More TX Pilots Needed for Telecom - Also Other States for Telecom, Power, Golf and Mapping

[Florida Drone Supply]

I guess I misunderstood your post, I though you were looking for pilots to fly equipment for companies. Numerous of us fly high end equipment that we would usually never purchase ourselves unless we had secured contacts already to offset the cost of 25K minimum investment in entry level equipment. I got the impression from your post that you were playing middleman between companies looking for experienced pilots and that you (for the cost of the training) would supply the various verifications companies might be looking for in pilots.
Is this correct? Just trying to make sure I understand what you're offering and fur who....

@Bobby A. Mostly the pilots will be flying their equipment on these contracts. We do have a pilot flying for an energy contract in NC / VA for the next 30 days that we sent an M210 for him to fly because he is very experienced in power line work but has always flown equipment supplied by the power company. This is a contract that will likely turn into a multi year assignment - at which point he would have to purchase his equipment to fly.

For telecom the equipment requirement is pretty minimal. We do have some other inspection work that requires thermal sensors and those are about as high end as the equipment requirement gets (and an aircraft that is capable of flying it). Anything that is LIDAR based would not be pilot owned either...but that is not requested very frequently and we have a client that owns and rents LIDAR as needed.

 

[Florida Drone Supply]

This is interesting. Who handles Arkansas? Would love to find out if there are any similar opportunities in this area.

Thanks Michael. I am going to ask Jim (who works directly with the pilots on their assignments) what the current coverage in Arkansas looks like and ask him to send you a PM to get your city and the distance you are willing to cover (normally a radius from your home).

Michael

 

[Florida Drone Supply]

Filled out the form. Would be interested in learning more. I have a Yuneec H520. Presumably with the 20MP E90 camera this will be acceptable?

I would imagine so - the specification for the still photos in 20MP. We primarily sell DJI equipment so that is what we are most familiar with but if your H520 can fly the automated orbits and you can get an exact pitch angle on the gimbal I think you could accomplish the required flight patterns. I know Jim asked the questions to the software company that processes the data we capture and hosts it for the telecom companies. I'll have him send you a message with any questions he has and answers he gets.

 

[Florida Drone Supply]

It's very exciting to see this; I believe companies like your yours hiring local pilots is a great business model. I just saw this post and submitted the application. Quick summary: A professional photographer by trade and have been flying for over a year now. Have my Part 107, insurance, and a somewhat flexible schedule. In the Dallas / Ft. Worth area with pretty easy access to Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. And I teach a drone photography class. Would enjoy talking to you more about this. Thanks for letting us know about this.

Thanks @daddioJP. I too come from a photography background for more than 20 years. Prior to reliable drones we use to send up tethered helium balloons with remote gimbals and cameras - how far we have come!

You happen to be in a state that has been getting a lot of early work. We are scheduled to many, many thousands of assets to inspect this year and TX was one of the early places they were scheduled to begin after the first of the year. So far (mid January - February) we have had 3 different tower assignments in TX and currently have a little less than 100 towers remaining that the pilots are finishing up. Plenty more coming.......

Thanks for getting registered with us and either Jim or Andrew will be reaching out to all the recent registrations in the next few days with more details.

Michael

 

[Florida Drone Supply]

Filled out the form. Would be interested in learning more. I have a Yuneec H520. Presumably with the 20MP E90 camera this will be acceptable?

PM sent.

Jim

 

[GadgetGuy]

@GadgetGuy,

I appreciate your concern for helping make sure pilots do not fall prey to people looking to take advantage of them or attempt to get them to pay for something of no value. We are of the same mindset on that - and certainly any pilot who has been following us on the other forums (especially Inspire Pilots) knows our commitment to helping pilots learn, understand their equipment, and work their way into this industry in a way that makes sense for them. In addition, we spend hours everyday supporting non Florida Drone Supply clients on the equipment they have purchased elsewhere because their vendor (and sometimes its the manufacturer) does not know the equipment well enough to answer their questions or sold them equipment that is not appropriate for their needs. We are very committed to the industry and the safe commercial use of drones in as many ways as possible.

As for our network of pilots, we are putting our pilots to work. We have contract pilots out inspecting cell phone towers and power lines as I type this message.

We were part of an emergency response effort after the hurricane and had pilots flying telecom and power restoration - some for nearly 2 months. The power line contract we have pilots flying right now in VA and NC is going to turn into a multi-year contract for some of our pilots. The telecom work just began in January (currently we have flown towers in 8 states) and is ramping up to very, very large numbers of assets to inspect for the rest of the year. We have also been approached for our assistance in locating pilots on a couple small (very small) projects outside the US. I hope you understand that the cell phone providers require that we fly very specific flight profiles for their work. Our photos and videos are uploaded, processed and hosted by a company that sits on the National Association of Tower Erectors with all the major players in cellular and tower ownership. The missions and flight profiles that were designed are specific to the platform that these companies use with their engineers when planning space for equipment upgrades, when determining antenna angles, etc. As such, training is required. We simply can not deliver random photos and videos to them.

The 3 day training that was originally provided to our pilots from the company that developed this profile could have been better. We had a handful of pilots attend the training in December and begin flying towers in January and they felt they could have been better prepared for the "real world" issues you find in the field. To assist with this, we sent an employee to TX to work with a number of the pilots on some of the complex towers and antennas they were encountering. He stayed there with them for nearly 2 weeks to make sure the contract was properly completed. This is part of the reason that the new pilots will experience an additional day or two onsite with us. We are not asking the original pilots to come back - we just are adjusting the training to do what we feel will make more successful pilots in the field. I am sorry if you got the impression that we were going to ask the pilots that have already been trained to return to our location in FL for another day or two - that was not the message that was intended. Going forward we are adjusting the time and material that we feel is going to be the most beneficial for our pilots.

Our golf course work is developing on 3 fronts:

Cinematic Work. This is much harder to scale because training in not something that can be done in a few days - it requires people to have extensive knowledge in video production and that comes from working in the industry for years. It also involves more than drones as we use cameras on the ground as well in additional to models, slow motion, etc. This will likely develop into small teams that travel. There are many golf courses looking to bring content to GPS aware golf carts and we are pursuing those opportunities but again, we are not certain this is a likely program we can roll out on a large scale. 3 pilots worked together recently completing work like this in our local market.

Multispectral Turf Analysis. This is where we are targeting training for our pilots. We have about 2 years into the development and customization of someone else's software to meet the needs of our golf course clients. We have not found there is a single "off the shelf" solution to this need. There is a lot to train pilots when it comes to multi spectral image analysis in addition to the use of ground control points. We recently invited to meet with a small group of golf course superintendents (60-70) to introduce the program in FL and prepare to scale it to the other areas in the country - especially those in the warmer climates with longer golf seasons. This again is not something that can be done without training pilots everything that is required for a successful flight, proper coverage, accurate ground control integration and the interpretation of multispectral data and reports. The pilots flying this work will be the local contact for the golf course and need to be familiar and well informed on the data they are helping collect and report.

High Precision Contours. This is another area that we are working on a national contract. I am not allowed to share much in the way of details (yet) but want to point out tha this is another are in golf course work that will require specific training and equipment.

While it is true that we have not specified the training timeline or cost on the golf course turf program yet, we do want to get an idea of how many people are even interested in that type of work. It is very different than the utility jobs we have in process now - those are much easier to train and plan for. If technical golf course flights are not going to be a national product, we will likely just promote them in the states that have the highest number of golf courses and longer golf seasons.

I hope this helps make more sense of the information you have been getting. There are multiple people that go online for Florida Drone Supply to help answer questions and provide information. I personally was out of town on the other coast of FL all last week or I could have jumped in earlier to share more information. I'm Michael and you can generally tell my posts because I write too much (or so I am told)...haha.

Anyway, if I can answer any more questions for you just ask...or feel free to call as well...(855) 8-DRONES. I literally could have continued writing on and on about this as there are many of our business lines that were not even talked about above.

Here are a couple links to when we were flying power work with Duke Energy:

Duke Energy deploys drones in effort to restore power after Hurricane Irma

Hurricane Irma: Drones help power companies shorten repair times

Thank you for your detailed reply. However, you are still talking all around the main point. We are still missing your upfront fee for even the known telecom training, and the total length of the mandatory telecom training at your location. Prematurely asking for names of those interested, without first specifying even a ballpark cost for that upfront training fee that you intend to charge, is like buying a pig in a poke.

Assuming one pays for the upfront cost of that training, and travels to your location, and pays for lodging and incurs all other opportunity costs to their existing income for being OOT for this as yet unspecified period of time, what assurances or guarantees of any jobs can you provide, after training and certification, that would justify such an unknown upfront fee and investment?

Trade schools all across the country have been running this scam at the expense of the tax payers on the hook for student loans that will never be repaid by the "graduates", such that all trade schools are now required to supply post graduation employment data and income in the field of graduation for all graduates of their programs, so full disclosure exists before enrollment. I would hope and expect you to be willing to do the same.

"Methinks thou dost protest too much."

 

[Florida Drone Supply]

Thank you for your detailed reply. However, you are still talking all around the main point. We are still missing your upfront fee for even the known telecom training, and the total length of the mandatory telecom training at your location. Prematurely asking for names of those interested, without first specifying even a ballpark cost for that upfront training fee that you intend to charge, is like buying a pig in a poke.

Assuming one pays for the upfront cost of that training, and travels to your location, and pays for lodging and incurs all other opportunity costs to their existing income for being OOT for this as yet unspecified period of time, what assurances or guarantees of any jobs can you provide, after training and certification, that would justify such an unknown upfront fee and investment?

Trade schools all across the country have been running this scam at the expense of the tax payers on the hook for student loans that will never be repaid by the "graduates", such that all trade schools are now required to supply post graduation employment data and income in the field of graduation for all graduates of their programs, so full disclosure exists before enrollment. I would hope and expect you to be willing to do the same.

"Methinks thou dost protest too much."

@GadgetGuy I understand what you are saying and can tell you that our telecom training is scheduled to begin as a Mon-Fri training course on March 19th. We are running a small class next week to confirm our systems & technology, etc. The base cost is $1200 and the first 4 classes will receive a reduced price ($900).

As for the second part of your question, it is simply not possible for us to guarantee contracts. We know the general areas that the waves of work are due to come from - and that is how we are attempting to prioritize the pilots who choose to get trained in advance for it. Keep in mind that not all of the contracts that we get require a pilot to have attended cell phone tower inspection training...which is what we are talking about. Our pilots who started flying on a power company contract this week have not been to the cell phone tower training and began the inspection of a significant amount of power line assets. They were just simply registered in our pilot network and were from the right area and had equipment that was suitable for the job. That contract should become a multi year contract for them or other pilots from the area and interested in that type of work. They did have to attend a 2 day training at the power company with the lineman and the manned helicopter pilots (required once every 2 years for all people involved in power line inspection by this company).

All of the training and assistance we provide our pilots is to help them succeed on the job. We are not interested in providing un-necessary training to anyone nor are we interested in seeing a pilot arrive on a job site unprepared. In fact, we were perfectly happy not being part of the training process - but the company that was training the pilots (same one who designed the flight profile and does the data processing) was not able to train pilots quick enough and was omitting some things that our pilots would have been better served to be trained on.

I hope you find the above to be informative and fill in the missing pieces of information you were asking for.

Michael

 

[GadgetGuy]

@GadgetGuy I understand what you are saying and can tell you that our telecom training is scheduled to begin as a Mon-Fri training course on March 19th. We are running a small class next week to confirm our systems & technology, etc. The base cost is $1200 and the first 4 classes will receive a reduced price ($900).

As for the second part of your question, it is simply not possible for us to guarantee contracts. We know the general areas that the waves of work are due to come from - and that is how we are attempting to prioritize the pilots who choose to get trained in advance for it. Keep in mind that not all of the contracts that we get require a pilot to have attended cell phone tower inspection training...which is what we are talking about. Our pilots who started flying on a power company contract this week have not been to the cell phone tower training and began the inspection of a significant amount of power line assets. They were just simply registered in our pilot network and were from the right area and had equipment that was suitable for the job. That contract should become a multi year contract for them or other pilots from the area and interested in that type of work. They did have to attend a 2 day training at the power company with the lineman and the manned helicopter pilots (required once every 2 years for all people involved in power line inspection by this company).

All of the training and assistance we provide our pilots is to help them succeed on the job. We are not interested in providing un-necessary training to anyone nor are we interested in seeing a pilot arrive on a job site unprepared. In fact, we were perfectly happy not being part of the training process - but the company that was training the pilots (same one who designed the flight profile and does the data processing) was not able to train pilots quick enough and was omitting some things that our pilots would have been better served to be trained on.

I hope you find the above to be informative and fill in the missing pieces of information you were asking for.

Michael

Thank you. I am satisfied with your answers. Hopefully, this will help those considering the opportunity. What are the rates of pay offered for the jobs available, after the training?

 

[Florida Drone Supply]

Thank you. I am satisfied with your answers. Hopefully, this will help those considering the opportunity. What are the rates of pay offered for the jobs available, after the training?

Thank you...as I said in my original answer to you, I appreciate pilots looking out for one another in the industry - we try to do as much as we can for the members of the forums (both our own clients and clients of other retailers).

The pay is all over the board right now. I can give you a few examples to try to put a reference to a variety of things...first, cell phone towers (since we have mostly been discussing that topic). As we worked with the developer of the flight profile, we explained that we felt the pilots should be able to achieve a minimum of $500 per day (flying a P4 Pro as a minimum equipment requirement). We understand that not everyone would accept that as a day rate - and that pilots with higher skill levels could attempt to reach double that number. So far, we are not achieving that number very consistently and are working on multiple solutions on behalf of the pilots. The first one is to simply adjust the compensation upwards to reach our minimum target. Our requests are being considered and at minimum we expect to see changes that are geared towards the difficulty of the inspection. Monopoles are the easiest, lattice towers next and complex guy wired towers are the most difficult - and maybe difficult is the wrong classification as they simply take more time because you are flying sections of tower between the wires instead of the full tower at once. The next fix is the grouping of the towers we are able to release to the pilots. If they are spread out, much time can be wasted driving from tower to tower. Tight concentrations are more productive and bring up the day rate significantly. That being said, we have also paid a pilot $1000+ for a single tower in a remote location. It was more of an emergency situation and not a routine inspection and the additional mobilization fee really helped the pilot offset several hours of drive time. Cell phone tower inspections have the potential to be very good steady income - and once a pilot is trained and gets some practice, a tower can essentially be done with a single P4 Pro flight (1 battery of flying)...which is why the elimination of excessive drive time is very helpful.

The power line contracts are paying a very decent rate (8K+ for a few weeks of work plus a long term contract in the works). These pilots ride with the lineman in their trucks and provide aerial support and only take photos if they find a problem. In tough to reach areas, they have ATVs being pulled behind the trucks - which might make for a few adventurous stories to be told later.

We just sent a pilot on a job around New Orleans which was only supposed to be about a half day of work for around $1000. This was a simple video job and no advance training was required.

Golf courses, construction, thermal mapping, etc will all have different rates based upon the project and equipment requirements. We are waiting on another power company contract that requires M210s, RGB and Thermal...not an inexpensive request.

Again, the numbers above are just samples - but I wanted to share some conservative ones as well as some a more experienced pilot might expect to achieve.

Thanks again for the good conversation on this topic....

Michael

 

[GadgetGuy]

Thank you...as I said in my original answer to you, I appreciate pilots looking out for one another in the industry - we try to do as much as we can for the members of the forums (both our own clients and clients of other retailers).

The pay is all over the board right now. I can give you a few examples to try to put a reference to a variety of things...first, cell phone towers (since we have mostly been discussing that topic). As we worked with the developer of the flight profile, we explained that we felt the pilots should be able to achieve a minimum of $500 per day (flying a P4 Pro as a minimum equipment requirement). We understand that not everyone would accept that as a day rate - and that pilots with higher skill levels could attempt to reach double that number. So far, we are not achieving that number very consistently and are working on multiple solutions on behalf of the pilots. The first one is to simply adjust the compensation upwards to reach our minimum target. Our requests are being considered and at minimum we expect to see changes that are geared towards the difficulty of the inspection. Monopoles are the easiest, lattice towers next and complex guy wired towers are the most difficult - and maybe difficult is the wrong classification as they simply take more time because you are flying sections of tower between the wires instead of the full tower at once. The next fix is the grouping of the towers we are able to release to the pilots. If they are spread out, much time can be wasted driving from tower to tower. Tight concentrations are more productive and bring up the day rate significantly. That being said, we have also paid a pilot $1000+ for a single tower in a remote location. It was more of an emergency situation and not a routine inspection and the additional mobilization fee really helped the pilot offset several hours of drive time. Cell phone tower inspections have the potential to be very good steady income - and once a pilot is trained and gets some practice, a tower can essentially be done with a single P4 Pro flight (1 battery of flying)...which is why the elimination of excessive drive time is very helpful.

The power line contracts are paying a very decent rate (8K+ for a few weeks of work plus a long term contract in the works). These pilots ride with the lineman in their trucks and provide aerial support and only take photos if they find a problem. In tough to reach areas, they have ATVs being pulled behind the trucks - which might make for a few adventurous stories to be told later.

We just sent a pilot on a job around New Orleans which was only supposed to be about a half day of work for around $1000. This was a simple video job and no advance training was required.

Golf courses, construction, thermal mapping, etc will all have different rates based upon the project and equipment requirements. We are waiting on another power company contract that requires M210s, RGB and Thermal...not an inexpensive request.

Again, the numbers above are just samples - but I wanted to share some conservative ones as well as some a more experienced pilot might expect to achieve.

Thanks again for the good conversation on this topic....

Michael

Excellent information. Thank you for sharing it.
Any opportunities in southern CA?

 

[Florida Drone Supply]

Excellent information. Thank you for sharing it.
Any opportunities in southern CA?

We have had opportunities in the southern Ca area recently and expect more. We recently had a single tower to fly in the Ridgecrest area. The pilot we had available (in the LA area) who had been thru our training class was available to complete this for us. Our client as well as our pilot were satisfied with the terms we agreed upon.

Jim

 

[GadgetGuy]

We have had opportunities in the southern Ca area recently and expect more. We recently had a single tower to fly in the Ridgecrest area. The pilot we had available (in the LA area) who had been thru our training class was available to complete this for us. Our client as well as our pilot were satisfied with the terms we agreed upon.

Jim

Thanks! Sounds more like side work than full time work, but work is work!

 

[EhmayWuntee]

Are pilots paid by you?

So the company pays you a higher fee so that you get a cut and then you turn around and pay the pilot, or how is your fee factored in?

Is payment per job, week, month, or when?

 

[Florida Drone Supply]

Are pilots paid by you?

So the company pays you a higher fee so that you get a cut and then you turn around and pay the pilot, or how is your fee factored in?

Is payment per job, week, month, or when?

Yes, this is correct. We get contracted to supply a certain amount of work, pilots, data, etc and we pay the pilots directly.

As for the rate it depends on the job. Some things pay a flat fee (do this job for XX dollars), some pay on a per item basis (do XX amount of inspections at a rate per inspection), some pay a daily rate (determined by the work or equipment used) and when we were doing post hurricane work we even had pilots being paid a daily rate to sit in a hotel and be on standby for when work might begin (storm riders). We also had post storm people go on standby daily rates waiting in their homes to be put on assignment.

Prior to the big change up in who got the power restoration contract to rebuild the Puerto Rico power grid, we had pilots set to be on 90 days deployments, transferred on military jets with armed security escorts and translators. We had over 20 people prepped to go - some were just 30 days assignments, but 2 groups were 90 day. Then that little firm in Montana got the contract instead of our client and it all got cancelled. I only mention that because it was an interesting sounding job that many people were excited to go on with a very different compensation structure, etc.

 

[aerialimagery]

I wouldn't feel good about paying a $1,200 training fee plus travel expenses with no assurance there was substantial work ahead to make the investment worthwhile. I don't understand why the fee is so high. If I had to pay such a substantial amount to possibly work for someone, I think it would be fairer to deduct something from each job I did until the training costs were covered. That way I would feel that we are really working as a team. Otherwise, I couldn't go along with this program. I would not be able to see any dependable profit for me, but only the profit for the company receiving training fees. I'm not saying there is any dishonesty here, but I've been burned in the past and I would not risk the advance money and time in this venture for a "maybe."

Why couldn't the training be covered in a video?

 

[EhmayWuntee]

I had a similar thought cross my mind in terms of the paying for training by taking a cut from each project payment. Maybe it’s half upfront or some minimum and then the rest gets taken along the way. If no work is available maybe FDS actually forgives the remainder due after some time. I’d assume it’s been thought of or discussed previously so hopefully FDS has a response for that.

 

[Florida Drone Supply]

I wouldn't feel good about paying a $1,200 training fee plus travel expenses with no assurance there was substantial work ahead to make the investment worthwhile. I don't understand why the fee is so high. If I had to pay such a substantial amount to possibly work for someone, I think it would be fairer to deduct something from each job I did until the training costs were covered. That way I would feel that we are really working as a team. Otherwise, I couldn't go along with this program. I would not be able to see any dependable profit for me, but only the profit for the company receiving training fees. I'm not saying there is any dishonesty here, but I've been burned in the past and I would not risk the advance money and time in this venture for a "maybe."

Why couldn't the training be covered in a video?

I completely understand this is not for everyone; and each pilot will need to evaluate it based on their current work and the type of work they are looking to move into.

As for the training cost, we do have a reimbursement program that gets the pilot back almost half of their training cost once they have engaged in some work with us. From our perspective, we are happy to contribute and lower the cost of the training for the people that begin working on our contracts, but have also had pilots tell us very openly that they are going through our training with the intention of learning the business to attempt to get out there on their own. If we did not charge for training and only recouped the cost on a per job basis we would probably end up providing endless free training to pilots who do not intend to fly with us. So, this was our best effort to be fair and meet in the middle. The actual cost of training may seem higher they you expect, but if you look into the other companies that do this type of training you will find them much higher. We had found a video course for just under $1000 that was not even available, another company like ours that charges 30-50% more and if you look at somewhere like UVU (unmanned vehicle university) they are about triple our cost. We have a UVU trainer on contract with us and know a lot about what they offer and what they charge.

I wish it could all be video based - that would really make it easy for everyone. But nothing replaces the actual time on the sticks flying 15 or 20 feet for a large antenna array and knowing what to do if you lose radio signal to the copter. Very similar is knowing how to get into the equipment cabinets when requested to do so, and ultimately having the pilots demonstrate their ability to perform these inspections before being sent out on contracts.

I really do see your point and understand your perspective - especially if you have been burned in the past. I hope you can see it from our side too - we just want to get trained pilots out flying. As we type this message we have pilots from outside the state of TX traveling to TX to get towers inspected. And its not because we do not have TX pilots that have registered with our pilot network - we just have not gotten them through training yet. Training is something we all wish happened faster, but nothing can replace a pilot who is properly prepared for something that is not an ordinary flight profile - and one with very specific requirements.

Again, I do appreciate your thoughts and your point of view.

Michael

 

[Florida Drone Supply]

I had a similar thought cross my mind in terms of the paying for training by taking a cut from each project payment. Maybe it’s half upfront or some minimum and then the rest gets taken along the way. If no work is available maybe FDS actually forgives the remainder due after some time. I’d assume it’s been thought of or discussed previously so hopefully FDS has a response for that.

I think I was probably typing another one of my long answers when you made your post. Let me know if you don't think I addressed your thought.

Thanks!

 

[EhmayWuntee]

I think I was probably typing another one of my long answers when you made your post. Let me know if you don't think I addressed your thought.

Thanks!

Seems good to me, and I don't mind the long detailed answers (I am pretty much the same way!).

 

[GadgetGuy]

The true cost of the training for a prospective subcontractor is not just the tuition charge for the training, but the cost of travel to and from their location, which involves either airplane tickets or additional days for driving to and from, the cost of lodging for a week or more, plus the cost of food away from home, and the loss of at least a week's worth of income. Using their day rate of $500, that adds a minimum of $2500 in opportunity costs to everything else. Figure $1000 roundtrip airfare based upon short notice, $125 per night for a hotel for 6 nights ($750), $50 a day for hotel food for 6 days ($300), $1200 tuition, and $2,500 in lost income during the week of training. That's $5,750 to get trained, with no guarantee or assurance of any income thereafter. You would need a minimum of 11 days of employment at $500 per day just to break even.