So I've been thinking of starting a small business, you know really small stuff filming action sports, reality and piggybacking of my wife's photography business to film weddings for her. I looked into it and it turns out I'm required to get a pilots license, if you didn't know yes an actual license to fly small planes. Why??
I can see having us take a class or get some type of certificate but **** I don't want to fly planes nor do I have the extra 12,000 dollars it takes to get one where I live. Does any one else have issues with this??
Your can someone who has gone thru this and has gotten their pilots license please tell me how this would benefit me in the drone field?
Thank you
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The dumbest part about requiring an actual pilots license for drone operation is that to get the pilots license, you have to pass the medical.
I attempted to get a pilots license about 15 years ago and had to drop out halfway through when I developed migraine headaches. Disappointing - but understandable for piloting a plane. Migraines often come with a visual aura and other symptoms which could make landing a plane difficult/dangerous. But....ummm....not so much with drones. Especially while operating within VLOS, I can land the drone in less than 5 minutes. I always have a half hour warning that a migraine is coming - and while I might not be able to find an airport and land a plane safely in that half hour - I can certainly land a drone safely. Hell - I could go completely blind and still manage to hit the RTH button to get the bird on the ground safely.
So at the very least - the medical requirements need to be seriously revised for drone pilots.
Also - to the pilot that posted his support for requiring a full pilots license to operate a drone: You make a lot of good points but then take it over the top. If drone operation is going to be limited the way it is - with maximum altitudes of 400', no flying over or through clouds, always flying VLOS and away from people and built-up areas - there is no way they need the same level of training that an actual pilot needs. A certification course - sure! A radio license and training - absolutely! If the drone pilot is only allowed to operate in certain airspaces - then they need to know how to find out where those airspaces are. They do not need to know all the rules pertaining to all of the other airspaces. To the drone operator - there are only a few airspaces that are permitted for flight. Everything else is a no-fly-zone. Enough said.
Require full training for drone operators to operate safely and everything that goes along with it. Requiring more than that is just dumb. A regular pilots license can have different ratings - VFR, IFR, etc. So can it be with drones. Perhaps the requirements are lessened for a pilot who is only licensed for flight within 500' and at a max altitude of 150'.
If I have to get a full pilots license to fly my drone - then I certainly am going to want more flexibility as to how high i can fly and how far I can go.
What's next? Forcing the repair guy at my local hobby shop to have an aircraft mechanics license in order to replace a motor on my Phantom? No? Why not? Oh - because it's ridiculous! Gotcha!
But tell me again why it's not ridiculous to require drone pilots to have a full pilots license in order to shoot real estate videos at 50' off the ground for 5 or 6 minutes at a time? I guess I'm just dense if I'm the only one that doesn't understand how flying circuits in a Cessna, being able to perform touch and go landings, demonstrating skill in staying on the line while taxiing out to the active runway and taking instructions from ground control, checking the oil in the engine, checking the fuel level, the proper refuelling processes, etc, etc, etc....
In fact - most of the cockpit experience is of little value when piloting a drone - especially when regulations don't allow FPV systems to be used. Tracking your aircraft visually from the ground, identifying its orientation and making the correct stick movements - all while scanning the area for other traffic is completely unique to drone piloting and nothing in a pilots license helps prepare you for that.
Conclusion - drone operators require training. How much and what type can vary dramatically based on what the pilot intends to do. In a perfect world, there would be specialized training and different ratings - so that a real estate broker can buy a drone and film his houses at 50' up and 60' away from him with only the training require to do that safely. If another pilot wants to fly to the limits - well, that would obviously require additional training/certification and a different rating to ensure safety..