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Interviewed by Insurance4Drones. Females With Altitude: Why are there so few female drone pilots? As an advocate for encouraging more women into the Technology industry, I was honoured to be interviewed by award winning Moonrock Insurance the UK's first flexible 'click and pay' Drone insurance business, underwritten by Hiscox Insurance... Take a peek below – happy reading!  DJI Phantom - coming in for landing At Insurance 4 drones we regularly look at demographics when researching whom our potential customers might be. One thing we have noticed is how few female pilots are using drones commercially; in fact approximately 6% of PFAW’s (Permission For Aerial Work) given by the CAA, are to females. We spoke to two female droners, CAA approved pilot Maureen Saunderson of VR Vistas and currently qualifying pilot Charlene L’Aimable of Black Kite Creative, to get their insights into why this is such a male dominated industry and how this might change going forward.
I4D: What’s your background and what made you want to become a drone pilot? CL: I’d lived near an RC club since the age of 9 or 10 and this sparked a hobbyist interest. Later in life I had set up a Graphic Design company which included video production, so aerial photography/videography seemed a natural extension of both my chosen work and my hobby – as a drone enthusiast, I was also getting requests for aerial photography, before I’d enrolled for my theory course with pilot school RUSTA, where I was the only female in the class. MS: My earlier background was lecturing and training in Maths and Computing, and after that around eight years ago, I set up a Virtual Reality panoramic photography company. In 2012 I was introduced to 360° video at a conference, which sparked my aerial photography interest. I too was the only female in a class of thirteen, when I went to Resource for pilot qualification in 2014. I4D: What do you think are the reasons there have been so few women who are drone pilots to date? CL: For me I think it comes down to the education. Some people just don’t know about drones and there can be negative drone imagery in the press. I believe educating young females about the many practical uses of drones – showing them the available career paths that they could take by training to use drones, could encourage more interest. I also think women are not particularly encouraged to enter the market right now from a marketing perspective – I recently read a statistic that 99% of drone related purchases are by men – therefore all the marketing would be focussed towards men, and women may not associate with this fully. MS: I believe it’s cultural – for example I recently went to a yoga class which had one male and the rest female – culturally women may be attracted to such classes more naturally than men; but if I look at the motor racing industry, it tends to be a man’s world, and I think it is similar in the drone industry. Men culturally tend to be drawn to more mechanical subjects, as evidenced by numbers of students in engineering courses at colleges and universities. That said, my course teacher at Resource suggested that although I was only the fifth female pilot he’d taught, collectively they had proven to be generally safer and more cautious pilots in his opinion. READ FULL ARTICLE HERE
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Pressing Reset: A Summer of Feeding My Creativity at the Paris College of Art  As a Graphic Design professional there is always a new creative design trend to be aware of, technique to learn, clients to gain, clients to maintain, new tech to be aware of, finance accounts to keep in check – the list can go on. It dawned on me that I had been running my Graphic Design business for three years and as all new business owners do – we just don't stop to smell to roses. My time had come. My view is that it is integral to the essence of a design professional to stay connected with the basics of art, design and creativity as we can get lost within the admin, technology and technical side that a creative business can bring. Of course this is a personal choice of how you go about doing this, or if you do this in the first place! My preference was to immerse myself in one of the most creative and culturally diverse places. The French capital – Paris. In the summer of 2015, I booked myself onto Painting en Plein Air (Painting out-of-doors) course at the prestigious Paris College of Art. Armed with a solidly impressive faculty that run courses from all creative walks, but are still able keep an eye on the real art and design world – I knew this was the place that could help me... press reset. So, what did I see and do?
Lots. Having not been in the classroom for more years than I'd like to admit, I was a tad nervous! Although very soon after arriving at registration and introductions, these nerves were replaced with eager excitement to get started. A Unique Flight With Yuneec UK I had the pleasure of learning, and testing out the Yuneec Typhoon Q500 4K Pro and Yuneec Tornado H920 with Daniel Farren, Test Pilot and Tech Support Manager at Yuneec UK. Personal initial thoughts and opinions of the Q500 and H920 from an aerial photography perspective - happy reading!  Yuneec Typhoon Q500 Having always been drawn to the bright lights of DJI, I was interested to find out more about Yuneec. Having not heard much about Yuneec previously the day started out with an overview of what we would be covering, a high level description of Yuneec's operations throughout UK, China, Germany and USA and the design and manufacturing processes. The first aircraft to take centre stage, was the Yuneec Typhoon Q500 4K Pro Quadcopter. Aggressive in design, dark gunpowder grey and black panelling with sturdy build. First things first, was learning about the aircraft and I noticed how easy it was to move around in hand. (Compared to the DJI products which I have always found overly smooth with no real place to hold onto!). The battery that comes with the aircraft has a simple handle on the back for easy loading and unloading, simples ideas are sometimes the best ones!
Making use of a homemade, yet very professional looking might I add! 4ft x 4ft helipad we stepped back to a safe distance, the Q500 was launched to an overhead low level hover for demonstration… Hold on just a tiny sec. No calibration? No app fiddling? All questions that immediately reeled in my mind which inevitably came pouring out while I watched the aircraft whizz laps around the field. It was explained that with the Typhoon Q500, Yuneec streamline the process from ground to air. The ST10 Ground Station is an active home position for the aircraft and with the integrated 5.5” LCD touchscreen on the ST10 does away with the need for third party interference. A little nifty feature was also mentioned that could come in handy with my aerial videos and photos (which I will come back to). Apple iPad Pro & Apple Pencil review: When teamed together, why we think they contribute to artistic success.  Apple iPad Pro & Apple Pencil | ©BLACK KITE CREATIVE 2016 Apple iPad Pro: £679 (32GB WiFi model) / £899 (128GB WiFi + Cellular) Apple Pencil: £79 We’ve had the chance to try out the new Apple iPad Pro and Apple Pencil for the past fews months and we’ll share with you our findings!
Though Apple have added yet another new product to their iPad range, the iPad Pro is strikingly different in many ways to previous models. Within the creative arts industry, Painters, Illustrators and Graphic Designers alike are rearing their heads to find out more. This is our perspective. The idea of using a stylus on an iPad in itself is quite controversial. Anyone who knows of the late Steve Jobs (rest his soul…) knows he was not backwards in coming forward. During an iPhone OS 4 press conference Mr Jobs was asked about his thoughts on task management, he went on to say ‘It's like we said on the iPad, if you see a stylus, they blew it.’ Clearly no mincing of words here... A Flock of Black Kites Creating Stuff... About us Hi there! I'm Charlene L'Aimable, founder of Apostrophe Designs Ltd back in 2013 specialising in corporate design. With a background in Graphic Design, 3D Design and Art I am successfully offering a range of graphic design services to wonderful clients from different industries like finance, health, construction and education.
Now to 2016! With the goal of expanding the company into more creative and free flowing Graphic Design realms. A rebrand took place and Apostrophe Designs Ltd evolved into Black Kite Creative Ltd, still offering the great creative design service, only with more! With the support of a small pool of trusted creative freelancers we take on all projects with mad enthusiasm, creativity and new technologies. I fly!! Yes you heard right. Being the Tech head that I am, I turned what was once a hobby into a new service line. We offer Aerial Photography using Unmanned Aviation Vehicles along with a few other UAV Pilots. Check back here soon for snap shots of our most recent works. Nothing can make a video or photo more dynamic than from seeing it from the sky! |
AuthorWords, sounds and sometimes strange thoughts from Charlene, Founder of Black Kite Creative. A Graphic Design professional, Drone & Tech enthusiast. ArchivesCategories |
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