Drone News Roundup: All Our Black Fly-Day Deals, 3,000 Students Trained, and More!

This week we’re covering all the deals we’re offering this year for Black Fly-Day, including the lowest price we’ve ever offered for Drone Pilot Ground School, our Part 107 test prep course.

We’re also covering UAV Coach hitting 3,000 students trained in-person, a cinematic FPV video shot in a canyon in Iceland, drones protecting people from bears in Montana, and Skydio raising $170 million without changing its valuation.

Now on to the links!

Black Fly-Day Deals from UAV Coach

It’s that time of year! The time for deals, that is. This year we’re offering Drone Pilot Ground for just $107—that’s $192 off, for a savings of 64%! Drone Pilot Ground School is our flagship test prep course for the FAA’s Part 107 test. We’ve trained over 65,000 students for the test and they’ve had a 99%+ success rate—learn more here.

Here are all the deals we’re offering on our courses this year:

• Drone Pilot Ground School—$299$107 (64% off). This is the lowest price we’ve ever offered for this course. If you’ve been thinking about becoming a certified commercial drone pilot, now is a great time to take the leap and get help preparing for the Part 107 test.
• The Drone Business Blueprint—$149$74 (50% off). Ready to start—or grow—a drone business? Get step-by-step strategies and practical tools to help you launch, grow, and scale your drone business in this course.
• Drone Mapping Essentials—$199$99 (50% off). Want to sell drone mapping? Learn the skills needed to navigate complex aerial mapping projects and capitalize on opportunities in this fast growing segment of the drone industry.
• Drone Pilot Skill Builder—$119$59 (50% off). Perfect for beginners—this course addresses the most common questions we’ve received over the years from the thousands of drone pilots we’ve trained.
  

Our Black Fly-Day sale starts on Friday, November 22. Follow the link below to learn more about Drone Pilot Ground School, and the links in the list above to learn more about each course.

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3,000 Students Trained In-Person

We just hit a major milestone—3,000 students trained in-person! We’ve been offering hands-on flight training for years now, giving drone pilots a chance to level up their skills with the guidance of a seasoned instructor. Your experience is our top concern in these sessions, and that’s why we tailor each one to your skills and goals. It’s also why we have 4.9 stars out of 5 across our reviews, even after training thousands of pilots.

Here’s an overview of what our hands-on training sessions include:

• Meet with an expert and friendly instructor in a convenient outdoor location, like a park or athletic field
• Learn on a popular DJI drone model provided by the instructor
• Have 45-60 minutes of hands-on flying time to master orientation and basic flight maneuvers (Level 1) or more advanced flight modes and precision flying (Level 2)
• Walk through the DJI Go 4 or DJI Fly app
• Learn how to handle obstacles such as lost GPS, low battery charge or emergencies
• Practice flying under various intelligent flight modes
• Capture photo and video at your flight location
• Understand best practices of being a safe drone pilot
• Ask questions about regulations, software, flight operations management, and more

We offer hands-on flight training in over 40 locations across 25 states, with new locations added all the time. Follow the link below to learn more about our flight training and see all the locations where we offer it.

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FPV Drone Flight through a Beautiful Canyon in Iceland

This short video starts with a quick dive down a striking green cliff before leveling out and skimming along the surface of a stream. The colors here really pop, giving us the feeling of Game of Thrones or some other mythical place. And that’s not far off, since the footage was shot in the Fjaðrárgljúfur canyon, located just off the ring road in southeast Iceland. About the canyon Joshua Turner, the video’s creator, shared: “The canyon is up to 330ft (100m) deep in spots and was formed over thousands of years of erosion from glacial meltwater. The rock is covered with green grass and mosses and contrasts beautifully with the blueish mineral-filled river running through the center.” Turner captured the footage on the DJI FPV drone, shooting with a GoPro 8 mounted on top of the drone.

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Drones Are Helping Protect People from Grizzly Bears

Montana’s department of fish, wildlife and parks (MFWP) is using drones to keep people safe from bears. The idea is simple—bears are scared of flying, noisy things chasing them. So when a bear enters someone’s property or approaches livestock, employees from MFWP fly a drone overhead and herd them away. (You can see this method in action in the video above.) Using drones this way is safe for both people and for the animals. In fact, a PhD student at the University of Montana named Wesley Sarmento has tested every known method for removing grizzly bears from an area to keep people and livestock safe, and found that drones outperform them all.

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Skydio Raises $170 Million—But Valuation Stays the Same

Credit: Skydio

Skydio has raised $170 million in a new funding round, demonstrating continued investor confidence. But there is one caveat. This time, unlike past fundraising rounds, the company’s valuation didn’t change. To put that in perspective, Skydio’s last fundraising round was for $230 million and it brought the company’s valuation up to $2.2 billion (up from around $1 billion). The reason this matters is because it means investors may not think the company is making enough money to change its valuation—a view supported by worries circulating in the industry that Skydio is burning through cash without bringing in enough revenue to become profitable. In related news, Skydio recently made a big purchase of 114 patents from GoPro, including patents for content capture, data processing, hardware, and vehicle guidance. Also, China has sanctioned Skydio, labeling it a military company, which has made it hard for Skydio to source batteries for its drones.

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