Pretty cool, did the person flying for you needed to get certified? I'm guessing you have to be fully insured?
Hello View from Above,
yes we have our normal business liability insurance policy that covers us with our normal day to day ENG from the ground. i.e someone trips over one of our cables, light stand/tower falls on someone, etc..that coverage has a grey area with respects to Air Cam 1, by that I mean our carrier wants to review any Air Cam 1 claims on a case by case basis. Fortunately we have not had to use it. I personally am also covered under my membership with AMA (Academy of Model Aeronautics).
The question of certification is an interesting one. What is official "Certification" when it comes to piloting small UAV's, Quadcopters, Multi-rotor Aircraft, Drones? The term "certification" right now with respects to pilots flying small UAV's reminds me of the term "Broadcast Quality" back in the mid to late 1980's when Pro, Prosumer video was going through rapid video format improvements. Some of you reading this blog who were involved with video back then will recall what many manufactures were referring to in their sales literature as "Broadcast Quality". SVHS, Hi8, Beta, when in reality, those formats were in many ways not true Broadcast Quality. So as with this term "Certified" now being circulated around the small UAV/Drone world as the FAA develops new regulations/standards for us pilots. Since there is no official standard for what certification is, can anyone just claim certification? What "certification" is the FAA going to require? How are we going to get certified? Has a syllabus for any certification course been written? Who is going to be approved to teach the certification course? What is the cost of certification going to be to the small independent pilots trying to upstart image capturing businesses?
I am currently "certified", the term used by Skycatch, a large internationally company specializing in creating geo-referencing mapping data from aerial images to capture images for them. But who else recognizes that certification? There is a Drone/UAV Pilot Training Certification Course being offered by Unmanned Vehicle University, I have plans to enroll in their summer term. The cost of the course is $3,500.00, well worth the investment, IF, it's recognized by the FAA once their standards get established. But it's a lot for a small business like ours to invest if it's only value is a pretty framed document on the office wall. Can I claim "certification" after I complete the course with Unmanned Vehicle University? I guess that's how one defines certification prior to the FAA's official definition.
