And, as part of that, you need to have a Chief Remote Pilot,” Amanda Meys, Chief Remote Pilot of Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, told Cosmos. By September 2020, Meys was selected to become the next Chief Remote Pilot – a role which takes her across all of CSIRO’s research units and the country. In addition to the remote pilot operating the drone, this will allow trained observers to act as ‘spotters’ to extend the range at which drones can be flown. “For a very long time, it would probably be unheard of that there was a 100kg drone flying around in the sky. So now the drones are getting bigger, the [battery] technology is getting better … We can now fly longer and further,” Meys says.