Unrealistic or possible?

[Stratospheric]

Hi

My friend and I are considering getting an inspire v 2.0 with an aim to try and do some work for free in the beginning and then attempt to get some work locally for a bit of extra money. Neither of us are going to be reliant on this for our primary income as I'm registered disabled so don't work and my friend already has a property maintenance business.

We have been borrowing a Yuneec typhoon H but we have been a bit disappointed by the camera, glare on the screen and the resolution.

I have been editing gopro footage for six years with Premier pro and My friend has experience flying rc helicopters. Neither of us have got any video experience but we are planning on doing a night school course soon.

Being a bit of a tech geek I'm planning on upgrading to the x5 - x5r when we are ready but I'm slightly concerned by the dji customer service and the firmware glitches.

We are planning on getting a caa license once we have got a load of practice.

so I was wondering are we being unrealistic or is this feasible?

Thanks

 

[IrishSights]

If you are planning to receive payment of any kind then you need a permit from the CAA. If you start doing commercial work without it you would not be covered for Public Liability Insurance. Without that you would be opening yourself up to a potentially enormous personal claim. Commercial drone insurance in the UK requires a CAA Permission to Fly for Aerial Work.

You would need to practice your skills then do the course, write your Operations Manual, do your flight test and apply for your PFAW and get your insurance. During this time you can build connections with possible clients. Work is unlikely to roll in from day one, although not impossible. This will take capital up front! The first year is the hardest unless you have some big clients lined up. At worst you would at least need to allow for a loss in the first year. Anything else is a plus. You cannot really ease your way into this in the way you describe. Just my slant on it.


Holder of CAA PFAW
BNUS-S Certified Pilot

 

[Ftolino]

Yeah don't pay in cash either because heaven forbid you have to pay taxes on it everybody so perfect on here

 

[DennisR]

Yeah don't pay in cash either because heaven forbid you have to pay taxes on it everybody so perfect on here

Those of us that fly commercially have paid our dues and fees. 10k in Australia so we have insurance in order to make a living. We are not perfect but we are covered and if you don't have any respect then don't fly.

 

[Stratospheric]

Hi,

Thanks for replying to my post.

we have already been in contact with a couple of flight school to Find out what was needed to gain our CAA licence. We have also been in touch with quite a few insurance companies to get quotes for our drone and public liability insurance. Lawrence is quite keen to get his heavy lifting licence at some point in the future. We have been led to believe that there is a series of additional licenses that reduces the distance you can fly from people. He is quite keen to get this as low as possible.

Lawrence doesn't want to keep doing his property maintenance business for ever so this will be something for him to drift onto once his apprentice gets a degree in property maintenance.

Lawrence has been left some money by a family member so he will be using that to buy the drone. I have sold my boat to pay for the computer and the insurance/licence. We are quite aware of the cost involved so haven't gone into this blindly.

We have already talked to a couple of people about one-off jobs and they are happy to give us a go once we have got the licence and insurance sorted.

Once we get the licence and insurances are there any other expenses we need to Equate for?

We were not planning on taking any money out of the business until we had enough to buy the next upgrade to the camera. Prior to the inspire we were looking at solely going with Yuneec products but having not been overly impressed with the typhoon H we have started looking at the inspire and were incredibly impressed with the X5.

We are concerned about the DJI customer service and the firmware glitches so could anybody comment on those as to how bad/good they are?

Many thanks

 

[DennisR]

Hi,

Thanks for replying to my post.

we have already been in contact with a couple of flight school to Find out what was needed to gain our CAA licence. We have also been in touch with quite a few insurance companies to get quotes for our drone and public liability insurance. Lawrence is quite keen to get his heavy lifting licence at some point in the future. We have been led to believe that there is a series of additional licenses that reduces the distance you can fly from people. He is quite keen to get this as low as possible.

Lawrence doesn't want to keep doing his property maintenance business for ever so this will be something for him to drift onto once his apprentice gets a degree in property maintenance.

Lawrence has been left some money by a family member so he will be using that to buy the drone. I have sold my boat to pay for the computer and the insurance/licence. We are quite aware of the cost involved so haven't gone into this blindly.

We have already talked to a couple of people about one-off jobs and they are happy to give us a go once we have got the licence and insurance sorted.

Once we get the licence and insurances are there any other expenses we need to Equate for?

We were not planning on taking any money out of the business until we had enough to buy the next upgrade to the camera. Prior to the inspire we were looking at solely going with Yuneec products but having not been overly impressed with the typhoon H we have started looking at the inspire and were incredibly impressed with the X5.

We are concerned about the DJI customer service and the firmware glitches so could anybody comment on those as to how bad/good they are?

Many thanks

The only reason you see the problems here is because its a forum and people usually are looking for help. The thousands that dont have problems dont post so I wouldn't worry about that. I think most firmware problems are due to operator error.

 

[Stratospheric]

I have also watched quite a number of videos saying how frustrating the DJI customer support is.

 

[DennisR]

I have also watched quite a number of videos saying how frustrating the DJI customer support is.

I think you will have more worries getting work. So many out there cutting us out of a job and they are unlicensed.

 

[Kilrah]

I have also watched quite a number of videos saying how frustrating the DJI customer support is.

It's not the best - but then again the thing is that there isn't really any equipment provider that does significantly better. The few who do have products that aren't as good and/or are significantly more expensive, so that it's still cheaper to deal with the support pains and you've got great performing equipment.

It would be stupid to settle for a less good product in hope for better support should things go wrong. It's also kind of stupid to pay something good twice the price just for support should you need some, when you could just buy 2 machines instead, although that's a choice and could understand people who would make it.

It's just elements to factor in your business. You anyway need at least 2 machines if you want to do any kind of serious work so you have one as a backup. Knowing how support works you need to expect one to e.g. potentially be unavailable for 2 months in case of trouble and plan accordingly, maybe with a 3rd machine (or just the cash ready to go buy one in a pinch if needed) etc.

 

[DennisR]

I agree. I have a P3 and an Inspire Pro with X5. I use the P3 for backup and I have just ordered the M600. I will use the X5 on that for now to get long flight times. Up to 40 mins will be good. I also this nk it looks more pro than turning up for a job with a P3 looking toy.

 

[IrishSights]

The thing about videos on DJI support is that most are old and not representative of the masses. It is one area DJI have invested in and turnarounds have got better.

Firmware wise, the current one is quite stable from my experience and others on here. The initial release of v1.9 had a VPS bug which they fairly quickly (for DJI) fixed. It's true that only when something goes wrong and gets posted on forums that a false sense of the sky is falling proliferated. Even with the first version of v1.9 only some people had problems. I personally have never had a problem with firmware and not noticed a huge difference in performance. Some folks are still on early firmware versions and happy at that, which is fine. Others, like myself however are on more recent versions which includes the SDK code which all of the third party app developers use to add many useful functions to the Inspire... mapping (including terrain awareness now), waypoints, advance auto pilot functions, visual tracking, panoramas etc. Other manufactures do not have this wide 3rd party apps base, a big plus for me any many others.