Become a Drone Expert
At the outset, I should confess that I have no degrees after my name and never have been an aircraft pilot but have been a serial entrepreneur, even naming a business as “Satellite Enterprises”. In his seminal article in the mid 1940 s, in the now out-of-publication magazine” Wireless World”, Arthur C. Clarke set out the principles of the Communications Satellite, that since has made communications almost seem a utility, including the ubiquitous GPS and Navigator Apps. “Fountains of Eden” is his novel about Space Elevators, based in Ceylon. Ceylon, now Sri Lanka is also my country of birth, and was the final resting place, of the Englishman, who also resided for a while in Florida, a place of considerable innovation in related fields.
My interest in aviation led me join the Royal Ceylon Air Force as an Aircraft Radio Technician in no small measure was this influence. It so happened that in my later life, I decided to live in the USA. I was fortunate to have tumbled onto few people who had visions to the future (which I did not have) that I have been truly humbled to learn from.
In his seminal article in the mid 1940 s, in the now out-of-publication magazine” Wireless World”, Arthur C. Clarke set out the principles of the Communications Satellite, that since has made communications almost seem a utility, including the ubiquitous GPS and Navigator Apps.
My interest in aviation led me join the Royal Ceylon Air Force as an Aircraft Radio Technician in no small measure was this influence. It so happened that in my later life, I decided to live in the USA. I was fortunate to have tumbled onto few people who had visions to the future (which I did not have) that I have been truly humbled to learn from.
I will always look up to them in gratitude. The training I got from The Institution of Aeronautical Engineering of Royal Ceylon Air Force, way back in 1970 s made me pay attention to Hardware with the advent of Computing devices until my lifelong friend in Singapore Gamini Perera told me “Software is the future and that is where you should focus on”. This was back in early eighties the time of punched-paper cards and magnetic media: tape, disc and the like. In the late Eighties, I still remember Mr. N. V. Wickramasinghe, who was setting up the Hewlett-Packard Affiliate’s Service Department where an Avionics Tech colleague of mine worked, telling about the promise of the Internet.
He in turn introduced me to his uncle Quentin, Radio Ham with the Call sign 4S7QW. It turned out that Uncle Quentin was a subscriber to Wireless World Magazine: he had been re-posted (at the end of the war, from his duties Manufacturing Communications Equipment for the UK Government, in Meerut, India). to Director General of Broadcasting, and putting together a Radar Beacon made entirely of surplus parts…. for the Male (Maldive Islands) Airstrip. Many an hour did I spend in his Ham Radio Shack…
Yet another is, the brilliant technician, my colleague and a family friend Mr. Nilame Konara who has a patent on one of his innovations, and has unfortunately succumbed to ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease recently, made another prediction in the early Nineties when I was working with him in a TV work shop. Flat Screen TVs had not yet arrived and big bulky Cathode Ray Tubes tended to lose their Phosphorescence and a faded picture resulted- bad for the eyes – particularly when used as a monitor for long hours. An inventor came up with a method to renew them. When I mentioned to my friend that I wanted to invest in this gadget he told me “don’t be silly they all are going to get replaced with flat screens”.
Closer to real life values, I will state here a lesson that I learnt from Mr. Jess Thompson back in mid 70 s. At that time in the Company I was working, Offshore Navigation Inc, based in Louisiana in a Pre-GPS era, Mr. Jess Thompson was treated as the maestro of Satellite Receivers who never comes to the Orient as he is so needed in the Base in USA. However, he had to come to Thailand in order to handle a major technical situation and I had the honor to meet him. When I expressed how gratified I am even to say hello to him, his extremely humble response was: “You and I both are doing the same thing- If we don’t get hungry we don’t have to work”. Yet another moral lesson I learnt was when I kept reading books on Drones the author of “Make Money with Drones” Mr. Patrick Shaub says in his book “If you want to make money see how much you can give to the society, it is a give and take. Between my wife and I we try to out give each other. Of course, my wife will definitely tell me “You should follow him”.
Well, a little humor helps!
Become a Drone Expert
At the outset, I should confess that I have no degrees after my name and never have been an aircraft pilot but have been a serial entrepreneur, even naming a business as “Satellite Enterprises”. In his seminal article in the mid 1940 s, in the now out-of-publication magazine” Wireless World”, Arthur C. Clarke set out the principles of the Communications Satellite, that since has made communications almost seem a utility, including the ubiquitous GPS and Navigator Apps. “Fountains of Eden” is his novel about Space Elevators, based in Ceylon. Ceylon, now Sri Lanka is also my country of birth, and was the final resting place, of the Englishman, who also resided for a while in Florida, a place of considerable innovation in related fields.
In his seminal article in the mid 1940 s, in the now out-of-publication magazine” Wireless World”, Arthur C. Clarke set out the principles of the Communications Satellite, that since has made communications almost seem a utility, including the ubiquitous GPS and Navigator Apps.
“Fountains of Eden” is his novel about Space Elevators, based in Ceylon. Ceylon, now Sri Lanka is also my country of birth, and was the final resting place, of the Englishman, who also resided for a while in Florida, a place of considerable innovation in related fields.
My interest in aviation led me join the Royal Ceylon Air Force as an Aircraft Radio Technician in no small measure was this influence. It so happened that in my later life, I decided to live in the USA. I was fortunate to have tumbled onto few people who had visions to the future (which I did not have) that I have been truly humbled to learn from.
I will always look up to them in gratitude. The training I got from The Institution of Aeronautical Engineering of Royal Ceylon Air Force, way back in 1970 s made me pay attention to Hardware with the advent of Computing devices until my lifelong friend in Singapore Gamini Perera told me “Software is the future and that is where you should focus on”. This was back in early eighties the time of punched-paper cards and magnetic media: tape, disc and the like. In the late Eighties, I still remember Mr. N. V. Wickramasinghe, who was setting up the Hewlett-Packard Affiliate’s Service Department where an Avionics Tech colleague of mine worked, telling about the promise of the Internet.
He in turn introduced me to his uncle Quentin, Radio Ham with the Call sign 4S7QW. It turned out that Uncle Quentin was a subscriber to Wireless World Magazine: he had been re-posted (at the end of the war, from his duties Manufacturing Communications Equipment for the UK Government, in Meerut, India). to Director General of Broadcasting, and putting together a Radar Beacon made entirely of surplus parts…. for the Male (Maldive Islands) Airstrip. Many an hour did I spend in his Ham Radio Shack…
Yet another is, the brilliant technician, my colleague and a family friend Mr. Nilame Konara who has a patent on one of his innovations, and has unfortunately succumbed to ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease recently, made another prediction in the early Nineties when I was working with him in a TV work shop. Flat Screen TVs had not yet arrived and big bulky Cathode Ray Tubes tended to lose their Phosphorescence and a faded picture resulted- bad for the eyes – particularly when used as a monitor for long hours. An inventor came up with a method to renew them. When I mentioned to my friend that I wanted to invest in this gadget he told me “don’t be silly they all are going to get replaced with flat screens”.
Closer to real life values, I will state here a lesson that I learnt from Mr. Jess Thompson back in mid 70 s. At that time in the Company I was working, Offshore Navigation Inc, based in Louisiana in a Pre-GPS era, Mr. Jess Thompson was treated as the maestro of Satellite Receivers who never comes to the Orient as he is so needed in the Base in USA. However, he had to come to Thailand in order to handle a major technical situation and I had the honor to meet him. When I expressed how gratified I am even to say hello to him, his extremely humble response was: “You and I both are doing the same thing- If we don’t get hungry we don’t have to work”. Yet another moral lesson I learnt was when I kept reading books on Drones the author of “Make Money with Drones” Mr. Patrick Shaub says in his book “If you want to make money see how much you can give to the society, it is a give and take. Between my wife and I we try to out give each other. Of course, my wife will definitely tell me “You should follow him”.
Well, a little humor helps!