This week I headed to Golden, CO with Josh and Rob for our Pulse Vapor 55 flight training with Juniper Unmanned. Cardno finally came through with the purchase order as we were flying out of Portland. The Vapor is one of the top commercial drone platforms in the US and is capable of carrying a large sensor payload such as the Riegl VUX-1UAS that we also purchased with it. I tried to connect with Roger, Catherine, and Cherie but they were all busy with other plans and we couldn't find time to get together.
The training for Rob was pretty easy as he is a pilot already and knew most of the aeronautical information that was being taught to us but it was all new to Josh and I. Our Juniper Unmanned trainers were Steve and Miguel whom we had met in Arizona previously with Tim. Both were new to Juniper but one of the founders of the company, Tyler popped his head in now and again to check on things and was the lead instructor for when we conducted actual flights and proficiency testing. 
It was a great trip and I look forward to learning more about being a pilot as I was recently told I will be the 2nd pilot on our team. I've been told that I will actually be put through real pilot training but I'm not getting my hopes up about that. The three of us ate very well and got to spend some quality time with our Juniper friends and even got to visit with Jon from Pulse who lives nearby. The Vapor 55 and 35 that we flew for testing was a training unit. I enjoyed flying but I think I'll be a bit more nervous when it is our actual $300k bird with a LiDAR sensor attached to it!
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