I've been doing a ton of research on this as a business prospect and was curious to know how many of you, if any, actually run a business related strictly to UAVs? This could be the sale of, or other types of work such as search and rescue, inspections, agriculture, etc.
Here in Florida, agriculture and wildlife are paramount - short of tourism, of course. There are at least two citrus exporters in the southern part of the state that are using fixed-wing UAVs with multispectral and hyperspectral sensors to track the growth of various fungi and other bacterial mutations of their crops. They will then treat a certain plot with whatever treatment they are testing and do daily or weekly flights over the crop to see how effective the treatment is.
I would love to get involved with stuff like that, as I also fly fixed-wing UAVs in addition to the Phantom and other multirotors and I can see tons of everyday uses for them.
Curious to see if any others out there have thought about this or are already doing it.
There would obviously be a good chunk of change required upfront to purchase the necessary equipment, but aside from that, whatever insurance I would need and possibly a covered trailer to transport the larger fixed-wing crafts in and the necessary LLC/Incorporated state fees, there would not be a ton of cost and I imagine I could make some money pretty quickly, once I identified the customer(s).
Feel free to completely bash the idea or point out where I'm wrong. I am looking for honest opinions and ideally, feedback from those already involved in something like this - preferably outside of just aerial photography as that market is pretty well saturated down here from what I gather.
Thanks!
Fink
Here in Florida, agriculture and wildlife are paramount - short of tourism, of course. There are at least two citrus exporters in the southern part of the state that are using fixed-wing UAVs with multispectral and hyperspectral sensors to track the growth of various fungi and other bacterial mutations of their crops. They will then treat a certain plot with whatever treatment they are testing and do daily or weekly flights over the crop to see how effective the treatment is.
I would love to get involved with stuff like that, as I also fly fixed-wing UAVs in addition to the Phantom and other multirotors and I can see tons of everyday uses for them.
Curious to see if any others out there have thought about this or are already doing it.
There would obviously be a good chunk of change required upfront to purchase the necessary equipment, but aside from that, whatever insurance I would need and possibly a covered trailer to transport the larger fixed-wing crafts in and the necessary LLC/Incorporated state fees, there would not be a ton of cost and I imagine I could make some money pretty quickly, once I identified the customer(s).
Feel free to completely bash the idea or point out where I'm wrong. I am looking for honest opinions and ideally, feedback from those already involved in something like this - preferably outside of just aerial photography as that market is pretty well saturated down here from what I gather.
Thanks!
Fink
