"Drone pilots earning up to USD 200.000"
 

Who knows what's the reality, but though worth sharing:

WA drone pilots earning up to $200,000 in the mining, oil and gas sector

I suppose most/all these guys are private contractors so they are running a small business, as opposed to just collecting the pay check.

That's not USD they are earning......

I have never met one earning that, you might find one or two working in big budget film / television commerical production.
There are lots of tall tales about earning £350 per hour flying a £1400 Phantom drone but when you ask who? It goes very quiet.

Drone flying is fun..that is compared to other jobs like cleaning toilets so pretty much most estate agents, surveyors etc buy their own rather than pay an external.
I have seen some smaller local TV newsrooms using a Phantom (small drone) for news shots, the drone belonging privately to one of their camera operators and not the actual broadcaster. I'm not sure how the insurance would work on that if there were an incident.

Some prices for drone stock footage are ridiculous, more expensive than hiring a helicopter, I have seen £400 for a 10 sec shot advertised of a few boats in resting in a harbour, lovely shot but nothing special.

Bingo!

"Global Drone Solutions CEO Mahmood Hussein told Radio 6PR's Gary Adshead that drone pilots with two years' experience were earning an average of $110,000 per year, around the same mark as commercial aircraft pilots.

<snip>

"We do a five-day training course for for the professionals. Our organisation is also looking at a two-hour basic training that tell you about the rules, regulations, and working within legal limits."

The other way of working out how much they get paid...

"so I did this job, i got paid $100/hr" some genius takes $100/hr at 40hrs/week, bingo $200,000pa!

They didn't realise they only got $100/hr for two hours, but the job took all day, and there is only one job per month that pays that much, in that area...

I flew job last summer at a rather large mine site. Most of it on a 100ft longline. I was informed one day a drone was going to be operating in the same airspace. I was a tad concerned about the conflicts we may have had and mentioned it to the exploration dept. I received an email from said drone operators, how we laughed when it was signed by the operator as "Captain so and so, "Drone Pilot". So not only do you become a pilot, but Captain also. I rather thought they were operators as apposed aircrew. Every day a school day I guess!!!!!

Probably a whole bunch of Vietnam era drone pilots retiring soon too ;-)

Its a weird industry. I can believe there are a few that make large sums of money.

Historically (when I started in the industry) you required considerable skill in engineering and flying to make these machines work. Things have changed so much, as someone mentioned a £1000 phantom will pretty much fly itself and is fairly idiot proof.


The issue is that some of the larger companies particularly in the oil and gas industry would rather stick with the £100,000 a year companies rather than actually looking to see who else is out there offering similar services for less. (Often with newer and higher quality equipment).

In many regards its just like the helicopter industry (which I left 10 years ago) in that its a case of who you know, not how good you are! :ugh:

I have worked on some pretty big TV shows and worked for some huge brands flying toy helicopters with cameras under them and I certainly don't earn that kinda money :(

Some of the RPAS work being done in Oil & Gas is a bit more sophisticated than taking videos of a flare tip using a quadcopter. In Australia, BG (Shell) are doing well site inspections using a Scaneagle FW RPAS (ScanEagle - Insitu Pacific Pty Ltd) which covers hundreds of kilometres (i.e. beyond visual line of sight). One can imagine that the operator salaries are on a par with manned vehicles.

hahahahahahahahaha :D just spoke to an exStudent, (no jobs for 90% CPL(H)'s) who's a Senior Drone Operator (Captain?????) those numbers quoted above; are straight from lala land, try 75,Kaud :ooh:

Happy Happy :ok:

A couple of years ago GAASI "pilots"
made $85K USD base, + paid to obtain CPL and stipend per month to remain current in full size.
If deployed then normal rates applied on top.
Sensor operators were around 30% less, but most were "pilots" in training.

The add does not say what the wages are, but it's a real job offer !
http://jobs.cn.ca/jo...Kc9YiQK-.mailto

I wasn't going to comment but the salaries mentioned for just drone operators are not possible in the UK. Drones can be had for relatively low money nowadays but thats not to say they aren't any good. Most will produce 4k HD footage and the higher up the scale, the better the picture quality, with an ever increasing number of higher end cameras available now.
Even FLIR are available for your Inspire drones etc.

The training organisations are churning out drone operators at a rate of over 100 a month in the UK. The work isnt there to make it sustainable, but the guys teaching, who got in first, are making up to and sometimes over £40k a month. (thats a fact :E).
How long it'll last? who knows, but usually just until people realise there's no work to be had, and spending £000's on training and a drone and insurance and permit for aerial work etc, are just too much risk. Mind you, people have been paying for helicopter licences for years with the same situation. Until recently I was giving people basic training but I realised I was talking them out of paying for a full course of £800-1000.

Right now the drone market is becoming saturated and unless you specialise and have some decent contracts, you'll struggle to make any money. Even farmers are getting qualified and using their own drones now for mapping and crop quality purposes etc.

Estate agents using a drone in the UK for aerial pictures of houses etc are required to hold a PfAW from the CAA. Anyone utilising a drone for any sort of commercial gain has to be qualified and approved. How they get permission and proximity permissios for some jobs i'll never know. I was asked to quote on a job two weeks ago to do some boat filming for a supply boat company. It was an all day job, 150 miles away. Site inspections required of the dock area. Higher risk of losing drone over the open sea when out on the boats. Higher skill level required due to the fact drone compasses dont like metal structures, hence manual flying and landings back on a moving deck. My quote was shot down as being extortionate. I said good luck to the company.

In fact, that job made me decide to give up the drone flying commercially, because im just not prepared to earn £50-100 for something which would cost me 3x more than that. Picture editing takes time. Video editing takes time. The software costs money. the drones require nuemrous batteries and charging and at £125+ a battery, requiring 5-10 batteries for a shoot all adds up. Yes someone will be able to do the job cheaply i'm sure but the overheads alone just arent worth it.

Rant over :ouch:

helimutt

Spot on. :ok:

Longdog- the position linked requires an engineering degree and a pilot's license, plus some knowledge of bridge structural engineering. A person with these qualifications could easily earn a salary of $200K in the US, without flying a drone.