VTOL Tail-Sitter Training Manual

Document: RFD-TM-001 · Version: v0.2 (DRAFT) · Owner / Approver: Joni Sytsma (Chief Remote Pilot & Chief Maintenance Officer) · Status: UNCONTROLLED WHEN PRINTED · See Document Control.

Progressive type-conversion training for the Rocket Fast Drones (RFD) VTOL tail-sitter family. It takes a trainee from ground handling through hover, forward flight, and powered-lift missions to autonomous operation. It is the companion to the Operations Manual — this manual teaches how to fly the aircraft; the ops manual is the reference for the aircraft and its procedures. Training is delivered by an RFD-certified instructor.

Caution

Draft. Session durations, aircraft-specific values and assessment criteria still carrying [TBD] will be finalised with the first external training cohort. Training is delivered by RFD — this published syllabus is for orientation and reference.

Prerequisites

• Appropriate CASA remote-pilot licence and currency for the intended operation.
• Familiarity with the Operations Manual, in particular Safety and the Platform Overview — understand the tail-sitter axis convention and transition behaviour before first flight.
• Ground-school completion (aircraft systems, GCS, battery handling, emergency procedures).

Course structure — expedited type conversion

RFD training is deliberately expedited — the aim is to get a competent operator flying quickly. (Feedback from military evaluators is that multi-day courses are longer than needed; the syllabus is structured so a motivated pilot can progress efficiently, with the simulator used to compress the hands-on hours.) Exact scheduling is set per cohort by the instructor.

Session	Focus
Session 1 — Ground & GCS	Ground handling, assembly, GCS familiarisation, pre-flight
Session 2 — Hover	Tail-sitter hover: take-off, position hold, box manoeuvres, landing
Session 3 — Forward flight	Transition, circuits, figure-eights, climbing/descending turns
Session 4 — Powered-lift & auto	Full mission profiles; autonomous missions
Session 5 — Failsafes & emergencies	RTL, link loss, EKF failure, emergency drills
Assessment	Competency checklist and sign-off

Aircraft carve-outs: the syllabus is common to the family; EP250- and EP450-specific call-outs (e.g. the EP450’s no-airspeed-sensor and take-off-aligned SOP; the EP250’s assembly-from-tube procedure) appear inline in each session.

Teaching format (each exercise)

1. Briefing · 2. Instructor demonstration · 3. Trainee with full instructor direction ·
2. Trainee with zero direction (assessment).

By the end, the trainee will be competent to operate the aircraft across its full envelope — vertical hover, forward transition, cruise, back transition, and vertical recovery — under both manual-assist and autonomous modes.

Simulator

RFD provides a flight simulator (Unreal Engine visualiser on the RFD flight-physics model) that mirrors the aircraft’s behaviour. Simulator time is part of every training course and is used to compress the hands-on hours. Ongoing simulator access is available under a separate licence — contact RFD to license the simulator for continued in-house training and currency.

Instructor & certification

Training is delivered and competency is certified by an RFD-certified instructor. Current certifying instructor: Joni Sytsma (Chief Remote Pilot). On successful assessment (see Assessment) the trainee is endorsed to operate the assessed aircraft type(s).

Revision log

Version	Date	Author	Notes
v0.1	2026-07-21	RFD	Initial family draft; syllabus generalised from RFD-TRN-EP250-001

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UNCONTROLLED WHEN PRINTED. The controlled version is maintained in the RFD document management system.