I just typed in "dronepilot" and this came up in YouTube...https://www.youtube.com/@dronepilot
Maybe I'm wrong...but I think it represents a possible long term mistake of not creating a more unique handle. Granted seo competitor overlap is inevitable, but all of your marketing, seo, hashtags (#dronepilot) etc, could in affect be marketing competitor's channels just as effectively. If I was forced into an exact channel name/handle that was already taken or used by an established channel, I wouldn't add numbers, I would add words, something like "BestDronePilot", "SuperiorDronePilot", "UKDronePilot", "TheDronePilot", etc, etc. hmmm.....
I must admit all this advice is great thanks you have given me lots to think about and some hard decisions to make.
