About Us

  A lifetime of experience in 'crewed' aviation. A lifetime ahead in uncrewed aviation.

A Star is Born! Or at least we think so.

Dronestar™ Pty Ltd was not born overnight. It's the culmination of 35 years of experience in aviation. Dronestar™ founder and Managing Director, Darren Froggatt, is an instrument rated commercial pilot, with a lifetime of experience in teaching, and crewed aviation, both commercially and for pleasure.  Holding an aerobatic endorsement and ratings on multiple piston and turbine aircraft, Darren has been hooked on aviation all of his life. 

Darren has extensive training development experience, and has designed a wide variety of aviation training packages for both part 141 'manned' aviation PPL and CPL training organisations,  and multiple un-crewed aviation training companies. This forms the basis of class leading, and innovative training solutions here at Dronestar™.

A little bit of history.  Darren began teaching as a ski and snowboard instructor many years ago, and progressed a passion for teaching into aviation. In 2017, Darren joined the Ripper Aviation Academy, (initially as an instructor and then, later as Chief Remote Pilot), navigating it into incredible success through the complete destruction caused by COVID.

In 2023, the Ripper Aviation Academy was licenced to Surf Lifesaving Queensland with Darren continuing as Chief Remote Pilot (CRP) and Academy Manager.

Darren continued as CRP, building new courses and deliveries nationwide, simultaneously building a completely new training ReOC (Remote Operators Certificate) for Surf Lifesaving Queensland UAV Pty Ltd t/as Uncrewed Aviation Australia, adding advanced procedures and approvals into EVLOS,  and Medium Category multi-rotor type ratings along with other contextualised courses for on and off-beach operations and training for Surf Lifesaving staff and volunteers.

This application was approved by CASA early 2024. In April 2024, Darren resigned from his position as Chief Remote Pilot and Academy Manager at Surf Lifesaving Queensland.

With a desire to commit to advanced aviation training and operations, get advanced packages built and delivered at the highest level, and continue to develop and lead the un-crewed training and safety space, this was a natural progression away from Surf Lifesaving, allowing far more freedom to develop and deliver training at the highest level,  working alongside CASA at the forefront of un-crewed aviation regulation. This is exactly what drives the Dronestar™ capability.

Starting in 2024, Dronestar™ deliver the very best un-crewed aviation training - worldwide. With unmatched experience and contacts in aviation, and an unrivalled ability to change and deploy new product and services, including the procedures that go with them, in order to secure advanced framework legislation, we are able to offer the most pro-active, up to date, accredited and non-accredited training packages available - anywhere.

We will continually build on this, and scale up as technologies become available. We will write procedures to deliver unparalleled training, to meet and exceed our customer, and industry expectation and demand. In fact, with many of our courses, we create both.

And we don't rest. In the background we are continually innovating - building new courses and packages faster than anyone else- because we can. We're not held back. Building new content, delivery methods and using technology to further advance our, and your, operational and training capability.

At Dronestar™, this commitment is life long. It's in our blood - and definitely in the Air.

Welcome to Dronestar™. The future of un-crewed aviation. Your trusted partner, leading, simply, by example.