UNSW’s RPAS degree embraces a changing future

UNSW Aviation’s new RPAS degree will train students to think innovatively to embrace the revolutionary tech we can’t yet imagine

When Graham Doig was growing up in Scotland, he remembers his grandfather, an RAF pilot during World War II, regaling him with tales of Spitfires, Hurricanes and Lancasters. “It seemed to seep into me from an early age,” he admits. “Later in life, I’ve gone back and looked at photos of me as a child, and I’m always on a tricycle, little go-kart, or mini-helicopter. There was something about going fast and dealing with exciting things that caught on.” It might have been one reason why he eventually studied for a master’s in aeronautical engineering, where his thesis focussed on the not entirely straightforward subject of transonic shock control bumps. “But even after getting to university, I was much less interested in maths and more interested in building something, testing something, or doing something physical and hands-on.”

Coiling with restless energy, you’d imagine, Doig took a gamble and swapped the cloudy skies of Glasgow for Australia, where he signed up to study for a doctorate of aerodynamics at UNSW Sydney. “I was working with the ADF and the US Navy on the aerodynamics of very low flying, very fast things,” he enthuses. “Ultra low-flying fighter jets and projectiles.” The experience led him to become even more daring, swapping Australia for California. As soon as he got to the US, he found himself quickly collaborating with companies such as Tesla, Lockheed Marton and Joby Aviation. It was an eye-opener, he realised, to plug into the burgeoning scene of electric aviation. Doig got to work with the company developing the propulsion system for NASA’s experimental X-57 before jumping to an EV startup and eventually founding his own firm, Sea Flight Technologies. 

Today, Sea Flight is one of the most exciting companies in global aviation with its wildly ambitious plan to manufacture a drone that can fly cargo for 800 kilometers. If successful, the aircraft has the potential to revolutionise the lives of those living in remote communities. “When you look at the equation for anything that has to fly, the electric range is the problem, just as it has been for cars in the past,” he explains. “It’s a one-to-one correlation. If you get one per cent more out of your batteries, you get one more per cent range. But that’s an incremental improvement.” Doig, though, has outthought his rivals by applying the know-how he acquired at UNSW to traditional airframes, which have barely changed in decades. “If you can make a 30 per cent improvement in the aerodynamic efficiency, you’re getting 30 per cent more range. It dwarfs the improvements from anything else. It’s like going 10 years in the future and coming back in your DeLorean with much better batteries.” 

That innovative thinking is perhaps why UNSW’s School of Aviation tapped Doig to create its first Bachelor of Aviation, focussing on remotely piloted aircraft systems. It differs from traditional courses by mixing hands-on experience with teaching students how to think creatively and embrace a sector disrupting itself every few years. Students graduate with both a remote and recreational pilot’s licence – with 40 hours of flying time in both – as well as taking modules in management, programming, information systems and aviation law. It aims to give students the transferable skills to embrace a variety of career options when they leave, fitting in with the broader philosophy of the department.

“Critical thinking is of significant importance to the industry,” says Brett Molesworth, UNSW Aviation’s head of school. “We need individuals who can break down the questions they’re provided with and derive an answer based on the ability to dissect the objective or the benefit to the industry – as opposed to just going with your gut. We want to develop leaders who can solve today’s and tomorrow’s problems.”

It’s a philosophy Doig clearly agrees with. “Inevitably, you’re using software and technology that might be industry-standard now, but it’ll be changed in a year or two,” he says. “There’s no textbook that will tell you any of this.” To succeed, he continues, students must have a creative, problem-solving and entrepreneurial mindset. “It’s going to be one of the most hands-on, project-based programs the university has ever seen because we’ll be out there flying stuff, analysing data and experimenting with new technology.” In other words, he’s created the kind of course his younger self would have relished. 

And it’s important not just for the individuals, but wider society, too. Right now, he says, aviation is experiencing a once-in-a-hundred-year revolution, as electrification and automation provide an opportunity for aircraft to become truly democratised. “It’s allowing aviation to penetrate sectors and geographical areas that previously wouldn’t have been viable. Now, drones can become a part of life in many places, industries, and sectors that weren’t possible previously. All of these things are happening at once, which makes it the most exciting space to be in.”

It’s particularly vital in Australia, where the country’s already small population is spread out to hundreds of remote and regional towns. Connecting them has the potential to be an economic boon. “It’s kind of like a social and economic tax, right? You live far away from things you can’t access without same-day or next-day delivery. It could be fresh fruit and vegetables, medicine supplies or the latest iPhone.” 

The learning goes both ways. Despite being primarily based in LA, Sea Flight is backed by the Australian government, and UNSW Aviation students will be among the first to pilot the flight demonstrator remotely. “It’s a fantastic way not just to showcase what Australian companies can do, but what it can mean for Australia. The next generation of leaders in the drone space will be involved in that specific project. It’s also a little hint of what we want to do with the program in future because the line between an aircraft and a drone will blur.”

And while Sea Flight’s revolution may still take years to become commercialised, in 2024, Australia’s drone sector has made far more progress than most outside the business realise. Google Wing’s delivery drones, for example, are conducting hundreds of thousands of deliveries each year from shopping malls in south-east Queensland and Melbourne. Just months ago, the NSW Rural Fire Service wrapped up a trial using drones to monitor grass in the state’s west, helping to predict bushfires before they start. While Boeing is currently working away in Toowoomba to develop its Ghostbat aircraft that will autonomously fly alongside F-35s as a ‘loyal wingman’ in the skies. The project, a world-first, has already been hailed by US defence chiefs as the future of military aviation.

But perhaps the project that has most caught the attention of the Australian public is the use of drones by Surf Life Saving Australia. The group uses remotely piloted aircraft to not only search for missing swimmers swept away but to spot sharks, map the beach, and even assist in flood and fire emergencies. What started as a small experiment in 2017 has ballooned into a major operation employing 400 pilots to monitor 50 permanent locations. 

A Proud History The UNSW School of Aviation began in 1995 with only 11 students but today enrols more than 500 with a network of 3,000 alumni worldwide. The first aviation program was built on the idea of Professor Jason Middleton, a maths professor covering oceanography. A commercial pilot and aviation enthusiast, he saw a gap in the market for equipping students with more advanced industry knowledge. Within three years, the school had grown so quickly that UNSW acquired its own Air Operator’s Certificate, allowing it to teach pilots without requiring a private provider. Fast-forward to 2010 and it was confident enough to purchase a fleet of Diamond DA40 and DA42s for training, and commission a scanning lidar for its Piper Seminole. In the years since, its secured a  pioneering linkup with Qantas, its own offices at Bankstown Airport, a human factors lab, and CASA-approved air operations to be used for flying training and aerial surveying.

The initiative, explains its business development manager Paul Hardy, has been a literal lifesaver. “Drones can scan an area of cliff line in half an hour, which SES has said would take them three days to search manually. It’s not just eyes in the sky, either. Not many people realise, but each drone has a speaker that lets pilots communicate with people in trouble. “There was an example of a guy who came off his jet ski and broke his arm. But the drone got over to him and was able to both confirm he was OK and tell him that help was on the way. I think his quote was that he would have given up hope if he hadn’t known someone was coming within the next five minutes.”  

Spotting sharks, too, has not only saved lives but has allowed SLS to introduce a degree of efficiency not previously possible. Before drones, beaches were often shut down for a whole day when a surfer spotted – or perhaps simply thought they’d spotted – a shark. Hardy believes RPAS pilots now identify 300 sharks annually from an extraordinary 40,000 coastal flights. The drones can fly behind the break and monitor what they call the transect, manoeuvring around the sun’s glare to get the best angle. “Our three key species are bull, tiger, and white shark. Generally, anything over two metres is considered dangerous. But it’s always a judgement call based on the local knowledge, with the lifeguards ultimately making the final decision.” The drones, though, keep watch and monitor the shark right up until it leaves the patrol area, enabling the beach to be reopened. That’s become a key benefit for communities because a beach is often only shut for a few hours rather than for the rest of the day. It also becomes a fantastic outreach and recruitment tool. “The beauty of having a pilot on the beach compared to a helicopter is that members of the community can walk up and chat to them a bit more about new technologies.”

But being so world-leading, there was clearly an element that SLS had to work out the rules of the sky itself. How exactly do you train pilots to do something nobody has really done before? In part, it involved working with partners such as UNSW to understand the aviation side of the equation. “Culture, safety reporting and incident investigation have grown in maturity. Before, we were just surf lifesavers who picked up drones as a tool.”

And just like with Seaflight, the learning has come full circle. This year, SLS will provide the practical training for UNSW Aviation’s Bachelor of Aviation RPAS degree. In particular, its staff will outline their specific methods, such as extended visual line of sight, night and beyond visual line of sight operations. That commercial experience comes after Aviassist, the acclaimed drone training and licensing organisation, provides the actual training for the Remote Pilot Licence. Students, then, are learning directly from the people changing the industry, rather than simply memorising theory. 

“In my experience, our best pilots have usually found their niche,” adds Hardy. “So either we’re bringing them in fully untrained, or we’ve trained them from scratch.” The secret sauce he seeks is an ability to embrace new ideas. The best students must have the right mindset, communicate well and show initiative. 

 And while spotting sharks and stranded swimmers has advantages, SLS, with help from its industry partners, is already looking to the future. Layer one, as Hardy calls it, is to explore more within a one-kilometre visual line of sight, but the next step is to explore drone-in-a-box technology. That is, when the devices effectively fly themselves before returning to their ‘box’ to recharge their batteries. “The benefits are that you don’t need a local pilot on site. You can take off, whether rain, hail or shine, as needed.” It means one human could oversee multiple drones, vastly increasing the surveillance area and mixing in the next generation of longer-range vehicles. “The drowning toll continues to go up, but people are always drowning beyond where we can see them, outside of one-kilometre patrol location. Drones could play a massive role in data collection, and we could have more flexibility over where we patrol and how we place our lifesaving resources to help people.”

That future is something Doig and his course are determined to embrace. And it’s coming sooner than most realise. “They’ve shown demonstrations of autonomy in Cessnas and other aircraft, where the AI is listening to air traffic control and responding in natural language over the radio,” he concludes. “It’s a long way from science fiction – it’s a very near-future reality. I want to be a part of making sure that the homegrown technology can keep up because there’s a fantastic opportunity. In ten years, there will absolutely be large autonomous aircraft flying around Australia. 

“There are these moments in technology where Australia can lead, or it can follow, and I think we are just so well positioned. This moment in history is pivotal.”

Bachelor of Aviation (Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems)

UNSW’s new Bachelor of Aviation RPAS degree prepares students for an exciting aviation career, with a focus on managing and operating the devices themselves. The coursework shares a common core with its Bachelor of Aviation (Flying) and Bachelor of Aviation (Management) courses, giving recruits the transferable skills and expertise to take their career to new heights. As a result, students uniquely graduate with both a Remote Pilot Licence (RePL) Upgrade and a Recreational Pilot’s Licence (RPL), multiplying career opportunities. 

Those enrolling will gain at least 80 hours of total flight experience, which includes up to 40 crewed flight hours (aeroplane) and up to 40 uncrewed flight hours (drones) with a range of multi-rotor and fixed-wing equipment.

Students will undertake their traditional flying hours alongside those undertaking the Bachelor of Aviation (Flying), after which they continue into the drone-specific component. The drone-specific flight hours, meanwhile, consist of up to 20 hours of uncrewed flight training and up to 20 hours of commercial experience, both provided by leading industry partners. To underpin those practical skills, students will cover courses in drone operations management, (including entrepreneurship and the business of drones), drone programming, information systems and aviation law to round out their skill set. Students develop into fully rounded aviation professionals, ready to fly, analyse, manage, and lead in the rapidly-growing field of remote and autonomous aviation.

To find out more, visit UNSW’s course website, here.