indonesia pilot training programme — Palm oil and paddy

The plantation ran a mix of ground knapsack sprayers and two ageing manned aircraft, and the manned operation was becoming harder to justify: it needed a dedicated airstrip, a five-day notice period for each pass, and a pilot who was reaching the end of his career. The owner stopped at the idea of replacing the aircraft and instead asked who would be able to fly the replacement. The training programme took three months per operator, split between classroom work, simulator sessions and supervised flights on a small fleet. Of the 26 who started, 21 completed it and 19 went onto the new aircraft, the rest returning to ground work. The measurable result was chemical consumption per hectare, which fell 18 per cent, because the UAV fleet applied at 18 litres per hectare rather than 30 and the higher velocity pattern reached the palm canopy rather than the soil. The programme was run with a training partner because the manufacturer of the aircraft does not run operator certification in that market, and the buyer was explicit that the aircraft was only ever going to be as good as the people flying it.