North Las Vegas Teens Train for Drone Pilot Careers

A group of ninth and tenth graders at a North Las Vegas charter school are spending their electives doing something most drone enthusiasts wish they’d started earlier: flying, crashing, troubleshooting, and doing it again. They’re not playing. They have a certification to chase, as Las Vegas Sun reported.

The Class That Started With Code

Richard Shipin launched the aviation technology program at Delta Academy Charter School three years ago, originally focused on coding and building drones from scratch.

The curriculum has since shifted. Shipin now targets commercial piloting because that’s where the employer demand is, and the new goal is straightforward: get every student a Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate from the FAA before they graduate.

Students in the class learn flying and landing techniques, basic troubleshooting, maintenance procedures, and how to read weather radar and forecast data to understand how conditions affect flight. That last piece matters more than beginners expect. A 7 mph breeze can make a lightweight training quadcopter genuinely difficult to handle, and Shipin tells his students so directly.

The training drones they start on are lightweight quadcopters, weighing no more than a couple of pounds. They don’t carry cameras. The simplicity is intentional, forcing students to develop stick skills before adding payload complexity. The class also has one camera-equipped drone, valued at around $500, fitted with a 4K camera. That’s the platform where students start learning aerial photography alongside flight fundamentals.

What Part 107 Actually Opens Up

The FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate is the legal gateway to commercial drone operations in the United States. It requires passing a 60-question knowledge exam covering regulations, airspace classification, weather, aircraft performance, and operations planning. Applicants must be at least 16 years old and pass an FAA background check. No prior flight experience and no college degree are required.

The commercial applications are real and growing. Certified drone pilots work in real estate photography, infrastructure inspection, land surveying, agriculture, insurance claims documentation, and emergency response support.

The commercial drone market is expanding at roughly 12 to 14 percent annually, and industry estimates point to more than 100,000 new job openings in the United States across these specializations in the coming years.

Shipin positions the certification as a practical alternative pathway for students who are strong in math and science but not interested in a traditional four-year college track. That’s a sensible read on the market. A Part 107 certificate costs less than $200 to obtain and can open doors to work that pays well before a student ever sets foot on a college campus.

The Students Flying the Drones

Tenth-grader Chase Stresing, 16, has his eyes on a commercial airline career. He sees the Part 107 as a logical first step before commercial pilot training, and he plans to take Shipin’s class again next year, then test for the certificate.

Ninth-grader Ayden Henderson, 15, has been fascinated by drones since he was 8, when he watched his brother open a toy remote control helicopter on Christmas morning and immediately wanted one instead of the remote control car he’d received.

He describes himself as the best flyer in the class with the confidence that only a 15-year-old can fully commit to. He plans to return for Shipin’s class next year too.

Both students see a real distinction between the toy drones of their childhood and what they’re working with now. Henderson put it simply: “You have a flying vehicle in the palm of your hand.” That’s the mindset shift Shipin is trying to build, and by most indications, it’s working. Students who go through the program test above average in their math and science classes, and several plan to stay with it long enough to test for their certificates before graduation.

DroneXL’s Take

Here’s what I actually think about a story like this: the program structure matters more than the gear, and Shipin got the structure right.

Starting with coding and building is a great way to hook kids on drones as a subject. Pivoting to commercial piloting when the career data pointed that way is a great way to build a program that actually places graduates in jobs.

That’s not a small distinction. A lot of high school electives die when the enthusiastic teacher moves on because the curriculum was built around a person, not a skill set. A program anchored to FAA certification has a clear outcome, a measurable standard, and a job market waiting at the other end.

The Part 107 pipeline is genuinely underbuilt at the pre-college level. Most certification prep targets adults who already have careers and want to add drone work as a side income. What Delta Academy is doing, specifically getting students certified at 16 before they graduate, is exactly the kind of early credentialing that can separate someone who loves drones from someone who actually builds a career flying them. The rest of the drone industry would do well to pay attention.

Photo credit: Christopher DeVargas