Hello
And a welcome to the OVA site. My name is Chris Pickering and I am the owner and chief operator of OVA. I have been flying SUA (small unmanned aircraft - drones) for over three years and have an exemplary safety history.
This year I decided to attempt to take my passion for aerial photography and film from a hobbyist standard to a professional level. This involved me training for a PfCO (Permission to fly Commercial Operations) from the Civil Aviation Authority. Often wrongly referred to as a drone pilot license, a PfCO essentially enables me to operate to a safe standard and charge for any commercial work that I undertake.
The training for a PfCO essentially consists of three parts:
Theory test. This test consists of Aviation Law, Aerodynamics, Weather, Safety and how to operate a drone or SUA in a safe and legal manner.
OSC ( Operational Safety Case) This is a comprehensive document that consists of two volumes, the first is all your operational procedures and safety procedures and the second volume is the specific operational limits of your aircraft.
Flight Test. This part of the training is not only a literal flight test where your airmanship is tested against specific manoeuvres, it is an important display to your instructor that you conduct your flights as set out in the OSC.
I am happy to say that I received my PfCO in July 2019 and have been slowly continuing with my training, both in flight and editing the images and footage I have taken.
Please have a look around the site, it contains a lot of information on the services I provide. If there is something which I haven’t covered and you have a problem that has an aerial solution, please contact me here.