2018 Aerial Drone Photography User Guide

Every day more and more businesses are beginning to incorporate drone based aerial imaging services into their work plans and deliverables. Being a relatively new technology, it is quite common to hear new clients say something along the lines of “I’ve never used a drone before so I’m not sure what you need from me”. This is such a common comment that I felt the topic deserved it’s very own blog post.

HOPE IS NOT A PLAN

It is understandable for a new drone user of drone aerial imaging to think that all that is required is to contact a drone service and book a flight with little advance notice. In some cases last minute calls like these can be accommodated if the schedule permits but quite often there are a series of administrative hurdles that must be addressed before the drone is cleared for take off. I will list these hurldles in the order we typically dispatch them via our work order system.

1. Clearing Airspace

Non-aviators usually have no need to know the details behind how our skies overhead are broken up into different airspace classifications in order to safely and efficiently manage air navigation and transportation. Drones are no exception to this time-tested system and must operate in a manner that does not conflict with ANY operations of full size aircraft. Much of our skies fall into what is called “uncontrolled airspace” or Class “G”. If the location you need a drone flight is in a Class “G” zone then quite often “Bob’s your uncle”. If however you have picked a location within 5 miles of an airport with a active control tower for example, this is now “controlled airspace” and a commercial drone can only operate within these zones with ATC authorization in the form of a special authorization or waiver. The closer your intended site is to the center of these airports, the more planning/authorization is required, meaning more “TIME” will be needed to coordinate. It can often take months to obtain these special authorizations if not already in-hand.

Understanding the importance of this issue, Perfect Perspectives was the first Ohio Drone Service to obtain wide area airspace authorizations for most of Ohio’s controlled airspace. So too the FAA quickly realized the long lead times required to obtain authorizations was unacceptable and a new on-demand/real-time system called LAANC (Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability) is set to be rolled out later this summer making this less of a cause for delays.

Another often unforeseen airspace clearance required deals with Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFR’s). These are typically associated with VIP movements and large Pro and NCAA stadium sporting events. When these are in affect they can stretch from 3 to 30 miles from the center point depending on activity being protected. It is possible to obtain an FAA waiver for the stadium TFR’s with written permission from the event owner. Such waivers can take days to weeks to obtain.

2. Clearing Permits

Currently in the U.S. only the FAA has jurisdiction over what can fly in the various flavors of airspace above. HOWEVER, City, State, Local, Tribal governments and private land owners can restrict drone operations being launched and recovered on properties they own and control. In some cases permissions will not be granted. In many others, a permit application will need to be filed and, at times, an associated fee will be charged. Approval lead times can range from days to weeks.

3. Clearing Policies/Liabilities

In an effort to protect public safety, privacy and restrict unauthorized use of drones, many organizations now have drone policies in effect. In order to be cleared for a commercial drone operation in these cases, the operator must supply one or more of the following items –

– Certificates of Insurance (aviation, general, vehicle and Worker’s Comp)
– FAA License and Registrations
– FAA Waivers and Authorizations (airspace, night operations, etc)
– Flight Operations Safety Manual
– Detailed Flight Plan

Each of these items will then be reviewed by the company’s Legal and Risk Management Departments before issuing a release to conduct operations. This too can take days or weeks to obtain approval.

4. Clearing Regulatory Requirements

Last on our list is making sure the aerial imaging the client needs/wants can be obtained within the current FAA Part 107 regulations for commercial drones. The most common considerations here deal with the restrictions prohibiting flights directly over people and moving vehicles. Often when this is pointed out, and the only direct solution is obtaining a permit for closed-set operations, the drone work is cancelled because the project can not justify the time and expense to comply. As Ohio’s Most Experienced Drone Service, Perfect Perspectives has 13 years experience using a wide array of available options to legally work around these issues. Some of these include selecting the optimum time/day with minimal activity to use of advanced flight techniques and the addition of Visual Safety Observers.

With this information in hand you can now take the necessary steps to assure that lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on ours with the end result being a smooth flight with little or no turbulence.

To learn more, Please contact – http://perfectperspectivesaerial.com/

5 Valuable Business Lessons From The World Of Drones

Drones are disruptive technology

Small commercial drones fall into the category of a "disruptive technology". To a lesser degree a bit like transportation, where the automobile disrupted the horseless carriage industry or how the airplane disrupted the bus and ocean liner industries. To a larger degree however, drones are more akin to being disruptive on the scale of how the personal computer and internet have disrupted countless facets of human life.

Drones are already making early changes in how farmers monitor crops, how bridges, roads, power plants, refineries and large structures are inspected/constructed and much, much more. Drones are even saving lives by helping prevent shark attacks and preventing drownings through the rapid delivery of flotation devices. In the coming years, drones will impact daily lives in ways that are impossible to imagine right now.

What can other businesses learn from the drone revolution?

As one of the early pioneers offering drone services, Perfect Perspectives and Drones That Work have had the unique opportunity to have a front row seat to the birth and early first steps of the commercial drone industry. This got me thinking that there are so many incredibly valuable lessons learned working through the process of starting and growing our business. Lessons that apply to almost any other business that are worth sharing.

Lesson 1 - Be Early

Being early is one of the hardest things to do in business. It requires you to boldly go where no one has ever gone before. Even worse, the human brain is historically very poor at predicting the future. The best we can do is learn from the past or from others with similar interests to help recognize future opportunities. Twelve years ago we knew that there were opportunities to use unmanned aircraft (drones) in business applications but our imaginations seriously lacked the foresight to see the true potential as we know it today. We were certainly not alone. Insurance companies were not comfortable covering a new risk with so little claims history. But that's perfectly okay. What mattered was we stuck with my gut feeling that drones were something with true commercial potential. As the technology evolved, we were ready to extract maximum value quickly, almost always before our competition could.

Being early is often very expensive in fields of cutting edge technology. Careful thought must be put into business equipment purchases that can quickly become obsolete. There is always an optimum jumping in and jumping out point. A good rule of thumb is - try not to be the first to adopt new technology nor be the last to abandon old technology.

Lesson 2 - Be Ready

A good friend would always say "the only thing harder than getting ahead of your competition is staying ahead". We are seeing thousands of drone entrepreneurs making most of the same mistakes we made. The big difference is we made those mistakes many years ago and have moved on to making fresh new ones. Being a leader is not easy or painless. We are constantly trying new things and often fail spectacularly. The best way to improve/grow is to push beyond your comfort zone. The key is to learn quickly from your mistakes and don't repeat them. This mindset continues to allow us to do things few others can do.

Lesson 3 - Be Nimble

The pace that the drone industry is evolving is both exciting and scary as hell for those wanting to make a living from it. It's much like launching satellites - there only two outcomes - a good geosynchronous orbit or a fiery crash. To compete in today's drone industry requires waking each morning and hitting the ground at a full sprint - keeping close tabs on changing regulations, public opinion, customer wants/needs, rapidly depreciating equipment purchases and a landscape of overnight competition.

Lesson 4 - Be Versatile

Starting early in the drone business has allowed us to explore many different markets and applications. Many that we thought would end up being viable proved to be far less than expected. Conversely, others that we would have never thought of came about when a client called asking if we could do something new. Our response was usually "I don't really know but we're certainly willing to give it a try!".

Listening to customers is always a powerful business opportunity because if they need something, odds are there are others just like them that do too. Most important is listening to customers when you fail. It is human nature to want to quietly exit the stage upon disappointing a client but that's the worst possible thing to do. Take the failure as an opportunity to learn and move forward.

One of the reasons we have been able to make drones a full time business ahead of most others is our versatility, hard won by always trying something new. This versatility allows us to stay busy year around in a wide variety of markets and business sectors. When one sector slumps, the others pick up the slack.

Lesson 5 - Be Different

Being different is a very powerful asset in a competitive industry. When there are thousands of other businesses out there doing similar things, simply saying you are better means very little. If however, you have capabilities and experience few others have, well that's a whole different story! As mentioned before, in this age of global information sharing, being different for very long is very difficult. The best you can do is have a new idea in the oven, so that when your competition copies your previous concept, you have already moved on, forever expanding your comfort zone.

Drone Policy - When, Where and Why

 On Dec. 21st, 2016 the FAA announced that more than 600,000 drone users have been added to a public registry. The FAA expects the combined total sales of both recreational and commercial drones (small unmanned aircraft systems) to steadily increase from 2.5 million in 2016 to 7 million in 2020.

This is great news for market leaders like DJI and others who manufacture, sell or support small drones but their low cost, small size and ease of use can also bring along a host of related potential problems for some entities if not properly wrangled in. This is even more important when you consider that many people flying drones today have very little experience operating them safely.

This recent drone ubiquity has forced many of our clients to implement specific policies directed towards keeping drones under control when operating from property they own or manage. The reasons for this stem mainly from the need to assure that drones and their operators follow all applicable laws in order to protect both safety and privacy. Such policies typically come from risk managers and safety officers employed at larger, culturally significant public and private properties. A few examples include public parks, colleges and universities, museums and historical landmarks, among others.

In general, these policies require drone operators to comply with all existing State, Federal and City laws for drone use. They also require advance permission (permit) that details specifics about the intended use of drones. And lastly, they include provisions that prohibit using a drone in a manner that would invade a reasonable expectation of privacy. It is important when drafting such policies that they do not conflict with existing FAA regulations, as these have preemption. These policies must also be regularly revised as FAA rules change frequently at this stage of the game.

Unfortunately drones open up an entirely new arena that often isn't addressed properly through existing policies. Failure to have instituted a drone policy can implicate a property owner in the event of an accident or privacy violation in subsequent legal proceedings if it can be shown in court that the entity was aware of the issue and took no action.

A well crafted drone policy is almost always preferred to an outright ban on drone use as it allows for countless beneficial drone uses by qualified personnel for marketing, inspection, mapping and countless other useful purposes.

Why Drone Racing Won't Be The Next Big Thing

There is much talk these days about drone racing. This week ESPN will even start airing several Drone Racing League (DRL) events. For those who aren't familiar with the sport, pilots wearing video goggles fly small quadcopter drones around a gated obstacle course for time. The HD video image from the drones camera can be displayed so spectators can ride along. Many people find this image nauseating due to a vertigo type sensation. Some of the larger events have been able to offer large sums of money to the winning pilots. Advocates of the sport profess that it is "the next big thing" because it appeals to the video game generation. But is that really the case and will it be something the average sports viewer will find engaging. We don't think so and here is why:

The world's most popular sports all involve human athleticism, such as soccer, football, basketball and baseball. Variations in this theme include all forms of vehicle racing, with one of the latest being Red Bull Air Racing. Inherent in all racing is the excitement and anticipation that a horrific crash is always lurking around the next turn from even the smallest mistake. The greater the human risk, the greater the thrill in watching. Humans can't take their eyes off train-wreck scale carnage - it's written into our DNA. Drone racing offers none of this form of viewer excitement. A small drone racing crash is viewed with far less agape than dropping your smartphone on the floor.

As a radio controlled aircraft event organizer for many decades, I have some experiences that support my contention that drone racing's 15 minutes of fame has only about 12 minutes left. My wife Leisa and several of our RC buddies started an event over a decade ago called the Extreme Flight Championships (XFC). It was our groundbreaking attempt to make flying unmanned aircraft more appealing to mainstream sports viewers. In many areas it had much more going for it than drone racing. The world's top giant scale RC aerobatic airplane and 3D helicopter pilots flew radical aerobatic routines, often inches from the ground, all choreographed to music. A panel of judges scored each round much like figure skating or gymnastics. In many cases the cost of these aircraft were 10's of thousands of dollars. The flying skills of the pilots was an order of magnitude more demanding than drone racing. We handed out huge cash prizes to winners. Routines were even flown at night with amazing remotely controlled LED lighting systems and on-board and ground fireworks displays. This sport had something for everyone, yet it only achieved a very modest mainstream following, despite all our best efforts and support from the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA). Today, after more than a decade, the XFC is finding it increasingly difficult to keep going.

Drone racing on the other hand is a one dimensional, one trick pony. The drones don't even race each other at the same time, which is key in the most popular forms of racing. But I will confess that it does have at least a couple of significant things in it's favor that may ultimately have value, should it morph or evolve into something greater that it currently is. The most significant being a very low cost to entry. Just about anyone can afford to buy a racing quad which will certainly help more young people get on board. Secondly, and perhaps even more important, is, today's younger generation seems content to do something that older folks can't even begin to understand - they are perfectly content to sit for hours in front of a video screen watching someone else play a video game. If these young people find this a viable form of entertainment, perhaps drone racing does actually have a future and I don't have a clue.

Only time will tell and I am sure many will tune in to check out drone racing. But I predict that for the majority of us, it will garner nothing more than a big wide yawn, followed by a channel hop to one of the many other time-tested sports or entertainment options available.







  

The Naked Truth Behind The FAA "Part 107" License

With the recent arrival of the FAA's new Part 107 Small Unmanned Aircraft regulations late last month, it has become quite common to see drone operators proudly announcing that they are one of the first to pass the knowledge exam and will soon be open for business. (The applicant must pass a TSA background check before actually being granted the license). But what does this really mean to the average individual or business person?

To be honest it's very similar to someone saying they passed the knowledge test for a chauffeur's license, but not an actual driving test. Yes that's correct. There is NO practical exam associated with Part 107. When I obtained my Private Pilots License, I had to pass a knowledge test, an oral exam and a check ride with an FAA examiner. On top of all that, my instructor had to sign off my log book to indicate I was actually qualified and ready to even go on that check ride.

So what passing the 107 knowledge test really means is some test questions were memorized and a passing score on the 107 exam was obtained - and nothing more. This is in no way intended to downplay the importance of compliance with the new FAA commercial drone regulations. This step is vitally important to educate potential commercial drone operators on the safety aspects of flying drones in the national airspace. Many of these new drone pilots have been violating FAA safety policies they never knew existed until studying for this exam.

Even more important for the FAA is by passing the exam, commercial drone operators will no longer be able to plead ignorance when they are caught being careless or reckless. This also greatly simplifies FAA enforcement efforts when it comes to levying fines and revoking operators licenses, as they can now actually cite specific regulations violated.

So going back to our example of the aspiring limo driver who just passed the chauffeur's exam, what you would NOT know about this person is -

- How much actual driving experience they had?
- How many accidents they have had?
- Do they possess good decision making skills?
- Do they have drug or alcohol dependence?
- What kind of maintenance history does their limo have?
- Is their limo the best one for the job?
- Do they have any references or insurance?
- Have they ever driven for anyone important?

Obviously all of these same questions and many more should be asked before hiring anyone to perform drone services for you or your company. Check out the operators previous work and website. How many flight hours do they have? What kind of insurance do they carry? Only the most experienced operators are able to obtain policy limits of $5M to $10M or more. Do they have a Worker's Comp policy?

The most experienced professionals in the drone service industry started down the path to excellence many, many years ago - long before the potential of using drones commercially was even on the FAA's radar screens. These professionals obtained full size pilot's licenses and developed very comprehensive operating manuals for things like closed-set motion picture/television filming and inspections of industrial facilities.

As I have mentioned previously, a large portion of the work that our company gets is the direct result of another less experienced company not performing as expected and/or having an accident. Because drones have become easier and easier to operate, many people think that little actual flying skill is required to use them for work. It then comes as a rude awakening when they discover that flying indoors, around electrical equipment, power lines, inside boilers and near buildings can require the pilot to quickly and unexpectedly assume full manual control to avoid an accident. But this is the kind of information you need, before you actually need it - otherwise commonly known as "experience".

Key Considerations When Selecting A Drone Filming Company

Currently in the U.S. there are over three thousand FAA Section 333 approved drone service providers and many, many more rogue (unauthorized) operators. As word spreads throughout various industries that a legal (although cumbersome) option exists for limited commercial drone use, more and more companies are insisting on only using Section 333 authorized companies for their drone aerial filming needs. Here are a few reasons why:

In general, well established businesses don't want to risk getting into scrapes with the Federal Government or having to deal with the negative publicity that often results when things go south. The media continues to sensationalize anything negative associated with drone use, no matter how trivial it might actually be. Larger companies also don't want to risk having an entire production shut down unexpectedly by the FAA. Using only an FAA authorized provider is also preferred for liability reasons.

A down side of using a Section 333 provider is more planning is required, which can result in significant delays in a production schedule in some cases. A perfect example of this is the requirement to obtain a written letter of agreement from airport management when flying within controlled airspace. As a matter of fact, at this point in time it is just about impossible to get such approval flying near any of the 12 largest Class B airports in the country. This might sound like an infrequent issue until you look at an aviation sectional chart or Airmap.io (a great resource). Every moderately populated part of the country is densely littered with airports and heliports.

In our part of the country, over 50% of our business inquiries want to shoot within 5 miles of an airport. The main reason for this is many desirable filming locations (and subjects) are situated within population centers, and consequently, near airports. At times we have had airports provide written approval in less than 24 hours. In other instances, like in Frankfort Kentucky for example, a drone shoot had to be canceled because the approval was going to take over a month to obtain, once the airport's board and legal departments got involved.

There is also another compelling reason to only use an FAA authorized drone company. There is considerable time and expense associated in becoming authorized. Companies willing to put forth this effort are almost always committed professionals. Consider that less than 1% of the U.S. population are certificated pilots. To become a pilot requires intelligence, dedication, good decision making skills and hard work. These same exact qualities are what most people want in a company they are going to do business with.

With these thoughts in mind, here is a list of the top 10 things clients want from a professional drone aerial cinematography company, based on our 11 years in this business:

10. Drone pilots who can get technically difficult shots without putting the cast/crew at undue risk.

9. A company that brings at least 2 of everything and is also good at improvisation.

8. A company that's flexible and doesn't slip in extra charges for minor gear changes.

7. Drone Pilots who have the flying skills/gear to get epic, attention grabbing shots, above and beyond the same basic moves the everyone else is doing, even in less than perfect conditions.

6. A crew that are not only drone experts but camera/video production experts as well.

5. The ability to move from location to location and deploy in only a few minutes.

4. A company that is adept at dealing with the public and law enforcement concerns.

3. A company that is equipped with latest cutting edge drone/camera technology that is currently evolving very rapidly.

2. A company that can meet the current Section 333 exemption rules and still get viable results.

1. A company that doesn't oversell it's capabilities.

                  Freefly Systems Alta flying Red Dragon 6K UHD camera
                             

Why FAA's Commercial vs Recreational Drone Policies Don't Fly

At a recent press conference held January 7th, 2015 at the CES Show in Las Vegas, FAA UAS Integration Manager Jim Williams was asked why the FAA views commercial drone use differently compared to recreational use in regards to NAS safety.

2015 CES Drone Press Conference

The response from Mr. Williams was "It's fairly established in past history, that people who are being paid to do a job are more likely to take risks in order to accomplish that than they are if they are just doing it for pleasure and that's the reason the rules are different for those two activities". 

The looks on the faces in the crowd must have been filled with utter dismay as all of the comments immediately following this statement vehemently disagreed with the FAA's position (as we do also) and here is why:

First of all there is no valid basis or data to support such a comment and position specifically for drones. Only within the last few months has commercial drone use been permitted by the FAA through exemptions and subsequently under FAA/NTSB scrutiny in regards to safety reporting. Further, if all known careless and reckless flights performed by unauthorized commercial operators in recent years was tallied, and this figure was then compared to the number of careless/reckless recreational flights.......well, we all know how lop-sided that comparison would be. In 10 years of flying camera drones, not once has anyone ever asked us to take photos or video from 5000' AGL.

People only do things they need or want to through some form of motivation. 

The typical motivation for a careless recreational drone pilot is to simply see if they can do something. Natural curiosity if you will. At more extreme levels, this is sometimes also known as thrill-seeking. How high can this drone fly? What does my city look like from 5000' high? How far away can I fly this drone? How close to something can I fly my drone if FPV? What do fireworks look like from my drone? What do my city's Xmas lights look like from my drone at night? These are all good examples of motivations for a careless drone hobbyist. It is also human nature to want to share such daring exploits with others and the more YouTube views the better!

This is in very stark contrast to the motivations of a commercial drone pilot and company. Their prioritized motivations are more along the lines of -

Making a profit
Keeping costs down
Staying ahead of the competition
Building a client base
Maintaining a good reputation

While there can be business motivations to get attention-grabbing, high-risk shots for marketing purposes, in general putting very expensive equipment at high risk is usually a very poor business model. Frequently broken equipment is not good for a productive bottom line. A perfect example of a more preferred risk management approach is the frequent use of disclaimer's that reads "professional driver on closed course" in automobile advertising.

Looking at the list of motivations for a commercial drone operation, putting equipment, persons and company reputations at excessive risk is directly counter to every single item listed above in a very big way. Insurance is also a consideration. Aviation liability insurance is expensive and hard to keep for those prone to frequent claims. Careless hobbyists aren't covered by insurance when not following the safety code of a "community based organization" such as the AMA.

So in conclusion, since the FAA's commercial vs recreational regulatory policies are not based on data, logic, trends or observations, the question that begs to be asked is...what are they "really" based on, truth be known?

Top 5 Reasons Small Drones Crash More Often Than Manned Aircraft

General aviation remains one of the safest forms of transportation with a fatal accident rate per 100,000 flight hours of only 1.05 in the United States in 2013. The non-fatal accident rate per 100,000 flight hours was 5.85 during the same period. It isn't easy to make an apples to apples comparison with drone accident rates because, for the most part, small drone accidents happen often and most go undocumented.

2013 U.S. Aviation Statistics

Our estimated accident rate (non-fatal) for even the most experienced commercial drone operation would likely be on the order of approximately 1 accident every 250 flight hours for a rate per 100,000 flight hours of 400. There are many reasons for the wide gap compared to manned aircraft accidents but this article will focus only on what we see as the top 5.

#5 - Multirotor drones have very limited flight test data to learn from.
     
Today's small drones, for all intents and purposes, are very similar to RC aircraft. The first RC gliders, for example, have been around since the mid 30's. The first successful RC helicopter flight took place in 1969 by German engineer Dieter Schluter. Multirotor's however are a very recent development with the earliest versions only taking off within the last 8 years or so. An early pioneer in RC helicopters named Don Chapman actually described the basic multirotor concept to me in his Dayton Ohio basement way back in the mid-90's however Li-po batteries, brushless motors, electronic speed controllers and low cost flight control technology were not available at that time.

As aircraft accumulate substantial flight hours, lessons learned such as "mean time between failures" (MTBF) contribute significantly to improving overall reliability. At present single rotor helicopters tend to be a more reliable aerial platform than multirotors, all else being equal, solely because the knowledge and evolution of SR designs has had a several decade head start.

#4 - Small drones fly close to the ground so errors in judging depth perception are common.

When the pilot is inside an aircraft, it is much easier to judge its distance from other objects. For unmanned aircraft flown by line-of-sight (LOS), the drone pilot's eyes are focused primarily on the aircraft in flight and so it is quite easy to lose track of spacing from various objects projecting up from the ground. Also, the accuracy of a person's depth perception drops off dramatically with distance. 

#3 - Small drones aren't built to any formal or recognized quality standards.

As mentioned above, small unmanned aircraft tend to use RC hobby grade components, few of which are built to ANSI, ASTM, ISO or MIL-SPEC quality standards. Sudden unexpected failures can be a frequent event as a result. It is also common to overload systems through trial and error verses having the benefit of accurate operating limits for key components.

#2 - Flying a drone manually is more difficult than flying a manned aircraft manually.

This is primarily due to the fact that the unmanned aircraft pilot is unable to benefit from several key senses, such as sensing motion first hand or detecting changes in vibration for example. When seated inside an aircraft, the relative direction of control remains constant; this is not so for unmanned aircraft. A very common cause for drone crashes is from disorientation following loss of GPS control. When a drone's heading changes, the relative control direction from the pilots perspective can become reversed. The symmetrical design of many multirotors tends to exacerbate this problem.

#1 - Small drone pilots typically aren't formally trained and have widely varying skill levels.

Many aspiring drone pilots think that because the flight controller is doing most of the work that additional flying skills aren't terribly important. This theory only works up to the point that something doesn't go as expected. Being able to react quickly and correctly to an emergency only comes from many hours of flight training, simulation and experience. At the highest level are RC competition pilots who typically have thousands of hours experience building, tuning and flying unmanned aircraft.

There are also less tangible factors that affect the overall reliability of an unmanned aircraft. It is a common mindset that each drone has a number and it isn't "IF" a crash will occur but rather "WHEN". This is a dramatically different mindset from a full size aviator. 

Perfect Perspectives has been able to dramatically improve the reliability of its unmanned systems over the last 10 years by applying concepts such as "all accidents are preventable" along with management of change (MOC) principles and near-miss tracking. Each time a maintenance function, repair or modification is performed, key questions are asked such as - "how might this change unintentionally result in a malfunction?". Going through this thought process has proven very effective in avoiding otherwise unexpected failures. Also any event that is abnormal to the standard flight process is recorded on the Flight Safety Analysis form as a "near-miss". These events are not near mid-air collisions with full size aircraft but rather are any operational close calls that could have caused an accident if not detected beforehand. Studies have shown that for every accident that occurs, there can be 100 or more near-misses that went unacknowledged as a precursor. Taking note of, and incorporating preventive measures for all near misses has proven very effictive in reducing accidents. The combination of all of these techniques has allowed Perfect Perspectives to safely make thousands of flights over several years without incident.

UHD 4K and 6K Aerials for VFX Backplates

One of many excellent applications for close range aerial video using advanced drone technology is the acquistion of UHD backplates. Perfectly smooth, dynamic and flowing images can now be captured using cameras such as the Red Epic Dragon which make the perfect canvas for the addition of CGI/VFX elements in post production. Have so much pixel real estate to work around in with the 6K image is pefect for compositing in post.

Perfect Perspectives has entensive experience in providing UHD backplates and has a fleet of 8 different single rotor drones that can easily fly a fully kitted camera with anamorphic glass if required. For action filming it should be noted that single rotor rigs are capable of flying at speeds that are more than double that of mulitrotor systems, all with superb aerodynamic stability and control. Our systems utilize the amazing Freefly Systems Movi M10/MR camera stabilization system and includes Paralinx wireless HD real time monitoring during flight.

Perfect Perspectives is the only drone filming company we know of that guarantees zero post stabilization will be needed for any cameras we fly. Below are a few examples of recent projects:

Cincinnati Bell TV Spot

Close Range Aerial Filming - Own or Rent?

There are many valuable lessons that one learns over the years; don't tug on Superman's cape, don't spit into the wind, don't pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger and you don't ever want to try and discourage anyone from doing something they are truly passionate about.

So what does the last lesson on the list have to do with aerial filming? As mentioned previously here, few things are more unforgiving of human error that flying. Human factors studies commissioned by the FAA estimate that up to 80% of full sized aircraft accidents can be traced back to human error. It is safe to say that for operating a complex RC aircraft, this estimate would be even higher. To say that the learning curve to become a safe, efficient and effective RC aerial cinematographer is steep is truly an understatement. Provided the person (or team) already has the required mental discipline to meet the challenge (many will not), humans learn best by doing and making mistakes, and in this area, mistakes are almost always very costly. Experience is something you don't realize you need until you need it. So what is the point here? If a person has a relentless, burning desire to become an RC aerial cinematographer, and has the raw core skills to do so, nothing anyone does or says will deter them.

Recent developments in multicopter flight control technology makes it easier to control an aerial filming platform compared to manually flying a more traditional single rotor rig. Many production companies think that in order to stay competitive, they need to add this skill set to their list of offerings. But there are many, many things to weigh in order to determine if this course makes sense from a business perspective. Below is a list of just a few key considerations -

1. Core Competencies, Time Management and Continuity of Skills

If you are a production company, you are already adept at multi-tasking. So what is the big deal about adding just one more task? At issue here is the fact that this particular task is not only very time consuming to master (read years), it is also very time consuming to maintain. This is due to the complex nature of the equipment and process for using it, as well as the fact that the technology is evolving at a very, very rapid rate currently. The time commitment is much more than most would ever think, and if not performed often, the skills needed will quickly deteriorate, leading to greater risk of accidents. So the question that needs to be answered is, do I really have the time to commit to this effort, or does it make more sense to focus on what I am already good at and simply hire an expert to do my aerial filming?

2. Insurance

Due to the exponential increase of incidents, obtaining insurance to perform RC aerial cinematography is becoming more difficult every day. It is possible to obtain a policy, but, upon close examination of the fine print and exclusions, it will become evident that the policy has almost endless avenues to deny a claim, and insurance companies are very adept at denying claims. Many companies may be in a position to absorb the repair costs for equipment damaged in a crash, but most would not be able to cover the liability of a personal injury case. There are only a couple of options for insurance that will truly cover third party liability in a meaningful manner and they are very selective when it comes to taking on new customers. An extensive review of equipment, qualifications and procedures is required in order to qualify for these policies.

3. Pending Regulatory Landscape

Currently there are no specific federal aviation regulations for performing RC aerial cinematography. The agencies policy for this activity is currently being contested in court. This is going to change. While the exact regulatory timeframe is currently not well defined, the event is as certain as death and taxes. Why is this an important consideration? For one thing, the investment made into expensive equipment could result in significant stranded costs should the regulations not permit use of some designs. Should the regulatory agency follow the lead of other, more expedient countries in this area, items such as airworthiness, licensing, safe operating procedures, emergency procedures, maintenance procedures, management of change procedures, flight logs, risk assessments, collision avoidance systems and more may become requirements. Government oversight and red tape have always been synonymous.

So in summary, the purpose of this information is neither to encourage or discourage a production company from pursuing their own aerial cinematography capability, but rather to provide some hopefully insightful considerations before jumping into the deep end.