It is amazing what a grown man will do for fun and due compensation. Hang out of a perfectly good ( albeit really old ) airplane and take pictures. Someone said "what about drones?"
Well, for one thing the FAA is still deciding what to do with commerce and drones and we don't want to be on the wrong side of that discussion so presently we are relying on the good old airframe, barnstormer and Kodak to get the shot.
We are watching the FAA and the Drone market as the cost comes down and the quality goes "up". We have a very simple Drone presently but before we upgrade we are waiting. This week I read that the FAA wants commercial use of a drone to be piloted by a pilot with a license .... a private pilots license.
A couple months ago Ethan ( my second assistant ) and I flew to shoot a construction site and on the way the Cessna 152 began to "hick up" we'll call it ... Reid our pilot looked over without emotion and said ... " we may just head back to the airstrip " ...... damn was that a good idea ! .... Ethan - in the back seat took it all in stride as well .... youthful bliss. Ye ha ... after almost returning to base our pilot said " I believe she's all right now ..... little water in the gas maybe .... what do you want to do ? " My first thought was yeah here's the camera - drop us off and we'll see you when you get back. Then my second thought was D R O N E !
I then realized I had to get the photos for the client or come back again ... so we returned to the work site and everything was fine ...on the way back we always look for opportunities for something else to shoot .... below is what I found on that faithful day ......
I leaned out to get this shot and thought .... ' after all we've been thru today and I could fall out and have an inexpensive funeral and burial all in one. However ... we got the shots for the client and got home safe. A good day.
