In a buzzing noise, the quadcopter takes off from the ground before weaving between poles. At the controls is Quentin, a student in the professional drone option program, a unique school curriculum in France that interests the military.
Eleven students from the Louise Weiss high school in Sainte-Marie-aux-mines, a small town of 5,000 inhabitants in the Vosges mountains, are the first to inaugurate this specialization as part of their professional Sky (Cybersecurity, IT and networks, electronics) degree.
In the electronic laboratory, the teenagers are engrossed in various activities. Two of them are working on a test bench to study lift.
“We need to run the engines in stages, faster and faster to determine at what speed the drone is likely to take off,” explains Jean-Marc Bour, teacher.
Damien, 18, is facing an S500 V2 kit: “I have to assemble it from A to Z, to understand how a drone should be built, what material we use, what motor, what battery, etc.,” he lists. The goal: to learn to “create it ourselves.”
The only girl in the class, Charlotte, is interested in a model tower in ruins, reconstructed in 3D using images captured by a drone.
During the training, the young girl learned a number of rules related to the use of drones, such as the fact that “there are certain areas where flying is prohibited and you need authorization.”
By adding a drone option to this professional diploma, “the idea was to create an innovative pathway that does not exist anywhere else at the moment by using the drone as a tool,” explains the high school principal, François Ginoux.
The school has partnered with the air and space force. Army instructors have taught drone piloting to students and taken them to visit air bases in the region.
– Promising sectors –
These are skills that “interest” the army, explains Pascal Fischer, who heads the Regional Recruitment Center of the Air Force. “We need drones” for surveillance and security of military sites, and trained individuals capable of “implementing countermeasures” against hostile drones, he continues.
The Army had 3,000 drones at the beginning of the year and will have 15,000 by the end of 2026.
“Our effort is to stay up-to-date with technology and ensure that every soldier is a drone operator,” emphasized General Philippe de Montenon, commanding the terrestrial operational force, at the end of April.
Among the Louie Weiss students, Nolan, 17, aspires to a military career and hopes that his knowledge in drones will be “an added bonus, an asset that others may not necessarily have.”
While using a drone as a weapon is “not the goal,” the teenager envisions using it for “surveillance” or “reconnaissance” operations.
Apart from the military, “other sectors are also promising,” notes principal Mr. Ginoux, citing “companies that search for heat loss in their installations” or the agricultural sector.
Alban, 20, sees drone technology more as a hobby. “But I also learned through the partnership with the army that it has practical applications. And I found it quite interesting,” testifies the young man.
Mr. Ginoux asserts that the drone option “has generated a real renewed interest” in the Sky professional degree, even having to refuse students at the beginning of the year due to high enrollment.
His goal is to sustain this program, which could expand. “It would be interesting for the national Education system to take up this experience and extend it to several high schools in France,” believes the principal, emphasizing that to date, there is “no equivalent program.”
