Sky Commander Academy

S5E21 – Inside an RPAS Ops Center: How Real Teams Fly Multiple Aircraft Without Leaving the Ground


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In S5E21 of Sky Commander Academy, we step inside a professional RPAS Operations Center—the place where serious BVLOS happens for real. Multiple screens, multiple aircraft, multiple pilots and supervisors… and one simple truth: if the room isn’t designed right, it doesn’t matter how good the drone is.

This episode is your guided tour of a high-functioning RPAS Ops Center: roles, displays, comms, workflows, and what it actually feels like to run more than one aircraft at once without letting the risk spiral.

In this episode:
👥 Who sits where—and why it matters – RPIC, visual observers, planners, supervisor, safety officer, dispatcher: the roles that keep the room calm
🖥️ The screen wall – Flight views, maps, weather, C2 health, NOTAMs, traffic feeds, logs: what’s on which display and why
📡 C2 & system health dashboards – How pros monitor link quality, latency, redundancy, and “early wobble” signals across multiple aircraft
🗺️ Mission overview vs aircraft detail – The split between “big board” situation awareness and per-aircraft tactical views
🎧 Comms architecture – Intercom, radio, phone, chat, and how disciplined comms keep the room from turning into chaos under pressure
📋 Standard calls & phraseology – The scripted phrases that keep everyone synchronized when something goes even slightly off-nominal
🛫 Launching, handovers & landing at scale – How multi-aircraft ops transition from one leg to the next without losing the plot
🚨 What happens when something goes wrong – The playbook for anomalies: who talks, who flies, who logs, and who is already thinking three steps ahead
📚 Checklists, SOPs & wall wisdom – The job aids, quick cards, and visual cues that turn the room into a shared brain, not just shared screens
🧪 A day-in-the-life scenario – Walking through a shift where three BVLOS utility missions, changing weather, and an unexpected NOTAM all collide
🚀 Designing your future Ops Center – How even a small team can start thinking and building like a multi-aircraft operation before Part 108 fully lands

If your mental model of drone work is “one pilot, one controller, one aircraft,” this episode will blow that up.
If you want to be the person trusted to design, lead, or work inside a serious RPAS Operations Center, this is your inside tour.

See the room. Learn the roles. Hear the comms.
Prove you can fly it smart—or don’t fly at all.

🌐 SkyCommander.ca
🎧 Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever serious pilots train.

#SkyCommanderAcademy #BVLOS #Part108 #RPASOpsCenter #DroneOperations #MultiAircraft #UASIntegration #DroneCareers #MissionReady #FlySmart

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Sky Commander AcademyBy SkyCommander.ca