A student at Horlick High School, in the Racine school district, is the first in the school’s aviation program to become a certified drone pilot, Milwaukee-based CBS 58 reports.
“I wasn’t really nervous,” Jacob Thillemann, a senior, told the station. “Since the beginning of the year we’ve been just going through the drone pilot handbook.”
The school’s aviation program, which launched five years ago, is led by former Air Force crew chief James Bucholtz.
“We’re really cross-curricular,” Bucholtz says. “You’ve got history. You’ve got physics, a lot of math. And simply government regulations, how to navigate those. That’s a minefield in and of itself.”
“There’s a huge shortage [of workers] within aviation right now,” Bucholtz says. “We’re hoping with just our small part, we can fill some of those needs.
Thillemann told the TV station he’s having a blast.
“[Flying a drone] is like a video game just in real life. It is fun just controlling it,” he says.
Read the full story at CBS 58’s website.