A fascination with flying, often driven by a sense of adventure, is the reason young people desire to become pilots, although for most, this dream crashes before take-off.

It was the same for 25-year old Asaph Kasujja. Four years ago, after finishing high school, Kasujja realised he could not raise the $18,000 needed to enrol for a piloting course at the East African Civil Aviation Academy, popularly known as the Soroti Flying School.

But as fate would have it, instead he became a videographer. And all the chips fell in place.

Kasujja and his business partner Ronnie Mugerwa own and work at Virtual Media in Kampala.

They knew about drones, but were fascinated when they watched a movie in 2013 and saw how they work and realised they could use them in videography. “We had little knowledge of drones. Mugerwa suggested ‘let’s buy that’ for our company,” Kasujja said. So they decided to buy one. The partners did the research, and found what they wanted from US-based online retailer Amazon. They pooled their savings and ordered a Phantom 1 at a cost of $800, but they needed $1,000 to cover shipping costs.

Two weeks later, the drone arrived. Kasujja handed over the package to Mugerwa who unsuccesfully pored over it for hours but could not assemble it. Vanquished, he handed it over to Kasujja.

It was hard to assemble the Phantom.

“It was shipped disassembled. I gave him the package. When he opened it, he was terrified. But because I always wanted to fly, I took over. I spent a whole night assembling it. Mark you, it was the first time for me to see a drone physically. I spent the night at the studio assembling this monster.  

“When I finished in the morning, I tried to fly it, but it wouldn’t move. I thought it had a mechanical fault,” Kasujja explained.
What he didn’t know at the time that was that he needed to calibrate the Phantom. He also didn’t know its other dynamics – it cannot be flown indoors, and he was trying it in the studio. It cannot fly where there is too much concrete, it needs an open area and the instructions say it should not be flown near electric power transformers, electric wires or telecom masts because it causes interference.

The fear of failure — and his savings about to go down the drain — pushed Kasujja to try tutorials on You Tube. For two months, he did research but there was no breakthrough.

He packed the drone and carried it around Kampala, looking for a buyer. He chanced on an Indian gentleman who knew about drones, and was interested. The gentleman bought it.

But selling the Phantom — his only indirect route to flying — betrayed his own sense of adventure. It was an admission of failure. Now that the Phantom “with a mechanical fault,” was out of the way, he decided to order another.

When it arrived, he sought help from an experienced drone pilot, who had been flying for a popular Pentecostal priest, shooting videos of religious public meetings.

“He briefed me for just three minutes. After that, I was flying,” says Kasujja, who considers himself a self-taught drone pilot.

Working with drones

What does it take to fly a drone? As a videographer, Kasujja flies his equipment on a regular basis, sometimes having jobs daily the whole week. He says one has to cope with nerves and excitement when handling the Phantom. 

“It’s not that hard, but it takes passion, just as being a pilot for an aircraft takes passion. Of course when you crash one, you develop fear. I’ve crashed several drones. Even now whenever I am flying, I get nervous.

“There is a time I was shooting a video, and I was flying over Wild Waters Island in the Nile, surrounded by water falls. I didn’t know the location so the client took me there When I arrived, the waterfalls were loud and the place was vibrating with energy from the falling water. I was nervous and unsteady throughout the shoot but I could not afford to let the clients see that. So I just isolated myself and kept flying, but it was scary,” he said.

From the Phantom 1, Kasujja upgraded to the Phantom 2, Vision Plus, Phantom 3, Phantom 3 Standard, and is currently flying a Phantom 4. He hopes to upgrade to Inspire, which is strong, resistant to winds, and can go higher than the Phantom 4. 

The Phantom 4 costs around $1,400 without shipping charges. But drones like the Inspire DJI cost around $3,500 because although they use similar technology to the Phantoms, they are bigger and have a better camera.

Kasujja has worked with a company called Atonga, which was shooting a movie about the war in northern Uganda. The movie is yet to be released. He has done documentaries, most recently with an Australian TV company and another with a US team on South Sudanese refugees settling in Moyo, Uganda. The refugees documentary will air this month.

Commercial venture

Since learning how to fly and manoeuvre the Phantom, he is getting serious business. He won’t even put a figure on how many clients he has.

“I fly Phantoms almost daily,” he said, checking the time on his smart phone as I interviewed him for this article. He was running late for a music video shoot in Kayunga district, northeast of Kampala, a two-hour drive from the capital.

“Some clients come from abroad to shoot documentaries in Uganda, and they call me through referrals. Most videographers in Kampala and other busy towns are my clients too. I’ve shot clips using drones for NTV and UBC TV, and even been contracted for state functions. And this is interesting. Mid this year, the government had confiscated my equipment, but then I got a call because they wanted my services to shoot the president’s swearing-in ceremony at Kololo Independence Grounds on May 12, 2016. There was no other drone pilot they could call,” he said.

According to the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority, “the number of drones is increasing” but few drone pilots are flying on a commercial basis.

“Since I am almost the sole person in the business of using drones for commercial shoots, I charged the government Ush800,000 ($235) for a job of less than two hours, but they still hired me. Other videographers gave up flying their drones and concentrated on manned cameras. They know how to fly drones but they are not using them for commercial purposes. I chose to do it for business,” said Kasujja.

The fee was more than twice what he normally charges [Ush350,000] as long as the client transports him to the location of the shoot. “That’s a good amount of money. A battery lasts 30 minutes and I just change it once. I work for about one-and-half to almost two hours,” he said slyly.

But it has not all been smooth sailing. Last year, he nearly got into trouble. An unknown person spooked national security agencies when he flew a drone over State House. The security personnel, fearing that some hi-tech equipment was being deployed to eavesdrop on the president, went on a hunt for all drone operators. They ran notices on TV, asking drone owners to report to the police and explain themselves or have their “toys” confiscated.

“I reported at the Central Police Station in Kampala because this is my livelihood. I told them that I have a drone and asked for ‘permission’ to fly it.

“There is one officer who knew a little about drones, so he told me to bring it in. I did. All the officers gathered around me and the drone. Suddenly I was a celebrity. Instead of reprimanding me, the police officers were all excited,” said Kasujja.

In a country where the regulator of the aviation industry is yet to define whether unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) can be considered mainstream and licensed the same way as cargo and passenger airlines, drone operators are still flying in a legal vacuum.

“We have a challenge in Uganda. We have [aviation] laws but drones are new. I went to the CAA to get a licence but interestingly, the officials were not well-versed about drones. They were all excited to learn from me how a drone works or what it really does, and yet, they are the ones who implement aviation laws. So, they just let me fly it,” said Kasujja.

 Faced with such regulatory challenges, and as drones’ numbers continue to grow, the global aviation fraternity gathered in Montreal, Canada under the auspices of the International Civil Aviation Organisation and came up with recommendations on how to regulate them.

But CAA spokesman Ignie Igundura said Uganda is handling drones on a case-by-case basis although the regulator has “drafted regulations” to license UAVs that will be discussed with stakeholders “before we promulgate them.”

For most people, drones are supposed to be a preserve of the military, and the image that comes to mind is that of bombs and sorties or military surveillance operations, which is why the Special Forces Command, which is in charge of the president’s security, was so troubled when a drone flew over State House.

A drone is defined as a powered, unmanned aerial vehicle and just like a plane, it uses aerodynamic force to provide lift. It can fly on auto pilot or be remote-controlled as the pilot monitors on a screen the aircraft’s steering and powering dynamics. 
“I have a screen that shows the speed, altitude, battery life and GPS,” says Kasujja.