A Data-Driven Flight Proficiency Benchmark for Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Curriculum at Two-Year Institutions of Higher Education

To fly an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly referred to as a “drone,” the Federal Aviation Administration requires pilots to pass a knowledge test. There is no official requirement at the state or federal level for drone operators to demonstrate the ability to operate a UAS. The National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) has created an exam for basic UAS flight proficiency. It created this exam for public and private entities to assess basic flight proficiency. However, NIST does not provide a scoring recommendation and leaves it to the exam user to determine the minimum criteria to pass. Hence, there is limited literature on scoring recommendations and none pertaining to institutions of higher education. This paper fills this gap by evaluating the performances of carefully selected UAS pilots who participated in the study. Their performance was divided by percentile and used to provide recommended benchmarks that community colleges can use with their flight skills