- Joined
- Jul 31, 2016
- Messages
- 50
- Reaction score
- 7
- Age
- 34
Hey guys, new guy here but have been in the drone arena since its very early uprising!
I'm in a bit of a situation and need to make a decision.
A bit of history first though.
A few years ago when EuroUSC was still in its infancy and had just introduced the BNUC-S, I completed my ground school and flight exam. I was flying a large heavy lift octocopter and set out to work as soon as my insurance and PFAW came through. We had a little success and things seemed to be going well. We were offered a contract with quite a large company based on the performance of our first job with them... So, we turned up and proceeded through all checks as per the ops manual and took to the air. Everything was going well, until suddenly the octo locked me out. Stopped responding to input and failed to RTH even when activated manually. To cut a long story short, we didn't get the contract, obviously. The octo peaked at around 4000ft traveling at 110mph (airspeed, into the wind) and covered a distance of 5 miles in a perfectly straight line (all recorded and tracked on blackbox) before the batteries gave up and it crashed on a golf course.
Although nobody was hurt, the local airtraffic and emergency services were notified immediately and no loss other than our drone and contract occured, it did kind of scare us off a bit. I haven't looked into flying commercially again since. Having said that, the bug is starting to bite again and I am looking in to it once again.
So, here I am, staring at a black edition Inspire, salivating, and looking for excuses not to do this all over again. Money is short at the moment but I am looking into really dedicating some time to this, establishing a brand and marketing it properly. If I do this, I will be taking out a business loan available to me through the government due to my current job situation to set up, including a nice powerful editing rig so that I can actually work with 4k.
When I began a few years ago, the future looked bright and work seemed plentiful on the horizon. What I would like to know is, is there still a growing amount of interest and is this, in your eyes, still a viable small business option? I guess, is this silly of me and am I joining the party (again!) too late?
Cheers guys
I'm in a bit of a situation and need to make a decision.
A bit of history first though.
A few years ago when EuroUSC was still in its infancy and had just introduced the BNUC-S, I completed my ground school and flight exam. I was flying a large heavy lift octocopter and set out to work as soon as my insurance and PFAW came through. We had a little success and things seemed to be going well. We were offered a contract with quite a large company based on the performance of our first job with them... So, we turned up and proceeded through all checks as per the ops manual and took to the air. Everything was going well, until suddenly the octo locked me out. Stopped responding to input and failed to RTH even when activated manually. To cut a long story short, we didn't get the contract, obviously. The octo peaked at around 4000ft traveling at 110mph (airspeed, into the wind) and covered a distance of 5 miles in a perfectly straight line (all recorded and tracked on blackbox) before the batteries gave up and it crashed on a golf course.
Although nobody was hurt, the local airtraffic and emergency services were notified immediately and no loss other than our drone and contract occured, it did kind of scare us off a bit. I haven't looked into flying commercially again since. Having said that, the bug is starting to bite again and I am looking in to it once again.
So, here I am, staring at a black edition Inspire, salivating, and looking for excuses not to do this all over again. Money is short at the moment but I am looking into really dedicating some time to this, establishing a brand and marketing it properly. If I do this, I will be taking out a business loan available to me through the government due to my current job situation to set up, including a nice powerful editing rig so that I can actually work with 4k.
When I began a few years ago, the future looked bright and work seemed plentiful on the horizon. What I would like to know is, is there still a growing amount of interest and is this, in your eyes, still a viable small business option? I guess, is this silly of me and am I joining the party (again!) too late?
Cheers guys
