BAKER CITY — Blue Mountain Community College is launching a drone flight program at its Baker City campus and the Baker City Airport.

The ground school will run Sept. 30 to Oct. 11 at BMCC’s Baker City campus while the flight school will be Oct. 14-25.

The four-week course is different from the program the college offers at its main campus in Pendleton through DelMar AeroEducation.

The company is condensing its Pendleton course to a Monday-through-Friday schedule in Baker City, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The ground school will be at BMCC’s Baker City campus, 3370 10th St., Suite H, with the flight school at the Baker City Airport.

“It’ll be a lot more rigorous and a lot more time in,” said Jeremy Edwards, DelMar general manager. “The actual curriculum is the same (as at Pendleton).”

Edwards described the rigor of the program as “drinking from a fire hose,” metaphorically describing all the information students will be expected to learn.

Just four students will be allowed in the program, called Pathfinder, for the time being. BMCC hopes to expand the course to 20 students in the spring term.

The course costs $9,200, but prospective students can apply for scholarships.

Blue Mountain is applying for scholarships from the Ford Family Foundation, Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative, the Leo Adler Foundation and potentially others.

Registration for this course does not require any prerequisites or prior knowledge, only an interest in technology and flying drones.

Equipment also will be provided to students, so there are no out-of-pocket costs besides the course payment and the PSI certification exam, contracted through the Federal Aviation Administration.

“We want people in our community to have this opportunity,” said Michael Russell, a member of the Baker City Budget Board who wants to see more uses at the city’s airport. “After this course, they can go and get a job, or get an associate’s degree.”

Students hoping to join the program can sign up through the BMCC website, bluecc.edu/uas. More information is available by calling the Baker City campus at 541-523-9127.

Baker City Airport and economic development

In 2022, Baker City updated its Airport Master Plan, with goals including modernizing the airport for aviation and non-aviation development by evaluating the airport’s airspace, ground space and underground space.

“For several years, we’ve been looking at ways to develop sustainable revenue utilizing city assets,” Russell said.

That year, Baker City also received funding from the FAA’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which awarded the city $159,000 for airport infrastructure development.

Last year the city received $145,000 from the grant, and this year the city will get $144,000.

Russell said the Eastern Oregon Regional Airport in Pendleton is an example of how an airport can become a hub for unmanned aerial systems. Pendleton’s UAS Range has been designated as a Center for Innovation Excellence.

Russell said he also has talked to companies that make aviation components and might want to relocate to Baker City.

“It has a tremendous draw to bring student enrollment, new high paying jobs, new housing, new residents, all that,” Russell says. “Money that the airport can make.”

Another concept, Russell said, is to develop a UAS test range at the Baker City Airport with the U.S. Forest Service to experiment with drones in firefighting.

Companies such as Amazon, FedEx and UPS are all testing their drones at the Pendleton UAS Range but can only fly a short distance, Russell said. That’s where Baker City would come in, having another location for drone testing.

About DelMar AeroEducation

DelMar AeroEducation was founded in 2018 in Pendleton and is a subsidiary of the DelMar Aerospace Corp. of Las Vegas. The company was founded by three military veterans with aerospace experience and expertise in the industry.

It started as a service and consulting company for government and commercial clients, eventually expanding to create an education sector to teach anybody who wants to learn how to fly.

At BMCC in Pendleton, DelMar has been teaching a non-credit training certificate program for three years and the degree program last year.

While Edwards estimated the company to have taught 60 students at BMCC, overall students fall in the range of 130-140.