A Florida-based company that produces Unmanned Aircraft Systems is expanding in Dayton and Sinclair Community College has been cleared to fly its aircraft.
Altavian Inc., of Gainesville, Fla., announced at a gathering of local officials Monday it will build a logistics and maintenance depot in the Dayton region.
John Perry, CEO of Altavian, wasn’t prepared to say how many jobs it would bring or the location of the facility. He said the depot would specialize in manufacturing and maintenance of the company’s product line. It produces two UAS models, the Nova Block III and the Condor.
Simultaneous to the announcement, Sinclair Community College announced it has received a Certificate of Authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly the Nova Block III at Wilmington Air Park.
Sinclair spokesperson Adam Murka said the authorization allows the school, which is developing a local Unmanned Aerial Systems programme to train UAS pilots and operators, to fly the Nova Block III. Flying of UAS is currently done under tightly-controlled conditions and a CoA is needed to fly each individual model at each location.
Sinclair now has six CoAs, three for Wilmington Air Park and three for Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport. It flies the same aircraft at both locations: The Nova Block III, the UTC Aerospace Systems Vireo UAS, and the Brock Technologies SPEAR UAS.
Sinclair has announced several major partnerships that will advance its UAS program locally. Meanwhile, Dayton is vying to be one of the FAA’s six designated test sites for UAS before the opening of the national airspace to UAS in 2015. Such a designation could make the city a magnet for UAS companies.
Source: Dayton Business Journal