Creative Customer Requests

Part of being a photographer (whether on the ground or in the air) is being creative and showing your subject in its best light. We think we do a great job being creative, but after a year in business we've found that some of the most interesting creativity we've encountered actually comes from our customers' ideas for how to use a drone. As this year comes to a close, we decided to reflect on and share with you some of our favorite, creative requests from customers - which will hopefully inspire you to think outside the box when it comes to utilizing drone services too!

Solar Eclipse day at Kunsmiller school: It's not too surprising that a creative arts school would come up with an original idea to document their students watching the eclipse this past August. We thought we would just be shooting video and photos of the students in the field as they watched the eclipse. But the school surprised us by having the students stand in the formation of the school's logo which made for some amazingly unique shots

Painting at Daniel's Park: Bob Ross was obviously pro enough to have his own TV show, but that doesn't mean other painters can't get in on the video action. For this shoot we met our lovely painter at (almost) Daniel's Park (drone use within Daniel's Park isn't allowed), a park in Douglas County that is situated on a plateau with gorgeous views of the Front Range mountains. She set up her easel facing the mountains and began to paint as we flew overhead and captured the process in real time, resulting in the painted mountains coming to life right before the viewers eyes. 

To build or not to build: Ever wonder what your window view would be like if your home had a second or third story? Yeah, we never really thought about that either, but our customer did! He wanted to know what views he would see out of his windows if he added a second story to his home. Thanks to accurate altitude measurement and live video feed from the drone, we were able to show him exactly what his view would be, 360 degrees around, if he did in fact add on another story. Side note: since this original job, this has become very popular with architects and developers as a fast, accurate, and cheap way to both understand for planning and to render for marketing views for future developments.

Recreating the past: Twenty years ago a picture of our customers' home was captured by a photographer in a helicopter. They loved the picture and bought a copy from the photographer. They had it enlarged and framed, and proudly displayed for years, but as time went on they made many improvements and changes to their property that the photograph no longer represented. For an anniversary gift, the couples' son hired us to recreate their beloved picture. Not only were we able to quickly and easily recreate it without the noise, hassle, and expense of a helicopter, we were also able to shoot from some new angles and even record a video that the owners could use should they decide to sell in the future. We enjoyed this job not just because of the creativity of the customers, but because of how well it demonstrated the technological advances that have changed the world over the past twenty years - some of which are what allow our industry to exist today.

Have your own ideas for creative drone uses? Share them with us in the comments or contact us to discuss how we can help you accomplish them!

New services and our first network TV show!

Happy Monday!

We're fresh off a very busy week/weekend that included wrapping up our first aerial cinematography job for a cable network TV show. We not only shot footage for the show, but our drone survey work will be featured on the show as well (and maybe a surprise guest appearance also). We'll provide more detail on when and where you can see it in a future post - stay tuned!

In other news, as those of you that follow us on social media have probably noticed, we've begun posting photos not taken by drone - like the one below.

In a logical step forward, we've decided to expand our photo and video services to include traditional, ground-based photography. This move is the perfect way of keeping with our mission to provide real value to customers as we grow and expand. Rather than having to source drone and traditional photography services separately, our customers will now be able to save time and effort by dealing with us as a one-stop shop for all their photography needs. As of now, we will continue to use DJI products for camera stabilization during video work and utilize Pentax products for still photography. Both brands fit best with our value per dollar business model.

As pointed out in prior social media posts, this new offering has already been put to use helping Central Colorado Conservancy document ranch land they're attempting to save for conservation. Keep an eye out for more traditional photography, both on our website and in our social media. We will be posting both job portfolio work and fun shots from around Colorado.

Why airspace authorizations matter to you, the customer

Take a look at this...

You're probably wondering what the absolute mess in the above picture is. Well... it is a bit of a mess. It's a sectional chart for the area of the Colorado Front Range extending from Boulder to Colorado Springs, which, thanks to DIA, also happens to be one of the busiest pieces of airspace in the country - hence all the clutter. Sectional charts are like maps of the air. If you have good enough eyes and sufficient observational powers, you've probably noticed it's very sparse on ground details. So let's get located before I try to explain anything or make a point.

Boulder is in that little red circle that's partially cut off. There's a red circle there because a temporary flight restriction (TFR) was in place at the time I took the screen shot. As mentioned in our last blog post, stadiums with a capacity of 30,000 or more people automatically become temporary restricted airspace for a 3 nautical mile radius that extends from the ground up to 3,000ft above the ground, anytime an event is in progress. This restriction applies to all aircraft, manned aircraft included, which is why it's shown so prevalently on a chart intended for use by traditional aircraft pilots. 

Denver is the large yellow blob below Boulder. This yellow area represents not just downtown Denver, but densely populated surface areas in general. As such, it extends both above and below downtown Denver to include nearly all large, surrounding towns from Broomfield all the way down to Centennial.

Colorado Springs is the smaller yellow blob towards the bottom of the map. And in between the two yellow areas, the FAA doesn't seem to think enough people live there to warrant pilots giving a bother (just kidding).

If you want to learn more about how to read sectional charts, Cessna Chick has a great post on the subject here: http://cessnachick.com/525-2/ - which is written at a far more elementary and easy to understand level than the FAA's own educational materials. These charts are something that licensed drone operators are required to be able to read.

If you don't want to learn how to read a sectional (and I certainly can't blame you), but you still want to understand why airspace authorizations matter, here's a much simpler looking airspace map of roughly the same area:

This map is obviously infinitely easier to both get oriented on and read information that's more relevant to what I'd like to discuss: controlled airspace authorizations for commercial drone use. The large colored shapes on this map show areas of controlled airspace that extend from the ground up to various heights (the small, orange ones are heliports, prisons, power plants, and other categories that can be ignored for this topic). The prior map showed controlled airspace areas at many different altitudes, but for drone operation all that's really relevant is how airspace is classified from the 0-400ft, since that's the legal operating range for commercial drones. From the ground is the important qualification here. Each of these airspace areas are controlled and their use restricted because they surround airports and are subject to high air traffic as well as low-flying manned aircraft making approaches and departures from those airports.

Bottom line here... commercial drone operations are not permitted inside any of those large, colored shapes on the above map. This is any commercial drone operations - there are no exclusions for "well I'm not going to go too high" or "I'll stick close to this building", because this controlled airspace starts at the ground. Looking around the map, it quickly becomes obvious why this issue should be so important for a business or individual in the Front Range looking to hire a drone operator. A significant portion of the populated Front Range is covered by controlled airspace and not legal for commercial drone flights, including nearly all new development in and east of Stapleton, much of Aurora, most of Broomfield, Superior, Louisville, and northern Arvada, nearly the entirety of Centennial, Lone Tree, Castle Pines, Castle Rock, and Greenwood Village, as well as most of metro Colorado Springs. How many of your construction, development, and commercial real estate projects fall in those areas?

Thankfully, the FAA saw this potential, massive hindrance to drone operations and decided to do something about it. The FAA has setup a system that allows for licensed, commercial drone operators to apply for permission to fly in these areas. The process requires that the licensed operator:

1. Show the FAA that they have a thorough understanding of the potential hazards of operating in controlled airspace.

2. Detail a plan to maintain adequate separation with manned aircraft in order to avoid a collision.

3. Prove that the drone in use has sufficient fail-safes to avoid an incident with a manned aircraft in the case of an emergency (loss of control signal, loss of video feed, etc.)

The process is neither easy nor quick, but it is in place. An application must be approved by both the FAA and the local airport's air traffic control manager. As such, this process must be repeated for each and every area of controlled airspace. Turn around times on an approved authorization vary from 60-120 days - these are not something an operator can acquire overnight. If an operator doesn't currently have one, they won't have one for many months. If the application is denied, the operator must start from square one.

Where's the silver lining and shameless plug? Right here: we have them all. We have applied and successfully been approved for flight authorizations for every Front Range airport from Fort Collins (not on the map in this post) to Colorado Springs, including DIA itself. If you have a project that requires a drone in one of these areas, we can fly it - right now. Not in two months. Not in four months. Not today, but illegally. We are FAA approved to fly your project, anywhere in the Front Range.

Have questions or want to know more? Leave a comment, drop us an email, or feel free to call and chat.