Despite the growing use of drones in SA, industry players say the country is lagging the rest of the continent in exploiting the technology due to a cumbersome regulatory process and lack of co-ordination.
Irvin Phenyane, chair of the Drone Council SA (DCSA) - which was formed last month to encourage joint participation by the private and public sectors in promoting drones - says SA is "sleeping".
"We don't even know how much the industry is worth in SA, it's so fragmented," Phenyane says.
"If we weren't so disorganised we wouldn't be so far behind, but by 2023 we will have caught up."
Shaun Ledlie, president of the Association of Aviation Training Organisations of SA, says: "It's shameful that Sierra Leone is ahead of us and is delivering blood using drones."
Ghana and Rwanda are also drone pacesetters on the continent, Ledlie says.
Drones are best suited for dirty, dull or dangerous work, says Kim James, director of security company Drone Guards.
For the past 15 months, the company, a division of UAV Aerial Works, has been using unmanned aerial surveillance drones to assist in protecting its clients and their assets.
James says that a human guard can patrol a perimeter fence on foot at about 5km/h, and cannot see over a wall, but a drone can fly at up to 30km/h and has a far wider field of vision.
Other sectors that use drones include agriculture and mining, and drones have been adapted for aerial spraying of herbicide on invasive alien plant species.
Cobus Meiring of the Southern Cape Landowners Initiative, a group formed to fight invasive alien species in the region, says the results from tests with drones "have been great".
He says farmers and other landowners can save a lot of money by using drones rather than people on the ground.
Manual spraying of herbicides costs a farmer about R10,000 a hectare compared with about R1,500/ha using a drone, which is quicker and more effective.
Mining company Sibanye-Stillwater started using drones for security in 2014. Nash Lutchman, the senior vice-president for the company's protection services division, says the machines are particularly effective in spotting cable-theft syndicates at night, using thermal cameras.
But he notes that drones often have only 30-40 minutes of flight time and require multiple battery packs to be on charge so they can complete the six hours of monitoring required.
Drones are sensitive to weather conditions and cannot be used when it is windy or raining, and can easily be heard approaching. Sibanye has started using quieter fixed-wing drones supplied by UDS, a Johannesburg company.
One reason SA's drone industry has fallen behind is that the regulator lacks capacity, which means delays in approving licences for drone operators and pilots.
"In Rwanda you can get an operator's licence in 48 hours," says Ledlie. "In SA it can take between two and three years."
In SA, to obtain an operating licence, a company needs qualified pilots on its payroll. But the catch-22 is that few can afford even one entry-level pilot earning between R15,000 and R16,000 a month if they do not have a licence to operate and earn an income. Pilots with more experience who are able to fly beyond the line of sight can expect higher salaries.
It costs between R20,000 and R25,000 to complete the regulatory process to obtain a pilot's licence and between R150,000 and R200,000 for an operator's licence, says Ledlie.
Phenyane says pilot training also needs attention. The DCSA is in talks with colleges, universities and government departments to finalise a training programme. He believes drone flight training should be provided at schools so school-leavers will have an employable skill.
Zanda Setlaleleng, an aviation specialist at Conquer Aviation, says demand for drone operators and pilots exceeds supply.
The Civil Aviation Authority did not respond to a request for comment.
