It’s the time of year for me to consider whether to renew my permissions to allow me to fly my drone commercially. Each year I go through the same arguments, considerations, thoughts and finances.
I have decided to renew as I do love flying the drone and offering that to my clients. This coming year however I have decided to join the Drone Safe Register. I think it was featured on Dragon’s Den at some point, I’m a bit late to the party – as always, but after chatting with Max at DSR I decided that it was a good way to get warm leads for drone work in my area.
I have also been approached by a magazine asking if i wish to advertise my drone services but I have declined that offer.
My insurance policy has automatically renewed so that is in place to cover me for flying and to look after my kit.
By the end of the month I need to renew my Operator ID – something everyone with a drone that weighs more than 250g must do. It costs £9 so I need to do that as soon as possible.
And finally the big deal. Before I contact the CAA to seek renewal I need to get 2 hours flying time in the bag. You need to have done that in the last 3 months. Last time I flew was August so I need to find contacts with farms and go and fly and get my hours in. I have bagged 45 mins on Monday and the rest of the week I have had permission for flying on land to get the bird in the air and the mins logged on the system.
After Monday’s flight I got home to edit the images I captured. I am always blown away by the images from the drone camera. There is something quite magical about that higher elevation and looking down at things you rarely get to see.