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So today I got my temporary certificate that I could print out from the FAA's website, time from test to certificate: 8 days counting the day of the exam and the day my certificate went active, and that is with MLK day counted among those 8 days. At this time I am able to fly my drone for commercial purposes, and I went and did a test flight at the sight of my first requested photo. This photo is for a party who will get me plenty of local exposure and a good friend so I am going to do this one for free (as I will most of the work I do for him) in exchange for credit for the photo attached to the image in the local paper.

While performing my test run my VO observed another, smaller, sUAS flying closer to the target structure. After speaking with that RPIC (He claims he is legal, but I question his professionalism) I learned he was doing a similar shoot for the public entity who had the structure built. It would be like doing your wally-walk and discovering another LTCer in a county w/ 4 other LTC holders (Yes there are only 4 other confirmed 107 certificate holders in my county as of 01/01/18).

Thanks for the feedback, I have actually considered each of these fields to some degree. I am actually approaching the drone business to start it part time, then proceed to adding staff and expanding into additional markets. One market I want to get into ASAP is agriculture, which if you know anything about Gaines county you will understand why.

I take it you are in the insurance industry, if that is correct and you don't mind sharing a little info could I ask you if have you ever hired one of your drone business clients? If so what kind of job did you need them to do?

mojo84 wrote:I recommend general liability and UAV liabilty policies at a minimum. The UAV coverage can be purchased on a per year or per flight basis. Whether you insure the drone for physical damage or not is up to you to decide if it is worth it.

The per-flight policies like verifly cost around $10 a flight, which seems like a good deal, until you consider that a one year policy will run you around $400, then if you plan to fly more than 40 flights in the next year w/ one sUAS it gets expensive quickly. Another benefit of a traditional policy is that you have proof of insurance when you approach potential clients.

Quick Update, after studying everything I could find I finally drove to Lubbock and took the Unmanned Aircraft - General test. Out of 60 questions I missed 3, the only three that I stopped and reconsidered then changed my answer. Each of these were 'too easy' and had to be trick questions in my mind. After reading the question over and over again my brain reworded it so that a less obvious answer seemed to be the correct answer. Upon reviewing the question after the test I saw that my initial answer was correct. Now I am waiting on IACRA to synchronize with the test results and for the TSA to conduct a background check. Once that happens I will be able to print my temp certificate then start commercial drone operations, the background check will take less than two weeks with times of less than a week being currently reported. I think the Feds and DPS LTC division could learn a few things from each other...

Currently (thanks to the 2nd most powerful court in the nation) Drone registration is optional unless it is being used commercially. Also that website is not the FAA's own website, it is run by a third party. The best source of info on FAA drone regs is at https://www.faa.gov/uas/

I have taught people to fly but never done anything commercial so I am researching what is involved and how I wish to do it. I am considering everything from doing it or not to if I should set up an LLC, corporation, ect. The part 107 will most likely happen but how far I go is still up in the air(pun intended)

Edited to correct cell phone spelling and to add information about above mentioned website.

I'm currently considering doing commercial UAS (drone) operations and was curious if anyone here is also doing it. If so what kind of insurance do you carry, if any, and what do you think of the process? I am in the research phase at the moment so nothing is set in stone. In fact I am waiting for motors that are on back order to repair my machine so I won't do anything until I can replace them as I would hate to have the license and not be able to use it.