PILOTS BEWARE - SKYVIEW HD

[THERIVER]

2

 

[bsartist]

I recently attended a 4 day Cell Tower Training in Georgia with SkyView HD with the promise of $100/ tower 5 towers a day. The best opportunity in the drone world with the promise of a six figure income is what the phone interview was like.

It was by far the most unorganized, unprofessional, and unfriendly training I have ever been to in any discipline over the last 20 years. The phone "Interview" was full of misleading information and was not transparent at all. Meaning - they never tell ya that the PILOT IS 100% RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL EXPENSES; Nor do they tell ya that it is very much a full time travel job. Cell Tower Pilots are ALWAYS on the road. I dont mind driving 100 miles for a shoot, but every time I have the company I fly for has paid the travel cost. Skyview pays nothing. Tower is 7 hour drive from your house... ? Well that 7 hours and the gas is ALL on YOU! All for $100 !?? It can actually end up costing a pilot a good bit of money to work for SkyviewHD. They do not pay their pilots fairly. And no one would attend their trainings if they were open and upfront about the true nature of the job. They were not upfront and open about the true nature of their "Cell Tower Opportunity" and so I went and found out the hard way. What a waste of time and money!

We were told on the 3rd day of training that we probably wouldn't make much money the 1st few weeks out; because a beginning pilot could never shoot enough towers in one day to cover there own gas, time on the road and Hotel and food expenses. The whole thing was one big rip off. Skyviews Training was a good example of how Industry takes advantage of pilot enthusiasm thinking that pilots will somehow be happy working for nothing. One pilot did the math on a job he would have to drive a few states away to. After 4 days he calculated he would be at - $52. Not exactly moving towards those six figures is it? I tried complaining to the company and demanding a refund for the training, but you can imagine how well that went.

They were not upfront and honest about what was required of the pilot before the training. I felt like I was being handled by pro use car sales men from the 1st phone call. I should have known better. I hope my experience can serve as a warning to others. Beware of Skyview HD. Training with them was a very very unpleasant experience.

What did they charge you for the training?

 

[bsartist]

$1500

HOLY S...!!!

You may want to file a BBB complaint. I wonder if even the consumer protection agency.

 

[ecolumbia999]

I must be missing something? Why would a company have you pay for training? It should be the other way around - as in a company will pay to train you because they figure they will get the cost of the training back in revenue for all the cell tower inspections.
Paying for training like this should always be a red flag not to do it.

 

[N017RW]

SkyViewHD® – Aerial Photography & Imaging Services

 

[THERIVER]

I must be missing something? Why would a company have you pay for training? It should be the other way around - as in a company will pay to train you because they figure they will get the cost of the training back in revenue for all the cell tower inspections.
Paying for training like this should always be a red flag not to do it.

YES! You are right! Thats the Red Flag I did not see. Too ready for it to be real. The Training was mostly a money grab. Sorry I fell for it. Hoping this post warns others about this company so they cant rip off other people.

 

[Just_nick]

$1500

I would be filing a report and a charge-back with my credit card company.

 

[BigAl07]

Just for the record: Structured Training being paid by the attendee is common place unless your WORK pays for it. Most of the sUAS industry is working as a subContractor so we WORK for ourselves meaning WE are the employer. I've attended many (more than I care to admit) training classes, sessions, academies over the years for Structured Training and I paid for ALL of them (including hotel, food, travel etc) out of my own pocket. It's part of the cost of doing business as a business owner and we build that into our annual budget. We literally have a line item in our budget for Structured Training for this very reason.

Training costs $$ and unless you are an employee of the company (which you are NOT in this case you are a subContractor) how can you assume someone else is going to pay for YOUR training so YOU can make money with or without them? For all they know you can leave that class and go out and start drumming up your own Industrial Inspection gigs now that you're trained in the field.

Speaking about "travel" for work... it's fairly common knowledge that Industrial Inspection is an On-The-Road kind of job. Unless you happen to live in an area where there are hundreds of "structures" (wind farms, solar farms etc) you're not going to have a lot of "Local" work and when you do it will be short lived. It's the nature of the beast. The trick is to carefully book your inspections in groups so you can do several in a single day or a couple of days so you can "Make Bank". Doing 1 here and 1 there isn't going to cut it.

How many cell towers, Wind Turbine, Solar Farms are within 30 minutes of your bedroom? Ok now take all of those and figure (conservatively) they need to be inspected 1x every 12 months. Now factor in how many "potential" sUAS operators are in the area potentially taking the same training you are/were. I'd estimate where I'm at we have enough "local work" for 3 sUAS operators for 2 weeks annually.

This is a classic case of not seeing the forest for the trees. Sorry you're disappointed with their training and it's a shame they didn't/won't offer some type of "Customer Retention" refund but other than the "unorganized, unprofessional, and unfriendly training" I don't see much of an issue other than possibly "misleading" in stating the reality of the industry. Sometimes we "desire" something to be better than it really is and this desire tends to cloud our judgement just a tad.

 

[ecolumbia999]

While I dislike these internet squabbles on the drone forums, I will write up a follow-up. There is a difference between paying for training with a company that does just that - provide training services. If I pay a company to train me for 3 days for $1,500 to provide me with the skills, knowledge, and operating procedures to complete cell tower inspections to industry standards. If possible I would feel good if I receive a certificate of completion to show other businesses that demonstrate my expertise and that other businesses recognize. All this is fine - call it structured training or some other designation.
If on the other hand a company says - 'pay us $1,500 for 3 days of training' and you will soon recoup this cost in only 3 days by working directly with our company' - this is a scam. This is not ethical - not by any stretch. I'm not sure if this is illegal but it is certainly unethical. @THERIVER got scammed out of $1,500 and it is good that this is pointed out on these forums.

 

[N017RW]

Well thought out response; but really, your missing the whole point.

Why not explain then?

 

[N017RW]

I posted this to warn other Pilots, not to analyze the industry. I wanted to Warn Pilots to Avoid SkyviewHD. I dont like the drama inherent in making this kind of post and I waited weeks before I did. Finally it came down to wanting to warn other Pilots; other people like me. I did not want SkyviewHD to be able to operate in the shadows and take advantage of other pilots. That is my personal bottom line. I lost a lot of money pursuing their false promises, and I realized I owed it to the Pilot community to warn them about SkyviewHD. The Most Misleading, Unorganized, Unprofessional and Unfriendly Training I have ever experienced. Did I make a mistake in this process? Yes! I believed them.

All good. Now I, at least, understand your renewed point.

 

[RunningWithScissors]

Just for the record: Structured Training being paid by the attendee is common place unless your WORK pays for it.

I appreciate that you're warning others about your bad experience, and sorry to hear that you got taken, but I'd have to agree with BigAl. Somebody pays for structured training, either you or your employer. I guess the big question here is, what did they promise in their training offer, what did you expect to get out of it, and did you investigate them before committing any funds? Whenever I get calls from someone I don't know wanting to sell me "training", I tell tell them to send me a brochure that tells me what I can expect to get from the training. All of that before I commit any funds, especially $1500! If they're not legit, that's the last I hear of them. If they made commitments that they didn't honor, then you may have some recourse. If they were vague or non-committal, which I suspect was the case, then it may be a very expensive lesson. Again, sorry you didn't get what you were expecting. Good luck getting your money back.

 

[lickitysplit11111]

I must be missing something? Why would a company have you pay for training? It should be the other way around - as in a company will pay to train you because they figure they will get the cost of the training back in revenue for all the cell tower inspections.
Paying for training like this should always be a red flag not to do it.

What they did was legit it’s a business and they need people to fork over cash to keep the doors open and it works there’s all kinda scams in the world today, “the devils in the details.

 

[THERIVER]

FINAL WORD: I wanted to put out a big heads up for Pilots to be aware of company tactics like this. The more of us who are aware of these kinds of companies the better it is for the industry as a whole... the better the industry.. the more respect Pilots will get.

The industry is young. I think SkyviewHD, along with many similar Industry Brokers, are caught in the growing pains of how to manage themselves in a respectful way with regard to pilots. The industry is making a big mistake treating good and qualified pilots like they are a dime a dozen. Thinking that "any kid with a toy from Best Buy could do this job" is a self destructive attitude to have if you are a data broker, and it compromises the Key commodity of this Industry; no matter the application, Quality Data. Without qualified and reliable pilots they have nothing to sell. I find it surprising that Pilots, being such an intergral part of the data stream, get so little respect.

Without a well trained and well paid Pilot base there is no reliable data stream to offer the various industries. The applications of drones is massive and wide reaching; so much so, every used car salesman thinks he can grab a piece of the pie. But there is more to it than that. Its a bigger river than the small / selfish minded can see. The Broker companies who win the race for these "Territories" are going to be those with good and Respectful Pilot Relations!