Good afternoon. I have been flying a small quadcopter for a while now and recently purchased a CS8. I run a small production company and thought it would be a great addition to my list of services to have it available. After buying it however, I'm seeing, or more so noticing now that I'm looking for it, that flying these for commercial use is not allowed. A., is this true and B., how can there be so many people/companies operating these for commercial use at present? Is there a loop hole I need to be aware of if I am stopped while shooting? Any information would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Hello Chris Nice to meet you. I strongly recommend joining the Professional association of RC aircraft pilots (PARCAP) as its an organization for us to not only keep up to date on the latest news regarading FAA developoments but it helps us create a voice and form safety procedures that can have a lasting impact on the future of our investments. The organization is also working on getting insurance for our equipment. Most of us here including myself are members. You can check it out at www.parcap.org and let me know if you have any questions. Dave
Dave, thanks for the heads up on PARCAP. I'm looking into joining, looks to be a great organization to become a part of, especially in this small segment of the business. Chris
There is no loophole. It is forbidden to make a dollar with drones. You can fly them for fun. Government entities can use them for work if they obtain a COA. And commercial entities can fly them only as experimental aircraft. So you can't make any money with drones without falling afoul of FAA regulation. Why is the FAA behaving like this? I think they have been effectively lobbied by pilots who fly aerial photography. These little drones will put them out of business. The FAA started cracking down for "safety" reasons in around 2008. Everyone flying for a buck is ignoring the FAA regulations. The FAA has been ordered by Congress to change the regulations to allow for commercial operation of drones, but the FAA is dragging it's feet. One thing you can do is to prepare yourself so that when the regulations do finally change you are ready to go. Frankly, I think the FAAs regulation do not comply with the law, but that's a much longer discussion. Edit: Well I said there was no loophole, but there might be sort of a work around. You can't fly for money. So don't. Fly for free and use that as a loss leader to sell other goods and services. Hard to say what the FAA lawyers would make of that though. They might say that since the other goods and services were linked to flying that you weren't really flying for free. Hard to say though, free loss leaders are not uncommon so it's not as if you would be doing something original.