Leading the way in Unmanned Aircraft Systems
March 2018
Cyberhawk Innovations is no stranger to the Offshore Achievement Awards. But 2018 is an extra special year; not only has the company been nominated for outstanding skills development, but founder Malcolm Connolly has also been recognised in the Above and Beyond Award category.
Setting up the company in 2008, Malcolm and his team have led more than twenty five world firsts in unmanned aircraft systems.
Malcolm filled us in on how it feels to be nominated, and the importance of developing skills in the new sub-industry his company has created.
Congratulations on being shortlisted at this year’s Offshore Achievement Awards! How does it feel to have your UAV Pilot Training Programme up for an award?
“We’re really excited to be nominated in this category because the skills and competence of our pilots is crucial to what we do. The only way we can complete close visual and thermal inspections of offshore structures, with the image quality and engineering analysis required for our clients to make critical integrity decisions, is through our highly trained pilots. It requires incredible skill to fly close to a live flare, underneath an offshore oil and gas platform or in a cargo oil tank and we need to have robust and consistent training to get our pilots up to this level, which ultimately saves our clients huge amounts of money and improves safety by reducing working at height.
“We’re very proud of our training scheme, which is considered one of the best the industry has to offer, and we’re delighted that SPE Aberdeen and the judges have recognised this."
Why do you think the programme has been shortlisted for this award?
“We have some of the world’s leading aviation authorities and UAV pilots on our team, all of whom have contributed to the training in various ways. More importantly, however, are the results. We have pilots at the top end of our four-tier programme, who are now undertaking world firsts and highly complex UAV industrial inspections. On the other end of the scale we’re regularly bringing more talent into our business, as well as the wider UAV industry, with new entrants to the programme. We’re helping them develop skills which are transferable across a range of sectors and seeing them progress is massively encouraging.”
You’ve been shortlisted in different categories over the last couple of years. What do you see as the benefit of entering industry awards?
“First and foremost, it’s about the staff. Their effort and enthusiasm is why we enter these awards in the first place, it’s recognition of our belief that we have the best team in the world here at Cyberhawk. To then be shortlisted is fantastic achievement and shows that we’re not just being biased!
“Secondly, it’s a great way to profile our track record and experience on a high-profile industry platform. In our eyes, industry awards are a relatively inexpensive way of getting a huge amount of exposure within our target audience. We’ve won awards in the past and the PR we’ve generated from these wins has lasted long after the night of the ceremony.”
For the full list of nominees, visit our finalists page.
The 2018 Offshore Achievement Awards will take place on the 22nd of March 2018 at the AECC, Aberdeen. Visit our tickets page to find out about how you and your company can be there.
