9th May 2025

By The Droning Company CEO Stuart Smith

There has never been a better time to consider becoming a commercial drone pilot in the United States than the very present. With an uncertain economic future and a possible looming recession, many people will have to take on a second or third job to support their families and the commercial drone industry offers a wide range of options which can help ease those financial burdens and can, with time, training and hard work, become a full-time career.

I myself, through necessity got involved with drones back around January 2020. Most of my life I’ve made my living as a rock guitarist and back then we had brought out our 5^th album with my own band Heaven & Earth and after some good press we were in the process of setting up a world tour.

As Mike Tyson said “Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth” and our situation was no exception, the Covid epidemic hit and the country went into virtual lockdown and as music royalties have drastically decreased since streaming became the norm and I’m supporting the most expensive creature known to man, a teenage daughter, I thought, “Well I can’t sit around here doing nothing for however long this is going to take” and as I’d been flying drones for a couple of years just for fun, I decided to become a professional drone pilot as there were still plenty of drone jobs during lockdown. After talking to some other pilots and looking at certain job agencies out there I was amazed at the amount of commission that these agencies were taking. A roofing inspection should pay about $250.00 upwards, yet these agencies were paying their pilots $75.00 to travel over a hundred miles for a job. This was due to the bidding system that they had put in place. When a job came in, the agency still received the full amount but the younger less experienced pilots, (some even without their Part 107), would bid lower and lower till the job wasn’t worth doing for professional pilots.

To my mind this was not only grossly unfair but also devaluing the industry so I decided to form The Droning Company which would be a platform whereby drone pilots would pay a monthly subscription of $10.00 for us to host their profile on our page which was then searchable by potential clients looking to hire a pilot by location or specialty and once they’d found the one they wanted they would click on “contact” and would get that pilots email address and phone number and contact them directly so the pilot would make his own deal, we were not involved and didn’t take commissions so it worked out that if we got the pilot only one job in the entire year it would more than pay for their entire yearly subscription.

My first step was to finance The Droning Company, so I put a post on my Facebook page saying that I was looking for investors for a non-music business related project and if anyone was interested to direct message me. I was contacted by one of my online friends Steve Birdsall. We attended the same college back in England and as he was a year ahead of me, we never actually met in person, but he used to come and see me play in one of my first bands called Sidewinder. Steve thought that it was a great idea and quickly brought in other investors and we were ready to go. As the website itself was pretty complicated it took me a couple of months to find a company that could create it and of course they told me that it would be up and running in about six weeks but in actuality took them the best part of a year but eventually we got the site up.

Getting Started

The drone industry is exploding and there are more and more use cases for drones coming out every day. When I began The Droning Company there were about 150,000 licensed drone pilots with the FAA, now there are close to half a million, and it has gone from a four-billion-dollar industry back in 2020-to-forty-billion-dollar industry today. This means that there is a lot of opportunity for people to make a good living by getting started as soon as possible as it’s still very much like the wild west out there at the moment and it’s a job that you can become very successful in without having a college degree.

If you’re planning to become a professional drone pilot the first step is to get your FAA Part 107 Commercial Drone Pilots License.  You’re looking at about 15 to 20 hours of study and we at The Droning Company thoroughly recommend taking an accredited course with either Pilot Institute or Warren County Community College both of which have very reasonably priced courses.

Your next step is to book a test with an approved FAA testing center you need a 70% passing grade and there is a $175.00 fee per attempt so make sure you have studied well.

Next you need to register your drone/drones and this costs $5.00 per drone and can easily be done online.

Finally, you need to get some practice flying your drone. After spending $1,000.00 upwards on your equipment the last thing you want to do is crash and burn before you even get to your first job. Even though most drones nowadays have built-in obstacle avoidance sensors, accidents can and do happen so if you don’t know a pilot that can show you the ropes we would suggest putting your location into the search box on our main page,and hire one of our experienced pilots to give you a couple of lessons.

Moving Forward

Once you have your Part 107 and you’ve had a few hours behind the sticks doing real estate, roofing inspections and wedding photography don’t stop there. Take courses and get certified in 3D Mapping, Thermal, Surveying and Data Collection with either of the above-mentioned organizations. The Droning Company has pilots making $1,500.00 to $2,000.00 a day doing this kind of work and there’s no reason you can’t too. You don’t even have to necessarily own a drone that can accomplish these jobs, there are plenty of drone rental companies throughout the country that can supply a craft for your needs until you can afford to purchase one of your own which, after a few jobs, you should be easily able to afford.

Getting Drone Jobs

The Droning Company can certainly help in this department but a lot of it is up to you and how much effort you put into it so here are some tips on how to create a competitive profile that will appeal to potential clients. Bear in mind that your profile is your business card and you’re in competition with the drone pilot five miles up the road, so you want yours to stand out and showcase your skills.

Here are a few good examples of pilot’s profiles:

https://www.thedroningcompany.com/pilot/timothy-brazzel

https://thedroningcompany.com/pilot/chris-fravel

https://thedroningcompany.com/pilot/michael-keeper

1. Headshots

Be sure to put up a good headshot and not your company logo.  People like to see who they’re doing business with, and we find that pilots with a headshot get hired on a more regular basis than those who don’t. Also, make sure that you don’t put up a full body shot so you can’t be seen or a picture looking like you’ve just come off a three-day bender. Remember, first impressions count!

2. Specialities

When adding your specialties to your profile don’t just check every box, click on the ones that you’ve had experience with and know you can do or the ones that you are certified for. If you click on “FPV Drones”, “Thermal Inspections” or “Ground Penetrating Radar” and you haven’t a clue what to do it’s going to be an embarrassing experience all round.

3. The “About” Section.

The biggest mistake pilots make here is just putting, “Pilot, Part 107”. Sell yourself and be truthful. Tell the potential clients about your services that you offer and if you speak another language apart from English let them know. It can sometimes make the difference between being hired or not.  Also, don’t write your life story up there, keep your info to around 150/200 words. Here is an example of one of our pilots “About” sections that works. Direct and to the point:

“I’m a certified Part 107 drone pilot based out of Chicago with over 5 years of experience in aerial operations and I am willing to travel any distance for the right job. I specialize in capturing high-quality drone footage for a wide range of applications including real estate, weddings, advertising, inspections, and cinematic projects. With a strong eye for detail and a commitment to safety and compliance, I bring creativity and precision to every flight. Whether it’s for commercial or creative work, I deliver sharp, dynamic aerial visuals that elevate any project. Yo Hablo Espanol”.

 If you’re unsure what to write about yourself just put the bullet points into Chat GPT and ask it to give you a 150-word summary.

4. Equipment.

Displaying good pictures of your equipment will let the more decerning potential clients know at a glance if you are right for their job. Rather than try to take pictures of your drones and cameras yourself just go to Amazon and screenshot their photos, they’ve already done the work for you. Also, if you have other equipment other than drones like professional cameras etc. add those as well because they may want you to supply them with still shots as well as drone video footage.

5. Service Area.

This is really important. We use Google Maps for clients to find our pilots so if you don’t add your location/s no-one is going to see your profile. What we suggest is that you add your home city location first then add about ten other locations in a radius of however far you’re prepared to travel for a job so if you’re willing to travel 150 miles for work then add more locations in a 150-mile radius of where you live. Also, if you relocate out of your state don’t forget to delete your current work area and add new ones or if you’re going on vacation and want to pick up some extra work while you’re there change your locations to reflect that and don’t forget to change them back when you return.

6. Video Reel.

Although you can add numerous videos of your work to our platform, we suggest adding no more than 3 as it just tends to distract clients. You have to first upload your video to either YouTube or Vimeo then post the link into your profile on your dashboard. Please make sure that your main video is at least a minute and a half long and not more than three minutes as every week we feature one of our pilots as the “Featured Video Reel of the Week” and some pilots just put up a 10 second video which we obviously can’t use. If you have done some real estate, roofing inspection, weddings or thermal create a video with about 20 seconds of each to show the diversity of your experience and skills. If you’ve decided to add music to your videos use something neutral. Even if it’s your thing, don’t use offensive rap music in the background as this can turn a potential client off. Remember that this is a business, and you are selling yourself to business people who you want to take you seriously, put your best foot forward. If you have just got started in the drone industry and don’t have a lot of different footage to display just create a montage of what you have but make sure you edit it, so you don’t have the first few seconds of your drone taking off, (Believe me, we’ve had pilots that have the first 30 seconds of just a view through the lens while the drone is one the ground). Once you’ve done a few jobs and have more footage at your disposal create a new video to reflect that and update it.

7. Photo Portfolio.

You are able to add six photos to your profile, but you first have to resize them to 2 MB. Please use interesting photos that were obviously taken from a drone at altitude. Don’t use pics that look like they could have been taken by an iPhone.

8. Part 107 or Temporary Certificate.

At some stage during the sign-up process, you’ll be asked to upload a photo of your Part 107 or your temporary certificate. This is just for our validation and will not be visible to the public. If you have just started in the drone industry and only have your temporary certificate, please don’t forget to delete it and upload your Part 107 when it arrives.

9. Pilot Story.

A free marketing service we offer to our members is your “Pilot’s Story”. Once you have you profile up and running and you’re satisfied with it you write out your story in the industry, telling our readers how you got started with drones, how did you pass your Part 107, (Did you take a course or study on your own), some interesting stories about what you’ve done so far and where you see yourself going in the future. It has to be 1200 words or more as that is the magic number that gets picked up by the Google search engines. You then send it in to us at info@thedroningcompany.com in a DOC file along with a photo of you with your drone/s, a few pics of your work and a video link then we post it on our main page and repost it in our social media and forums that we advertise on with links to your profile. It’s worth your while to spend a couple of hours doing this as it will get your name out in the industry.  Here are some examples:

https://www.thedroningcompany.com/blog/pilot-story-jason-g-sherblom

https://www.thedroningcompany.com/blog/pilot-story-keonntay-watts

10. Be Proactive.

Don’t just rely on potential clients finding your profile, reach out and sell your services. A lot of our pilots get work through other pilots. Go to our main page www.thedroningcompany.com and put your location into the search box, see which other pilots are in your area, call them and introduce yourself. Sometimes they will be looking for a visual observer, a second drone pilot for a job or need someone to cover for them with their regular clients if they go on vacation. Also, in Google look up realtors, roofing contractors, contractors etc. in your area, try to get a name and ask them for their email address and send them a link to your pilot profile and pilot story. A lot of work can be garnered this way. Think outside the box! We had one pilot who got hired for an ashes scattering job where the widow of a police officer wanted his ashes scattered over the police station. He purchased a distribution plate for his drone and did the job and was paid $500.00. After that he contacted all the funeral homes and crematoriums in the area and sent them his pilot profile and now does about 2 or 3 jobs a day with this service.

Well that just about covers everything. Remember your pilot profile is your calling card and like with everything in life you get out what you put in. Keep it updated and current.

We at The Droning Company have a lot going on in the near future. We constantly get calls from oil and gas companies or powerline/wind turbine companies who want us to supply them with 150 pilots for inspection work but they don’t want to do the vetting to make sure that the pilots have the experience or necessary qualification certificates so we are re-vamping our site whereby pilots will be asked to upload the relevant certificates to their profiles which will go into a database which we can access and contact when these jobs come in.

Very soon we will be starting a marketing campaign where we will be contacting all the realtors, roofing contractors, oil and gas companies and anyone that hires drone pilots and let them know that they can post a job free of charge. When a job gets posted all the pilots in 100-mile radius will get an email letting them know that there is a job in their area. We will also be attending a lot more trades shows.

Also, we are going to be going international where we can get work for drone pilots with the qualifications from their country’s airspace authority.

Finally, we are in talks with a television network about a drone related show, so we’ll keep you posted on that.

Thank you to all the pilots that are currently Droning Company members, and we are committed to getting you more quality, interesting and high paying jobs in the future. Good luck, have fun out there and fly safe.