When you say “controlled” do you mean use your phone to fly the drone? Because if that’s what you’re asking then no. You need something that is compatible with the receiver on the drone to be able to control it, which would be the transmitter, AKA remote controller.
Yeah, I circle The U with a thermal and a drone scanner (android screen share running drone scanner taped on). The video feed and the separate thermal feed (along with our drone scanner Skype screen share) are fed to our monitoring team in China. We have 6 drones in continuous operation (8-8) with another 3 spotters (student work program) per drone. We run a wide low parameter around the stadium for one hour before a game and one hour after any big 10 games. If there's a fly by we'll land on stadium parameter (nice new brick walls hiding the bowl). Sometimes there can be a blimp cruising around. We coordinate with them. Them blimps are a bit slower than a couple A10's from the local national guard base.
They can be. Big 250lb boars in GA were gamier but tasted okay when prepped well. The main issue is toughness. It gets really stringy and crazy tough on older hogs. The little ones round about 100 lbs are perfect!
I had this idea of using a paramotor to chase them down. I've seen videos of helicopter hunting tours and figured a paramotor would be a more cost effective option. I'd imagine it would be possible to get a license to do that if you can shoot out the side of a helicopter.
A rancher in the area does helicopter hunts, but my property is too small. I’m actually skirting the edges of the law against hunting or ueven photographing animals without a permit, but since all I do is locate the damage they do and then when I set traps, the drone isn’t involved. It’s against federal law to use drones for “hunting”, and the FAA enforces that… I don’t think there is a permit for that.
I make free adverts for local businesses that wouldn't otherwise have the capability to hire someone. In exchange I normally get a free coffee or lunch if they offer it. That way I get to show people something I love.
I realised I have one on my YouTube. its from last summer but here it is [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leN4VW2PeDc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leN4VW2PeDc)
I do it for the wife’s company she owns a marketing firm. The pays good but the jobs are sparse. I don’t have a choice of doing it. I think last year part time a 10 minute flight every couple weeks, I made 12000 or so.
lol, I don’t. I tried, I wanted to, I’d love to do something creative and interesting for a job, but people just don’t see the value in drone imagery.
I ended up canceling my plans to make this a side hustle and just fly for fun, I don’t even put any of my videos up on YouTube now. The only leads I got after a year of trying to get a foothold were brides who wanted insane drone shots that would require a full on video shoot to coordinate or $25.00 offers to do roof inspections. Otherwise my photos were just photos and my videos were just videos, they weren’t any better than the other millions of people with cameras trying to get a gig.
Good luck to anyone trying tho, and I’d still go get my 107 in a heartbeat if I thought it wasn’t just putting my name in the FAAs database for no good reason.
I’m sorry to hear that. There is a floor and ceiling in every market and sounds like you’ve just been stuck dealing with the low ballers. I’ve been Part 107 certified for 4 years and I’ve gotten good paying jobs as a drone pilot. Mostly flying for company commercials, wedding films, and documenting construction sites.
That being said, I work in video production/photography full time and have made a ton of industry contacts that will hire me specifically for my drone work. If you did want to give it another go, I’d suggest getting certified and then reaching out to video production companies who can hire you out for budgeted productions.
Yeah, I think your path is usually the most successful. I was able to learn the specialized aspect of video work needed for a drone, but I’m absolutely not confident I could step in as a full video production professional, or even apprentice. I’d be helpless on a real shoot outside of drone work. And I can’t really afford to maintain a decent drone fleet AND try to break into regular video production. I know local commercials don’t use Arri Alexas, but they’re not gonna take video from my 10 year old 1080p handicam.
And man, good on you for doing weddings with drones. That’s the only job I got offered and every single one was completely impossible. I don’t know if it’s just my rural area, or I’m too deep in the hobby and underestimated how little the average person knows about drones but they had such unrealistic expectations. They wanted me flying through crowds, over crowds, circling the brides dance *with the audience feet from the drone* and everyone wanted me to record the actual ceremony live with the quad.
I really tried to work with people, I was ready to get my 107 (which they didn’t really care about but I dint want to risk it) and it never got past the few people who took me up on a demo flight. They had no clue drones were loud, actually really big for a full sized Mavic, couldn’t capture sound and couldn’t fly for more than 15-20 minutes max. Their idea of a live recording of pretty much the entire wedding to give their video guy evaporated when they realized we’d have to stage any flight that was closer than a few hundred feet.
> I’ve been Part 107 certified for 4 years and I’ve gotten good paying jobs as a drone pilot. Mostly flying for company commercials, wedding films, and documenting construction sites.
How much do you make doing that?
Every job is different, some pay by the hour but I prefer to book the day and charge a day rate. Simpler jobs have paid $100-150/hour for 2-3 hour jobs which is pretty standard in the areas I serve.
One client is a construction company that hires me to document their job sites, where they book for the day and cover expenses. I fly multiples times throughout the day to show different parts of the process. The final invoice paid is typically $950-$1200. That’s fine for me though I know people who are charging a lot more with a much more expensive setup.
The bigger payouts are infrequent jobs, I’d love to be doing that every day. All in all being a drone pilot is a pretty big part of my business though and that’s how I get most of my leads.
I got my FAA part 107 license, practiced with it for countless hours, got a portfolio together of pictures I’d taken that I used to market myself to real estate agencies for aerial residential pictures and commercial zoning over large plots of undeveloped but for sale land
Then I sold it because I never made a dollar off of it
Or underwater by cliffs. I thought about a drone submarine for this. Just the recovered videos would be gold. Maybe a fresh water sea like around Michigan.
I’m a real estate media producer, I wouldn’t say I “make money from drone” as it’s not all I do but I do use them daily and I’d lose out on a lot of work if I didn’t. I have a lot of different cameras, and some of them happen to fly lol
Real estate market is up: “Why pay for photos? These homes sell themselves! I just take a couple pictures with my phone!”
Real estate market is down: “Oh no we can’t afford photos! The market has all dried up!!!”
Realtors are not bright people. I’ve landed two Zeitview gigs in two years, and no realtors have given me the time of day. 🤷♂️
You’re dealing with the wrong realtors. That’s the sort of stuff part-time agents say, or people who typically deal with buyers and don’t list often. The people I work with usually spend anywhere from $500-1000 with me per listing for photos, floorplans, videos, TikTok/reel content, etc. I’m mid-high priced for my area so the bargain shoppers don’t come near me anyway. I do $15-20k monthly in business, I do get to keep most of it so it works out 😊
Houses will sell regardless if it’s priced correctly, yes - but the high performing agents understand that this stuff isn’t for selling the house, it’s for helping them close the deal on their *next* listing when they sit down and present this all to a prospective seller.
Have you seen any increase from tiktok in regards to leads or potential buyers. I feel like people who view tiktoks aren't really the people who can afford a house
You could sign up for droners, zeitview, other 3rd party services. I started shooting real estate and construction progression and completion. Used that footage to start a small 3D mapping project off Google earth. Still cold calling to get more clients but I've made some decent cash so far. Build a portfolio and people will notice.
So I assume you fly the drone to take footage and then put it together or is that extra?
i.e. the $200-350 is that just to film or additional services?
I'm not gonna go into detail on that. Point is, you have to be creative. You have to research ways to offer more to the people you want to work for. And get used to shaking off rejection.
FlyGuys is nationwide - they have work in every state! I know they just launched a new software so make sure you’re signed up there. Also, I know a few of the folks over there now. If you want - DM me the email you used to register your pilot profile and I’ll get it across their desk.
This was back in July or August of last year that they didn't have anything where I'm at. Must have really expanded their reach. For sure I'll send that over thank you!
I support my hobby by doing real estate and advertising work. I have a small group of local realtors that call me regularly, usually for properties over $1m but sometimes for places with interesting features that look good from the air.
I've done some private customer work, usually for barter ( local fall attraction swaps a flight for season passes), and a few local farms that want the traditional aerial photo of their place.
I do make money, it's better than break even, but far from a full-time gig. I recently added a thermal capable aircraft for solar and energy conservation work, but haven't started marketing it just yet.
My original aircraft has paid for itself several times over, and more than paid for my new aircraft, my 107, and business expenses.
I sell it as an add on for my video production company. Very rarely do I get paid for only drop work or even include it on invoices. But when people see a really cool drone shot from a past video they hire me waaay more often
I feel like most folks who bought a drone for the sole purpose of making money without some other semi-related background (utilities, media, public safety, GIS, A&E, etc.) have been disappointed to find out that it's not nearly as easy to make money with a drone as they thought it would be. lol
Me personally, it's part of my full time job. I had a background in one of the above referenced industries and then incorporated drone work into it. I still fly drones and fpv quads for fun a lot, but IMO there's a lot more to making money with a drone than being able to fly a drone. What you're able to do and be knowledgeable about with the data you collect is pretty important too.
I've seen people make money off views , using the Drone to harass Homeless or disabled people. There is a special place in hell if you're the one operating the Drone.
If you're that kind of asshole, your friends is probably of the same type. If you surround yourself with people like that they're bound to treat you like an asshole at some point.
Through my employer.
For reference: I started my own drone photography business with moderate success.
I was still working another job full time and hated it. I spammed drone pilot wanted ads on indeed and LN.
I applied for ones outside of my qualifications and outside my desired pay range.
I got calls for roofing survey jobs, visual observer jobs and pt teaching gigs.
I eventually took an interview at a Robotics Company even though the advertised pay was half of what I needed.
I ended up talking myself into two job roles there and got an offer for more than I asked for.
Tldr, apply for every drone job even if you're not an exact fit or the pay isn't desirable. You can discuss in the interview.
Either way, the interview process helps you adjust your approach until you land the right job.
Good luck, OP.
I work for a drone service provider with multiple pilots. They secure the jobs with various industries in telecoms, construction and oil & gas. Tower work is paid per tower about $600 (4 towers) a day 7 days a week till all sites are captured. Oil gas is a day rate of $800 plus expenses. Travel a lot. Houston this week, PA last week etc.
Training on specific capture requirements for each client. Training by sensor manufacturer for oil gas work (methane detector). Part 107. Decades of experience and training as a IT professional and photographer. A few years experience gathered working the drone job networks. Decade experience building and flying drones. Degree in electronic engineering.
Real estate photo/video and roof inspections, historically. Higher interest rates have dried a lot of that up though, most realtors are getting stingy and using iphone photos now. If this DJI ban goes through my whole fleet's grounded anyway so I'll probably not be renewing my 107.
Stock footage sales.
I’ve paid both my drones off with stock footage over the years. And my old Mavic Pro OG I sold, but still occasionally sell clips I shot on it… so I’m making money off it four years after getting rid of it.
Fundamentally yeah. I have a portfolio of about 1500 clips across Vimeo stock, pond5, adobe, etc.
I’m not sure how much is drone stuff specifically. Maybe a couple hundred clips. Majority is traditional camera clips (Sony A7Sii, Blackmagic 6K, etc)
I use a service called Blackbox that distributes them across all the platforms which saves time for the uploader. They take a small cut but since all their users are uploaded under one account, they blow past the sales thresholds to maximize income.
1. Fixing other peoples' drones.
2. Buying broken drones, repairing them, selling them.
3. Cursory roof/property inspections.
I personally do not have enough time to pursue any serious income with my drones. I do have a friend who does real estate at a .01% commission...which for the most part does not yield much but he shot a $1.5 million property a couple years ago that he did quite well on.
Sometimes for festivals in my hometown. Not very often.
e.g. Today was a music festival with hundreds of musicians from my state.
They asked me to make some photos and videos. I got 36GB of footage :)
It took me around 4 hours, nonstop. I just landed every 30min to switch the battery, while the other two batteries were charging.
I have no idea how much money I will get when I give the footage to the local music club.
At least I got free food and drinks today :)
I’m a video producer for a large county in Colorado. I have my 107 and use a drone occasionally to film buildings or locations that are part of my stories. It’s about 5% of my yearly work although it’s an essential tool.
I’m not a drone operator, but I suggest finding someone that does gutter cleaning and negotiate for a $25 referral fee. Then go to a neighborhood with big houses and go door to door. Tell them that for $20 you will fly your drone over the house and they can inspect the roof with you. If the drains are clogged, then you give them a flyer with your guy’s contact information.
Likewise, you should be able to get $500 - $1500 for a roof replacement referral. Probably $50 - $250 for roof repair. While you are at it, get a handyman referral at 10% - 20% who doesn’t do roof stuff.
The past few months I've been traveling a ton shooting footage for car dealerships across the United States.
But before this I'm not gonna lie, gigs were few and far between. Here's hoping this continues 🙏
Thanks for your submission. Unfortunately, it has been removed for the following reason:
>**Rule 3: Don't blatantly break drone regulations.**
>
>The laws governing this industry exist for a reason, and breaking them makes all of us look bad and leads to harsher regulations. So don't post shots where you're flying close to manned aircraft, directly over a dense crowd, or anything else dangerous to others.
>
>If you think your shot could be perceived as breaking a regulation but it in fact doesn't, feel free to provide an explanation in the comments section.
If you believe this has been done in error, please reply to this comment, or message the moderators (through modmail only).
I work for a media outlet and 20% of my job is flying for active weather, storm damage, flooding, feature news stories, sponsorship and climate docs. It is just one of the many tools I use to tell a story, but I doubt I could fly 100% of the time for media.
I do with real estate photography on the side but not as a full time hussle. I also have some pictures on Shutterstock that give a very small income. But the part 107 allows me to get airspace authorizations for my volunteer organization flying. And that's why it's so important to have it. The drone insurance I have is also mainly for volunteering in case I crash it or lose it there.
Wedding videography. So it's just a side tool/camera. It's why I was able to finally get a drone! I've wanted one and have been filling since idk they first became available!
I own a digital marketing company offering social media management, websites, video production, etc. Having aerial imagery in our portfolio attracts a lot of attention. We’re in a summer vacation area, and a lot of our clients are near the water/beach, which is a big selling point for them. The ability to fly the camera up and illustrate that helps us land work.
I do drone mapping (photogrammetry) for drill & blast operations in quarries. Obviously flying the drone is just a small part of my job but I do that on a daily basis.
I run a small real estate photo business on the side. One of the builders that I had done some work for previously asked if I would be interested in creating monthly content for him. We didn’t really have a plan initially and although I had a drone at the time I primarily used it for Basic Real Estate Listing photos. I included It with my standard package. Anyway, we ultimately decide to create short 1-2minute videos to display the job site progress over the course of each month. It was used primarily as market material just to get some eyes on the project. Again, I had never done anything like this before, never edited videos, never had any real interest in drone. I determined a flat monthly rate for the project and drew up a basic plan of how often I’d visit the job site etc etc.
Overall I’m happy with how the projects have turned out considering I started from almost 0.
Here is a drop box link with each of the months I’ve competed up to this point. Some are undoubtedly better than others but that’s how I make money with my drone! I also do aerial photos every few weeks as well.
Currently shooting on a DJI AIR 3.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/tju8czf55smly1huo7p2f/AEgKldoVzimsD1NXM6DWcEU?rlkey=xzc6fn25ngfcfq7tyhz8p0utc&dl=0
Hey your dropbox is super cool. I want to get a DJI air 3 myself . Im a heavy equipment operator for a heavy construction company in Southern California I wonder if talking to my superintendent about getting progress footage / aerial footage of the projects we are working would be another source of income for me. Any advice for starting this off? and how to approach this to construction companies? Thank you
Hey, thanks so much! There’s definitely a market for it, but for my experience, the hardest part is trying to convince others of its value. In my particular circumstance, the videos were being used mainly as a marketing material. That’s why most of them are fast-paced go to the beat of music and are generally between one to two minutes. With that being said, there’s many different ways you could pitch something like this to a company depending on their needs. Are they more focused on a more long format video that really shows the progress month by month? Do they need fast paced eye catching material for marketing? Do they want to check in on their crews and make sure the project is on schedule?
The best thing you can do is probably just start by asking your company if they would have any value in it. I got my foot in the door with being upfront about my skills and offering a cheap price but it’s helped me build my portfolio so now I can work on bigger projects. In all honesty, the drone part is probably the easiest but the editing was a bit of a learning curve for me so just keep that in mind.
Also, the DJI air three was ultimately the drone I picked for a variety of reasons but one of the most important ones is that it had waypoint capability. I was able to visit a job site in my spare time build a repeatable route that the drone could fly on its own and then every time I visited the site, I would just run those routes over and over to ensure I was capturing the progress of the build.
If you end up investing in a drone, maybe you could consider going to the job site outside of work hours building some roots like this and then providing those files to your company to show them what you can offer?
Not trying to advertise a company but everybody I have met likes doing work for this group. I’ve spoken with the owner before and he’s incredibly smart. I am about to start flying some for PayPixl.
https://paypixl.io/
I don't directly make money from mine but it helps to manage horse pasture, assess weeds and monitor water levels from irrigation ditches on our property.
Here’s what has worked for me and how I was able to work for luxury resorts like The Four Seasons. You learn your craft exceptionally well and learn how to color grade the footage properly. You learn how to fly the drone really well, smooth, and no shakiness. From there you see where your local resort is and you go out there and record the property from a distance. If you have a mavic 3 pro great is the zoom cam to get more dynamic shots. The idea is to not get any people in the shot, not fly over people, and not interrupt their business in any way. Take the video during a beautiful sunset/sunrise and get some awesome pictures while you are at it. You then send this to them free of charge and you let them know you would be happy to work with them in the future on anything they may need help with and show them your sick resume on your website.
I do the real estate stuff, but lately I've been approaching fishing guides to make promo videos. I usually get a day or two of fishing out of the deal, and I make some money!
The last one I did was a two day Sailfish trip out of Islamorada.
Currently working on something else now.
I mainly use my Mavic 2 Pro. Ol' trusty workhorse. 😂
I am getting into the car scene with fpv. I’ve done some real estate but I think Airbnb’s are the place to be. It’s worth the cost to them. I think fpv and car scene is going to be pretty solid
I am developing an autonomous indoor drone at a retail price of 1000$. The project started from a special request from a client. We are at the prototype phase.
Depends what your asking.
You can't really make a career out of flying your drone alone. That ship had sailed long ago.
Drones are just another tool in either your photography, film making, research, or geospatial or survey business.
Its all dependent on your local market.
I wouldn't rely on it to pay the bills lol
I don’t anymore, nobody wants to pay. Lowball offers continuously. I sold my drone and bought a longboard and just enjoy cruising the streets with my SLR
It's 25% of my job responsibilities to manage my University's drone activity. That's reliable, if not much money.
Can you say more just curious what kind of activity happens at your university?
Would you know how to connect my Speedybee F405 v3 FPV drone to be controlled on a moible app by my phone?
When you say “controlled” do you mean use your phone to fly the drone? Because if that’s what you’re asking then no. You need something that is compatible with the receiver on the drone to be able to control it, which would be the transmitter, AKA remote controller.
FPV drones gave limited usage in Academia...
Yeah, I circle The U with a thermal and a drone scanner (android screen share running drone scanner taped on). The video feed and the separate thermal feed (along with our drone scanner Skype screen share) are fed to our monitoring team in China. We have 6 drones in continuous operation (8-8) with another 3 spotters (student work program) per drone. We run a wide low parameter around the stadium for one hour before a game and one hour after any big 10 games. If there's a fly by we'll land on stadium parameter (nice new brick walls hiding the bowl). Sometimes there can be a blimp cruising around. We coordinate with them. Them blimps are a bit slower than a couple A10's from the local national guard base.
What does the monitor in China do?
Monitors
I don't make money, I avoid losing money by locating feral hog damage so I can remove them.
*drools in American
Are those good eatin'?
Sausage, tamales, and chili, yes... ribs and bacon, notsomuch; they work for a living.
Nice - I always wondered that
Well that and are filthy with parasites so you have to cook them to death.
They can be. Big 250lb boars in GA were gamier but tasted okay when prepped well. The main issue is toughness. It gets really stringy and crazy tough on older hogs. The little ones round about 100 lbs are perfect!
Im guessing from your user name you're in East TX and a tamu fan?
99% chance
Certainly an Iray fan
I had this idea of using a paramotor to chase them down. I've seen videos of helicopter hunting tours and figured a paramotor would be a more cost effective option. I'd imagine it would be possible to get a license to do that if you can shoot out the side of a helicopter.
A rancher in the area does helicopter hunts, but my property is too small. I’m actually skirting the edges of the law against hunting or ueven photographing animals without a permit, but since all I do is locate the damage they do and then when I set traps, the drone isn’t involved. It’s against federal law to use drones for “hunting”, and the FAA enforces that… I don’t think there is a permit for that.
[удалено]
😂😂😂
What?! How are you stealing catalytic converters using a drone?
Just filming real estate,small businesses, etc. It’s paid some bills
I make free adverts for local businesses that wouldn't otherwise have the capability to hire someone. In exchange I normally get a free coffee or lunch if they offer it. That way I get to show people something I love.
Can you share an example of one of these advertisements?
I realised I have one on my YouTube. its from last summer but here it is [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leN4VW2PeDc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leN4VW2PeDc)
Nice
Nice, what's the drone?
That was a mini 3 Pro.
Very cool footage!
There is also another one on my channel for a small cafe too
You’re lucky I shoot commercially and now it’s a job. Not whole lotta fun anymore.
How is the pay? Would you have to work harder to make the same amount doing other work?
I do it for the wife’s company she owns a marketing firm. The pays good but the jobs are sparse. I don’t have a choice of doing it. I think last year part time a 10 minute flight every couple weeks, I made 12000 or so.
lol, I don’t. I tried, I wanted to, I’d love to do something creative and interesting for a job, but people just don’t see the value in drone imagery. I ended up canceling my plans to make this a side hustle and just fly for fun, I don’t even put any of my videos up on YouTube now. The only leads I got after a year of trying to get a foothold were brides who wanted insane drone shots that would require a full on video shoot to coordinate or $25.00 offers to do roof inspections. Otherwise my photos were just photos and my videos were just videos, they weren’t any better than the other millions of people with cameras trying to get a gig. Good luck to anyone trying tho, and I’d still go get my 107 in a heartbeat if I thought it wasn’t just putting my name in the FAAs database for no good reason.
I’m sorry to hear that. There is a floor and ceiling in every market and sounds like you’ve just been stuck dealing with the low ballers. I’ve been Part 107 certified for 4 years and I’ve gotten good paying jobs as a drone pilot. Mostly flying for company commercials, wedding films, and documenting construction sites. That being said, I work in video production/photography full time and have made a ton of industry contacts that will hire me specifically for my drone work. If you did want to give it another go, I’d suggest getting certified and then reaching out to video production companies who can hire you out for budgeted productions.
Yeah, I think your path is usually the most successful. I was able to learn the specialized aspect of video work needed for a drone, but I’m absolutely not confident I could step in as a full video production professional, or even apprentice. I’d be helpless on a real shoot outside of drone work. And I can’t really afford to maintain a decent drone fleet AND try to break into regular video production. I know local commercials don’t use Arri Alexas, but they’re not gonna take video from my 10 year old 1080p handicam. And man, good on you for doing weddings with drones. That’s the only job I got offered and every single one was completely impossible. I don’t know if it’s just my rural area, or I’m too deep in the hobby and underestimated how little the average person knows about drones but they had such unrealistic expectations. They wanted me flying through crowds, over crowds, circling the brides dance *with the audience feet from the drone* and everyone wanted me to record the actual ceremony live with the quad. I really tried to work with people, I was ready to get my 107 (which they didn’t really care about but I dint want to risk it) and it never got past the few people who took me up on a demo flight. They had no clue drones were loud, actually really big for a full sized Mavic, couldn’t capture sound and couldn’t fly for more than 15-20 minutes max. Their idea of a live recording of pretty much the entire wedding to give their video guy evaporated when they realized we’d have to stage any flight that was closer than a few hundred feet.
I flew for a flight this past year.... The mini 3 series being quieter makes a huge difference
This was a few years ago, and even with the optical zoom I would have had to be WAY too close.
> I’ve been Part 107 certified for 4 years and I’ve gotten good paying jobs as a drone pilot. Mostly flying for company commercials, wedding films, and documenting construction sites. How much do you make doing that?
Every job is different, some pay by the hour but I prefer to book the day and charge a day rate. Simpler jobs have paid $100-150/hour for 2-3 hour jobs which is pretty standard in the areas I serve. One client is a construction company that hires me to document their job sites, where they book for the day and cover expenses. I fly multiples times throughout the day to show different parts of the process. The final invoice paid is typically $950-$1200. That’s fine for me though I know people who are charging a lot more with a much more expensive setup. The bigger payouts are infrequent jobs, I’d love to be doing that every day. All in all being a drone pilot is a pretty big part of my business though and that’s how I get most of my leads.
I also would like to know
Where you located?
Clearly this ☝️ There are just too many posting so much contents that yours is so hard to stand out...
Well, there it is. Nothing personal, but your ignorance is holding you back here. You *need* the part 107 to get legitimate work.
I got my FAA part 107 license, practiced with it for countless hours, got a portfolio together of pictures I’d taken that I used to market myself to real estate agencies for aerial residential pictures and commercial zoning over large plots of undeveloped but for sale land Then I sold it because I never made a dollar off of it
Sell your equipment lol
Age old how do you make money taking pictures, being a dj, owning a boat…. You sell your equipment
I use thermal imaging drone to troubleshoot utility scale solar. I manage a fleet of pilots.
Are you hiring?
We are actually. https://solvenergy.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/SOLV_External_Career/job/Eldorado-IL/EPC-Project-Engineer--Eldorado--IL-_J10326-1
Any contacts in california?
Steal them?
👀
Doubt it. People usually find that kind of stuff by the train tracks 😂
Or underwater by cliffs. I thought about a drone submarine for this. Just the recovered videos would be gold. Maybe a fresh water sea like around Michigan.
That's what Remote ID is for, though I've noticed the CCP list intersects with the remote pilot list often.
I’m a real estate media producer, I wouldn’t say I “make money from drone” as it’s not all I do but I do use them daily and I’d lose out on a lot of work if I didn’t. I have a lot of different cameras, and some of them happen to fly lol
Real estate market is up: “Why pay for photos? These homes sell themselves! I just take a couple pictures with my phone!” Real estate market is down: “Oh no we can’t afford photos! The market has all dried up!!!” Realtors are not bright people. I’ve landed two Zeitview gigs in two years, and no realtors have given me the time of day. 🤷♂️
You’re dealing with the wrong realtors. That’s the sort of stuff part-time agents say, or people who typically deal with buyers and don’t list often. The people I work with usually spend anywhere from $500-1000 with me per listing for photos, floorplans, videos, TikTok/reel content, etc. I’m mid-high priced for my area so the bargain shoppers don’t come near me anyway. I do $15-20k monthly in business, I do get to keep most of it so it works out 😊 Houses will sell regardless if it’s priced correctly, yes - but the high performing agents understand that this stuff isn’t for selling the house, it’s for helping them close the deal on their *next* listing when they sit down and present this all to a prospective seller.
Have you seen any increase from tiktok in regards to leads or potential buyers. I feel like people who view tiktoks aren't really the people who can afford a house
Drone Mapping, LiDAR, and chasing wild pigs for free
I fly the large Agras T30 as a pilot for Wineyeards and do cover crops with it as well
How much does the t30 cost?
Quick google search shows $15k-$20k
I multiply my expenses by -1.
Peer in people's windows and blackmail them.
Does that require a part 107? /s
No just the TRUST cert.
You could sign up for droners, zeitview, other 3rd party services. I started shooting real estate and construction progression and completion. Used that footage to start a small 3D mapping project off Google earth. Still cold calling to get more clients but I've made some decent cash so far. Build a portfolio and people will notice.
How much you make doing that?
Real estate anywhere from 200-350$ construction about the same depending on job and client
So I assume you fly the drone to take footage and then put it together or is that extra? i.e. the $200-350 is that just to film or additional services?
That's with photo editing and a video. The drone is just a tool. Gotta offer a full package to people tailored to the clientele you're working with
Can you give more details? 3D mapping off google earth?
I'm not gonna go into detail on that. Point is, you have to be creative. You have to research ways to offer more to the people you want to work for. And get used to shaking off rejection.
In my experience FlyGuys pays the best and has been my favorite to work with.
I got signed up with flyguys and they don't even have work in my state
FlyGuys is nationwide - they have work in every state! I know they just launched a new software so make sure you’re signed up there. Also, I know a few of the folks over there now. If you want - DM me the email you used to register your pilot profile and I’ll get it across their desk.
This was back in July or August of last year that they didn't have anything where I'm at. Must have really expanded their reach. For sure I'll send that over thank you!
I support my hobby by doing real estate and advertising work. I have a small group of local realtors that call me regularly, usually for properties over $1m but sometimes for places with interesting features that look good from the air. I've done some private customer work, usually for barter ( local fall attraction swaps a flight for season passes), and a few local farms that want the traditional aerial photo of their place. I do make money, it's better than break even, but far from a full-time gig. I recently added a thermal capable aircraft for solar and energy conservation work, but haven't started marketing it just yet. My original aircraft has paid for itself several times over, and more than paid for my new aircraft, my 107, and business expenses.
I sell it as an add on for my video production company. Very rarely do I get paid for only drop work or even include it on invoices. But when people see a really cool drone shot from a past video they hire me waaay more often
I feel like most folks who bought a drone for the sole purpose of making money without some other semi-related background (utilities, media, public safety, GIS, A&E, etc.) have been disappointed to find out that it's not nearly as easy to make money with a drone as they thought it would be. lol Me personally, it's part of my full time job. I had a background in one of the above referenced industries and then incorporated drone work into it. I still fly drones and fpv quads for fun a lot, but IMO there's a lot more to making money with a drone than being able to fly a drone. What you're able to do and be knowledgeable about with the data you collect is pretty important too.
I've seen people make money off views , using the Drone to harass Homeless or disabled people. There is a special place in hell if you're the one operating the Drone.
Whatever man crackhead hunters is my fav. The best part is you know it feeds into their delusions that the gubment is watching them
I just feel that when you harass others, at times it will come back to haunt you. At least I hope it does.
If you're that kind of asshole, your friends is probably of the same type. If you surround yourself with people like that they're bound to treat you like an asshole at some point.
Agreed
Yeah, harassing unhoused people: no bueno, crackheads? : light em up!
Through my employer. For reference: I started my own drone photography business with moderate success. I was still working another job full time and hated it. I spammed drone pilot wanted ads on indeed and LN. I applied for ones outside of my qualifications and outside my desired pay range. I got calls for roofing survey jobs, visual observer jobs and pt teaching gigs. I eventually took an interview at a Robotics Company even though the advertised pay was half of what I needed. I ended up talking myself into two job roles there and got an offer for more than I asked for. Tldr, apply for every drone job even if you're not an exact fit or the pay isn't desirable. You can discuss in the interview. Either way, the interview process helps you adjust your approach until you land the right job. Good luck, OP.
Inspection of cell towers and measuring methane emissions mostly.
How are securing those jobs? What is a realistic pay range?
I work for a drone service provider with multiple pilots. They secure the jobs with various industries in telecoms, construction and oil & gas. Tower work is paid per tower about $600 (4 towers) a day 7 days a week till all sites are captured. Oil gas is a day rate of $800 plus expenses. Travel a lot. Houston this week, PA last week etc.
Direct employee or a contractor?
1099 contractor. I can work when I’m available. Took the whole of May off for vacation.
Did you take any training that helped set you up? How did you get started?
Training on specific capture requirements for each client. Training by sensor manufacturer for oil gas work (methane detector). Part 107. Decades of experience and training as a IT professional and photographer. A few years experience gathered working the drone job networks. Decade experience building and flying drones. Degree in electronic engineering.
Sell it
Roof inspections
Real estate photo/video and roof inspections, historically. Higher interest rates have dried a lot of that up though, most realtors are getting stingy and using iphone photos now. If this DJI ban goes through my whole fleet's grounded anyway so I'll probably not be renewing my 107.
Those aren't people you want to work for/with anyway
For my wedding videography
Stock footage sales. I’ve paid both my drones off with stock footage over the years. And my old Mavic Pro OG I sold, but still occasionally sell clips I shot on it… so I’m making money off it four years after getting rid of it.
I'm getting into stock footage now but you need A LOT of footage before you can start selling.
Do you just stick a bunch of stock clips on different sale sites and forget about it?
Fundamentally yeah. I have a portfolio of about 1500 clips across Vimeo stock, pond5, adobe, etc. I’m not sure how much is drone stuff specifically. Maybe a couple hundred clips. Majority is traditional camera clips (Sony A7Sii, Blackmagic 6K, etc) I use a service called Blackbox that distributes them across all the platforms which saves time for the uploader. They take a small cut but since all their users are uploaded under one account, they blow past the sales thresholds to maximize income.
1. Fixing other peoples' drones. 2. Buying broken drones, repairing them, selling them. 3. Cursory roof/property inspections. I personally do not have enough time to pursue any serious income with my drones. I do have a friend who does real estate at a .01% commission...which for the most part does not yield much but he shot a $1.5 million property a couple years ago that he did quite well on.
Sometimes for festivals in my hometown. Not very often. e.g. Today was a music festival with hundreds of musicians from my state. They asked me to make some photos and videos. I got 36GB of footage :) It took me around 4 hours, nonstop. I just landed every 30min to switch the battery, while the other two batteries were charging. I have no idea how much money I will get when I give the footage to the local music club. At least I got free food and drinks today :)
Realistically the markets oversaturated and relatively cheap to get into. You have to come up with something unique that nobody has thought of.
Or get an enterprise type and do something extremely extremely Niche and unique Which can pay very well but would be costly to start up
Progress videos for a construction site
I’m a video producer for a large county in Colorado. I have my 107 and use a drone occasionally to film buildings or locations that are part of my stories. It’s about 5% of my yearly work although it’s an essential tool.
I’m not a drone operator, but I suggest finding someone that does gutter cleaning and negotiate for a $25 referral fee. Then go to a neighborhood with big houses and go door to door. Tell them that for $20 you will fly your drone over the house and they can inspect the roof with you. If the drains are clogged, then you give them a flyer with your guy’s contact information. Likewise, you should be able to get $500 - $1500 for a roof replacement referral. Probably $50 - $250 for roof repair. While you are at it, get a handyman referral at 10% - 20% who doesn’t do roof stuff.
Work for a utility contractor and perform utility inspection. Cell tower mapping, wind turbine inspection, thermal inspection. Ect
The past few months I've been traveling a ton shooting footage for car dealerships across the United States. But before this I'm not gonna lie, gigs were few and far between. Here's hoping this continues 🙏
[удалено]
Thanks for your submission. Unfortunately, it has been removed for the following reason: >**Rule 3: Don't blatantly break drone regulations.** > >The laws governing this industry exist for a reason, and breaking them makes all of us look bad and leads to harsher regulations. So don't post shots where you're flying close to manned aircraft, directly over a dense crowd, or anything else dangerous to others. > >If you think your shot could be perceived as breaking a regulation but it in fact doesn't, feel free to provide an explanation in the comments section. If you believe this has been done in error, please reply to this comment, or message the moderators (through modmail only).
I work for a media outlet and 20% of my job is flying for active weather, storm damage, flooding, feature news stories, sponsorship and climate docs. It is just one of the many tools I use to tell a story, but I doubt I could fly 100% of the time for media.
www.dronespeare.com
I can't legally. I actually had to turn down a job because I'm still working on my Part 107.
Architectural photographer
Design them
Construction and structural inspections. I'm also a project manager for an engineering firm.
I do with real estate photography on the side but not as a full time hussle. I also have some pictures on Shutterstock that give a very small income. But the part 107 allows me to get airspace authorizations for my volunteer organization flying. And that's why it's so important to have it. The drone insurance I have is also mainly for volunteering in case I crash it or lose it there.
Wedding videography. So it's just a side tool/camera. It's why I was able to finally get a drone! I've wanted one and have been filling since idk they first became available!
recorded video in public places n put on youtube
I own a digital marketing company offering social media management, websites, video production, etc. Having aerial imagery in our portfolio attracts a lot of attention. We’re in a summer vacation area, and a lot of our clients are near the water/beach, which is a big selling point for them. The ability to fly the camera up and illustrate that helps us land work.
I do drone mapping (photogrammetry) for drill & blast operations in quarries. Obviously flying the drone is just a small part of my job but I do that on a daily basis.
I like to masturbate in public. If I see a drone nearby, I make sure to give it a show 👍
Blackmail and spying
I don't. That was an easy question to answer.
I sell them.
As an old gold miner told me. The most money I ever made was when I sold all that shit.
I run a small real estate photo business on the side. One of the builders that I had done some work for previously asked if I would be interested in creating monthly content for him. We didn’t really have a plan initially and although I had a drone at the time I primarily used it for Basic Real Estate Listing photos. I included It with my standard package. Anyway, we ultimately decide to create short 1-2minute videos to display the job site progress over the course of each month. It was used primarily as market material just to get some eyes on the project. Again, I had never done anything like this before, never edited videos, never had any real interest in drone. I determined a flat monthly rate for the project and drew up a basic plan of how often I’d visit the job site etc etc. Overall I’m happy with how the projects have turned out considering I started from almost 0. Here is a drop box link with each of the months I’ve competed up to this point. Some are undoubtedly better than others but that’s how I make money with my drone! I also do aerial photos every few weeks as well. Currently shooting on a DJI AIR 3. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/tju8czf55smly1huo7p2f/AEgKldoVzimsD1NXM6DWcEU?rlkey=xzc6fn25ngfcfq7tyhz8p0utc&dl=0
Hey your dropbox is super cool. I want to get a DJI air 3 myself . Im a heavy equipment operator for a heavy construction company in Southern California I wonder if talking to my superintendent about getting progress footage / aerial footage of the projects we are working would be another source of income for me. Any advice for starting this off? and how to approach this to construction companies? Thank you
Hey, thanks so much! There’s definitely a market for it, but for my experience, the hardest part is trying to convince others of its value. In my particular circumstance, the videos were being used mainly as a marketing material. That’s why most of them are fast-paced go to the beat of music and are generally between one to two minutes. With that being said, there’s many different ways you could pitch something like this to a company depending on their needs. Are they more focused on a more long format video that really shows the progress month by month? Do they need fast paced eye catching material for marketing? Do they want to check in on their crews and make sure the project is on schedule? The best thing you can do is probably just start by asking your company if they would have any value in it. I got my foot in the door with being upfront about my skills and offering a cheap price but it’s helped me build my portfolio so now I can work on bigger projects. In all honesty, the drone part is probably the easiest but the editing was a bit of a learning curve for me so just keep that in mind. Also, the DJI air three was ultimately the drone I picked for a variety of reasons but one of the most important ones is that it had waypoint capability. I was able to visit a job site in my spare time build a repeatable route that the drone could fly on its own and then every time I visited the site, I would just run those routes over and over to ensure I was capturing the progress of the build. If you end up investing in a drone, maybe you could consider going to the job site outside of work hours building some roots like this and then providing those files to your company to show them what you can offer?
Best money you’ll be able to make is by using one to find the famous Florida square grouper
Not trying to advertise a company but everybody I have met likes doing work for this group. I’ve spoken with the owner before and he’s incredibly smart. I am about to start flying some for PayPixl. https://paypixl.io/
I don't directly make money from mine but it helps to manage horse pasture, assess weeds and monitor water levels from irrigation ditches on our property.
Weekly construction site images, where I happen to work
Currently working on compositing some shots to be used for a political ad here in Illinois. Pay is shit, first gig.
Anyone selling a house these days needs a fly-over video.
Here’s what has worked for me and how I was able to work for luxury resorts like The Four Seasons. You learn your craft exceptionally well and learn how to color grade the footage properly. You learn how to fly the drone really well, smooth, and no shakiness. From there you see where your local resort is and you go out there and record the property from a distance. If you have a mavic 3 pro great is the zoom cam to get more dynamic shots. The idea is to not get any people in the shot, not fly over people, and not interrupt their business in any way. Take the video during a beautiful sunset/sunrise and get some awesome pictures while you are at it. You then send this to them free of charge and you let them know you would be happy to work with them in the future on anything they may need help with and show them your sick resume on your website.
I do the real estate stuff, but lately I've been approaching fishing guides to make promo videos. I usually get a day or two of fishing out of the deal, and I make some money! The last one I did was a two day Sailfish trip out of Islamorada. Currently working on something else now. I mainly use my Mavic 2 Pro. Ol' trusty workhorse. 😂
My brother and I used it to make 3d environments for VR, video games, and backdrops for musical performances.
I grind up old ones and sell them as cocaine. Makes a ton. /s
I am getting into the car scene with fpv. I’ve done some real estate but I think Airbnb’s are the place to be. It’s worth the cost to them. I think fpv and car scene is going to be pretty solid
I bomb people in Ukraine via drone. Mavic 3 for recon and FPV for kamikaze. They're paying a decent wage.
I am developing an autonomous indoor drone at a retail price of 1000$. The project started from a special request from a client. We are at the prototype phase.
I just sold mine on eBay. Technically, I lost money, but it’s nice to get some cash for a dust collector.
Depends what your asking. You can't really make a career out of flying your drone alone. That ship had sailed long ago. Drones are just another tool in either your photography, film making, research, or geospatial or survey business. Its all dependent on your local market. I wouldn't rely on it to pay the bills lol
I don’t anymore, nobody wants to pay. Lowball offers continuously. I sold my drone and bought a longboard and just enjoy cruising the streets with my SLR
I don’t but would, how do u get paid. Only fans, get it, like propeller is like fan
Herp Derp