than the Inspire. I am aiming at being fully operational by end of summer. To date, my takeoffs equal my landings.
 
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As a wise man once said, "Don't let education interfere with learning."

So many other ways to become learned today, with free online educational resources that are evolving as the job markets change, without incurring a mountain of student debt, which, rather than expanding your job opportunities, will actually cripple them, as you will be forced to always seek the less fulfilling, better paying job, just to keep your head above water, assuming your educational career path isn't obsolete by the time you graduate!
 
Lots of info since Monday...
1) We have two companies Florida Drone Supply (product sales) and Sky Source Aerial (sUAS/aerial imagery services)...neither was a RC company prior,
2)Specifically for telecom training, yes we provide training for two purposes,: 1) contractor/insurance requirements, and 2) so we can vet the pilots first to determine if they can/want to handle the work
3) how much do you think is costs us to train a pilot for 4.5 days?....We provide training because we were forced to when other companies stopped providing, we charge for training to help offset expenses,
4) for our other verticals (i.e. golf courses, hard surfaces, roofs, etc.) the training is more expensive due to specialization...but it is not for everybody

I subscribe to the belief it is healthy "to learn something each day", but it does not have to be a graduate degree from an accredited university; besides how does one get such training from a college or university when the courses do not exist? ... working in a "new" industry, the front side of the technology adoption curve (i.e. innovators and early adopters) is not for "everybody" (only about 16% of the population) and caveat emptor is valid.

Stephen M.
 
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Martin you make some very good points, education needs to be focused. To be honest my college education was focused on avoiding the draft and should have been focused. However the military was very good to me and I learned a career. I pushed my kids hard when it came to their education, and it paid off with two of them.
As far as landings go I learned a long time ago, any landing you walk away from is a good one. Well, with drones any landing where it remains functional afterwords is a good one.
Speaking of aviation, there is becoming a shortage of commercial pilots today. So if someone wants an extremely boring, well paying career the airlines are looking. Takes 1500 hours to get in the door.

Louis, you are correct, being an officer isn't and end all, but the pay and living conditions are much better. You are correct the aviators are a different breed. I always treated my flight crew like family because we depended on each other.
 
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Been perusing uas work in my area and whew I'm glad I decided to start up my own company and work myself up that way.

Some of the requirements do not add up to the pay these folks want. One company wants a bachelor's degree, 1 year military, 1 year drone experience, certified to make repairs by dji, and at least 2 different drones plus a laptop as their mandatory requirements for the job and it pays 40k a year. 107 is preferred but not required. Craziness.

That would be a biiiiig nope from me even if I did meet all of those qualifications.
 
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One company wants a bachelor's degree, 1 year military, 1 year drone experience, certified to make repairs by dji, and at least 2 different drones plus a laptop as their mandatory requirements for the job and it pays 40k a year. 107 is preferred but not required. Craziness.

That’s ridiculous... I am the least qualified than everyone in this forum. But, I got a job that enables me to fly almost daily.
 
Been perusing uas work in my area and whew I'm glad I decided to start up my own company and work myself up that way.

Some of the requirements do not add up to the pay these folks want. One company wants a bachelor's degree, 1 year military, 1 year drone experience, certified to make repairs by dji, and at least 2 different drones plus a laptop as their mandatory requirements for the job and it pays 40k a year. 107 is preferred but not required. Craziness.

That would be a biiiiig nope from me even if I did meet all of those qualifications.

I look at requirements this way. That is what the company is hoping to get. Inject reality into the requirements and then look at what they are willing to pay for and I think they will be more than happy to settle for less. Experience has a cost and most companies are just too cheap to pay the entry fee.
 
That’s ridiculous... I am the least qualified than everyone in this forum.

You’re probably not. You have a military history, which means you separated with an active clearance, something highly desirable in some sectors. You also likely graduated high school. IRRC, you worked for a fire department, which has some higher standard civil entry exams. However, on your own you learned some pretty technical aspects of aircraft assembly, aerial mapping, software adaptation, code modification, effectively employing specialized software, and a few other things. From my perspective entry level college degrees simply indicate you have the ability to learn, although many college graduates mistakenly believe they already know everything once they graduate. Many lack the ability to apply their learning skills.

There is opportunity for those without a degree but the path is a hard one to take. I’m one that walked that road due to early life circumstances but if I had to do it again I would take a much easier path and obtain a degree. To succeed you must have a desire to learn, a willingness to challenge the system to prove your worth, and tenacity far above average, but achieving success can take a long time and you will always be a target for challenge and derision by those holding parchment but lacking experience. Those lacking a degree will be forced to work harder every day to prove their value. If their salary level is high due to their accomplishments they have to work even harder as similar paid college grads and management can be quite resentful of a non grad at a comparable compensation level.

Sadly, I have to agree with some others as today’s entry level market places emphasis on degrees over experience and/or knowledge to get in the door. There are a great many truly talented people out there lacking degrees or diplomas with knowledge and skills that easily surpass many with degrees and several years of employment in their chosen fields, but those without the scholastic paperwork are either disqualified or quickly discarded in the application process. The position minimum requirements may state “Bachelor’s in “x” or 5 years experience” but in truth the person with 5-10 years of experience will be, at best, last in line behind the group that just graduated college. In many ways I believe mandating a college degree was more a means of increasing scholastic institution revenue than it was about learning or knowledge. Anyone with the desire and dedication can learn and be just as effective without a degree, but to be recognized as having an advanced education or knowledge there needs to be a piece of paper awarded to support the claim, even if your professional accomplishments had been extensive.

HR personnel are usually well trained and highly educated but their training limits them to checking off qualification boxes, Leaving them without the ability to judge an application that fails to fit the company’s profile formatting, leaving them with people that may want the position but unable to fulfill it to the highest standards.
 
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My aunt did not finish elementary school and in the course of her life, she had to raise 7 kids as a single mother when her husband past away. She established a restaurant called "Lahaina Grill" that enabled her to send my cousins to the best college, she sold the restaurant in 1999 in the small island of Maui. My mother is an RN, and she too has the business DNA, she quit her job at the peak of her career and established 3 specialized care homes on the island of Maui, with the perfect JCAHO and a high-end rating each year. I can go on, citing family successes in business, but these two are my inspiration. Women, who are rooted to the first Hawaiian pineapple picker.

Aside from flying drones, I convinced her to take a leap of fate, my wife is BSRN director ED at a local hospital. When my grandfather was in hospice in uncovered an ugly truth and Medicare corruption in the Hospice business and if you think that the FAA is strict. In my the DME industry the FBI knocks on your door, and I personally know small crooked business owners, who are now in Federal Prison, with that said, we opened a business in DME (Device Medical Equipment), not because of the lucrative and handsome federal profit through Medicare, I am in love with the day to day operation, and the stress that goes along with it. (I only work there during the winter, though! LOL)

Here's what I learned in business. It does not matter, what degree you have plastered on the wall, written in your resume, because of even my best of friend's who came out with a consumer invention that you are All are now flying does not have a degree. I careless if someone brags about his Ph.D. and yet know little about life's everyday Grind and Hustle is to me the most exhilarating natural drug in pursuant to getting the "Benjamins"

What I have learned in business is that one needs confidence, a strong drive, and passion. Most of all being true to one's self when I approached Lennar, after I ended a short contract, with Harmony Development, no one asked me for my degree, experience or military background. Looking back at the day that I walked into my interview the only thing that I could recall is that I holding my big Kanuha, and made sure that I look each on in the eye. Construction is totally different, you have to earn your keeps, and man up! Have Confidence.
 
After I flew the FF6 I got the same "let down" feeling I now get after flying the M600P, when switching to the I1 et al.:(

I transitioned yesterday and it was a lot of fun to fly. The big difference between the FF6 and the I1 is P-GPS mode. The I1 will stabilize itself and freeze in place if you let go of the sticks; the FF6 will thumb its nose and crash. In fixed wing flight it is really responsive and I was airborne for roughly 45 or so minutes. I landed before getting a battery warning because my NOTAM was getting close to expiring. Adding the camera really improved the handling. The FF6 is really light weight and needed the extra ballast.
 
I transitioned yesterday and it was a lot of fun to fly. The big difference between the FF6 and the I1 is P-GPS mode. The I1 will stabilize itself and freeze in place if you let go of the sticks; the FF6 will thumb its nose and crash. In fixed wing flight it is really responsive and I was airborne for roughly 45 or so minutes. I landed before getting a battery warning because my NOTAM was getting close to expiring. Adding the camera really improved the handling. The FF6 is really light weight and needed the extra ballast.
I already regret selling mine :eek::eek::eek:
 
It definitely has a steep learning curve to it. The Inspire was a breeze to pick up and get into the air. Once the flight planning and flight skills have advanced past the crawling stage I think it will be a really great addition to the department.
It will definitely not hurt my feelings if u ever post a video of you/your crew flying it. :D
 

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