Flight reviews, flight training, and advice worth paying for.
Three things, from Victoria. Transport Canada flight reviews conducted by a certified Flight Reviewer. One-to-one flight training from a commercial helicopter pilot with twenty years in the air. And consulting on LiDAR, photogrammetry and running an aerial programme, from a geomatics specialist with fifteen years in remote sensing.
The flight review, and who conducts it
To fly under Transport Canada Advanced Operations you need to pass a flight review with a certified Flight Reviewer. David holds that certification, and he holds it alongside a commercial helicopter licence and more than twenty years of flying.
That combination is worth choosing deliberately. A flight review is a competency check, and being assessed by someone who has spent two decades making real aviation decisions in real weather is a different experience from being assessed by someone who learned on the same online course you did. You will be asked about your decision-making, not just your stick handling.
Three things we offer
Aimed at genuinely different people.
Three groups, three problems
Flight reviews & certification
The Transport Canada flight review for the Advanced Operations certificate, conducted by a certified Flight Reviewer. Plus preparation for the Basic and Advanced written exams for people who need the certificate to work rather than as a hobby credential.
Conducted under Transport Canada authority. Book below or call.
Flight training
One-to-one flight instruction, which is where the twenty years of commercial helicopter experience actually shows. Not how to press the buttons — the software teaches you that. How to plan a flight, read weather you have not flown in before, hold a position in wind coming off the water, work a confined launch area, and make the call to stop.
Aimed at people who have the certificate and know they are not yet good, and at organisations whose staff fly occasionally and need to be genuinely current rather than technically compliant.
Consulting
Advice from people who have done this at scale, on either side of the transaction — whether you are buying aerial survey work or building the capability in-house.
Delivered by a geomatics specialist with fifteen years in remote sensing and a commercial pilot with twenty years in aviation. Six things we are asked about most are listed below.
Choosing sensors and platforms
What a given job actually needs, and what it does not. Buying a LiDAR payload for work that photogrammetry does better is an expensive mistake we can talk you out of.
Writing the specification
Accuracy, coordinate system, datum, deliverable formats and acceptance criteria — for a tender, an RFP or an internal standard. Most bad survey outcomes start here.
Reviewing someone else's data
An independent look at a survey you have been handed: does it hold the accuracy claimed, is the classification sound, is the control network adequate. Useful before you sign it off or pay for it.
Evaluating bids and operators
What to ask a drone contractor, which certifications and insurance actually matter for your site, and how to read an accuracy claim that sounds better than it is.
Setting up an in-house programme
Operations documentation, records, currency tracking and the practical shape of running aircraft inside an organisation, from people who run one.
Airspace and site feasibility
Whether a site or a recurring programme is flyable at all, what authorisations it needs, and what the realistic weather and access constraints are on this coast.
Consulting is advisory. Where a question requires a professional seal — a legal survey, an engineering assessment, a geotechnical opinion — we will say so and point you to the right professional rather than working around it.
How to commission a drone survey without getting it wrong
A short buyer's guide: what accuracy figures actually mean, when LiDAR is worth the money and when photogrammetry wins, how to specify a coordinate system and a contour interval, and the three requests clients most often get wrong. No email required to read it.
Not live yet. The guide is written and ready to export; the PDF needs to be placed at assets/EDS-Survey-Buyers-Guide.pdf before this link works.
Pick a slot directly
For flight reviews and training, booking a time is faster than trading emails.
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Tell us what you need
Flight reviews are booked directly. For the workflow and compliance streams, tell us the gap and we will come back with a scope. We reply within one business day.
Training, answered
Are you a Transport Canada flight school?
We are not a flight school, but we hold what matters for the Advanced certificate: David is a certified Transport Canada Flight Reviewer, so we conduct flight reviews directly. Written examinations are administered by Transport Canada itself — we prepare candidates for those rather than delivering them.
What do you offer?
Three things. Flight reviews for the Advanced Operations certificate, conducted by a certified Flight Reviewer. One-to-one flight training, which is the part twenty years of commercial helicopter experience is genuinely useful for. And LiDAR and photogrammetry consulting, delivered by a geomatics specialist with fifteen years in remote sensing. We do not run approved courses and we are not a flight school.
Which of those is most useful?
For an individual, the flight review, because you cannot fly Advanced without it — and after that, flight training, because the certificate proves you know the rules rather than that you can fly. For an organisation, the consulting, because a badly specified survey costs more than the advice would have. Plenty of organisations buy a drone, send someone on a Basic course, and then discover they have no operations manual, no maintenance records, no currency tracking and no defensible position if an incident occurs. Ground school is widely available and priced near zero. Programme setup is not, and it is the part that fails audits.
Can you advise our team on LiDAR and photogrammetry?
Yes, as consulting rather than as a certified course. If your team holds certificates but the data coming back is not usable — poor control, wrong overlap, misclassified point clouds, deliverables nobody can open — that is a workflow problem rather than a certification one, and it is exactly what our geomatics specialist spent fifteen years doing. Describe the gap on the form.
Where would training be delivered?
Victoria and the south Island primarily, with on-site delivery at your facility for corporate groups. Practical sessions need suitable airspace and ground, which we arrange as part of the programme.
What does enquiring commit me to?
Nothing. We reply with availability and a price, and that is it. No deposit to enquire, no obligation, and we will not add you to a marketing list.
Need the work done rather than learned?
We fly survey, mapping, inspection and monitoring across Vancouver Island. If the reason you were looking at training is that you need data, it may be quicker to have it flown.
Flight reviews are conducted under Transport Canada authority by a certified Flight Reviewer. Written examinations are administered by Transport Canada directly; we prepare candidates for them.