Drone Videography with Scott Rolfsness

I love aerial videos – who doesn’t? I love them even more when it’s a new perspective of my surroundings. Normally we’re limited to what we can see with our own eyes when driving, taking a walk, or riding a bike. Occasionally, when flying (which I haven’t done in a few years), you get the view of an area you know when you’re landing – I always try to scout my neighborhood or recognizable landmarks. So, when Paul and I met with our friends, Scott and Jenn, we were stoked to see our local waters and neighborhood from a couple of hundred feet in the air!

Hobby Dabbler
Hobby Dabbler
Drone Piloting with Scott Rolfsness
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In this episode, Scott and I discuss the burgeoning world of drone enthusiasts and the regulations entailed to keep drone piloting fun and safe. I learn some interesting facts about privacy, air space, and licensing. For this hobby dabble, we’ll be breaking it into two posts. This one, which is the interview and a couple of still pictures, and one that we’re still working on its production, will be largely a composite video from our the hobby dabble.

**NOTE** – Drone piloting is an evolving hobby. Always check current FAA regulations yourself before participating in an FAA-regulated activity.

Scott also discusses the drone brand, DJI. If you’re interested in getting a drone for yourself (as Paul and I are), DJI Drones” target=”_blank”>here’s a link to DJI offerings on Amazon.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Speaker 1 00:00:13 Welcome to Hobby Dabbler, the show dedicated to exploring hobbies for people who wanna make their free time more valuable. I’m your host, Vanessa Cress. And today we’re talking about drone piloting with my friend Scott Rolfsness. He’s here to tell us about his experience with flying drones. Hi Scott. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2 00:00:31 Hello.
Speaker 1 00:00:32 So I wanna start with you telling us about what drone piloting is and how it became your hobby. Then we’re gonna take a break and actually go try it out with you and come back to finish our conversation. So what is drone piloting and is it even called piloting when it’s recreational and are there different levels?
Speaker 2 00:00:50 Yes, it is actually piloting the FAA considered to being a pilot of what’s called an unmanned aerial system, UAS. So those drones, uh, have a ride range of styles that the they are developed in and, uh, whoever’s gonna be piloting them, uh, has to learn how to fly that specific drone for themselves. They’re all different.
Speaker 1 00:01:16 Okay. So like, are there different levels that are different or are the each drone you have to like take a course or some something
Speaker 2 00:01:24 There’s a course that you can take if you go and get like part 107 certified to learn the FAA regulations, but if you’re just doing it for rec recreation, you can typically learn, uh, on your own how to fly the pilot or fly the drone, drone,
Speaker 1 00:01:37 Like YouTube videos or whatever the software comes with. Definitely. All right. Uh, I might have more questions about that later, but sure. So, um, my exposure to drones is limited. Basically the closest I’ve come to a drone is when someone in our neighborhood would fly it over the swimming pool area. So a bunch of our pool furniture is wrecked. So there are limited amounts of the good furniture. So I just assumed that they’re checking to see if there are any lounge chairs available, but I also thought maybe they’re creeping.
Speaker 2 00:02:11 Unfortunately that’s possible that they’re creeps out there.
Speaker 1 00:02:14 Oh, uh, yeah, that’s kind of disconcerting because they would just kind of come over the pool and hover and then go away. But I don’t know, like regular, is it like, are there limits within, I don’t know, residential areas or any, like, you could just hover over your neighbor’s backyard. That’s kind of weird.
Speaker 2 00:02:33 Believe it or not, the FAA controls all airspace. So even if you think that your property, somebody can’t, you don’t want somebody flying over your property, you have no control over that. You control ground level and that’s it. So somebody that has a drone and they’re, if they’ve, if they live within a certain range of an airport within five miles, typically they get authorization. They can fly that drone anywhere they want.
Speaker 1 00:02:56 You said I have ground control of my land. How far above is airspace? Like what, what, like 20 feet above
Speaker 2 00:03:05 One inch?
Speaker 1 00:03:06 Are you serious?
Speaker 2 00:03:07 no, I don’t even think it’s that as, as soon as it gets off the ground, you are an American airspace, which is controlled by the FAA.
Speaker 1 00:03:13 So someone can come into my backyard and just hover and look into my, um, hot tub area.
Speaker 2 00:03:21 It can, but there are also laws that are gonna be like, now you’re being creep and you’re being a peeing Tom or something like that. So there is things that you can use to protect yourself,
Speaker 1 00:03:30 Like what you said, there are gonna be laws.
Speaker 2 00:03:32 There are laws that peeing Toms would be prevented and things like that. But when you’re actually flying a drone, if, if I wanna fly through your property, you really can’t stop me
Speaker 1 00:03:42 Weird. I can get that. I like, I would, I could see that for like 50 feet. Like
Speaker 2 00:03:47 There is no limit.
Speaker 1 00:03:49 Oh my gosh. Interesting. But it’s still an evolving technology and there’s not, it’s not like widely adopted yet. So I imagine it’s gonna be developing at as more people
Speaker 2 00:04:00 There, there is, um, a lot of battles going on between like these private communities that don’t want Jerome flying at all within their community. And a lot of times they lose the battle because the FAA is the only sole authority in the country that manages airspace.
Speaker 1 00:04:15 Does FAA have an opinion on how, like what it sees as it’s almost like a freedom of speech? It’s like freedom of airspace. Like, do they have a stance?
Speaker 2 00:04:24 Depends on where you are. If you’re flying, if you’re flying closer to an airport, there’s definitely some regulations that kick in that you have to obey and follow. Um, most drones by FAA law only are allowed to fly at the max of 400 feet. Anything over 400 feet, you have to get special waivers and licenses and all sorts of stuff to be able to get authorized, to fly above that.
Speaker 1 00:04:46 And is that just for the airport area?
Speaker 2 00:04:49 Uh, no. That’s internationally. Oh, okay. Or not internationally, but nationally. So there’s,
Speaker 1 00:04:54 There’s a max limit, but not a minimum. Correct.
Speaker 2 00:04:57 Interesting. Well, you have to be able to land your drone, but if you have an scene, you have to land it because your drone is broken or something like that.
Speaker 1 00:05:04 I get it. But just the whole privacy thing. I don’t know. It’s it’s I guess they care about the drones more than the people’s privacy.
Speaker 2 00:05:10 Yeah. It comes with the what’s the right of the pilot versus, you know? Yeah. What is privacy, if sure. If you’re exposed in the wide open.
Speaker 1 00:05:20 Interesting. Okay. I went out like a privacy tangent, but that wasn’t planned.
Speaker 2 00:05:24 no, that’s okay. It is a battle that’s going on. Cause like me as a drone pilot, I wanna be able to just be able to fly. Sure. And, and most shots for a drone, your best videos are only gonna be filmed within 100 feet of the ground typically. Mm. You get above, uh, a hundred feet and everything starts getting green, really small, really fast.
Speaker 1 00:05:44 I can see
Speaker 2 00:05:44 That. So like a lot of times, if I’m trying to get to a destination, I’ll go up high and get there quick, and then I’ll drop back down to look for whatever scene or whatever it is I want to get.
Speaker 1 00:06:02 Is there a correlation with hobbies you’ve already had or did drone piloting get you into a follow on related hobbies? Like photography? Like were you already into kite flying or model rockets and wanted to take it to the next level?
Speaker 2 00:06:15 No, for me, um, my passion for flying actually started when I was in high school when I was actually learning to fly aircraft. So I actually have always loved flying. In fact, I used to say for me, one hour flight time was like a three week vacation.
Speaker 1 00:06:28 Wait, so you were getting your pilot’s license?
Speaker 2 00:06:31 Yep. In high school and college. I was working on it, but I never actually completed getting my full certification. Oh. So for me it’s always been kind of those things of how can I get myself in the air and drone flying is a heck of a lot cheaper than flying an airplane.
Speaker 1 00:06:46 That’s interesting. Yeah. And one of the other podcasts, uh, we’ve talked about the cost of getting a pilot’s license versus the cost of sailing. And it’s definitely up there and I guess that would be the next best thing. And I know there are like in the military side, I don’t know what’s in between this recreational and the military side, but I know like there are like licensed pilots for drone flying for military use. I don’t know what it’s like on the civilian side,
Speaker 2 00:07:10 There’s, what’s called your part 107 certification. And you can get that, uh, from the FAA. Once you have that, you can actually fly your or drones professionally for income. And that’s where you can sell it, like your stock footage or anything like that, that you make for yourself to make an income off your drone line.
Speaker 1 00:07:28 How hard is that? And are there classes or testing?
Speaker 2 00:07:31 Well, I haven’t gotten the part 107, but I wanna pursue it. And my wife is after me to get it as well. Cuz that way we can sell some of the photographs that I’ve captured. But uh, actually I can’t sell any of that because that was all done under recreational. I’d have to go back and redly all of it under the part 107.
Speaker 1 00:07:48 Oh bummer. So you can’t even like say, well, I’ve got it now. Now I can sell it. It’s about, you actually have to capture
Speaker 2 00:07:54 It. You have to capture it with your under your part cert 107 certification. Oh
Speaker 1 00:07:58 Man. That’s like in a normal business, you would be able to create jewelry or something and be able to sell it after you started your business. That’s kind of weird that they would
Speaker 2 00:08:07 Have that you have the license. If you don’t have the license, you can’t sell it. Oh,
Speaker 1 00:08:11 Okay.
Speaker 2 00:08:15 And if the FAA was defined footage that you had filmed two years ago before you had your part 1 0 7 certification, you’re making an income on it. It it’s Lucy goosey. It’s a little scary. And the FAA, I haven’t, I haven’t heard of anybody actually getting docked for it. I think there was an instance for a YouTuber that was making money on doing video or streams of his flying his drone. And he didn’t have a as part 1 0 7 and the FAA actually dinged him for it. But he was saying it’s part of my channel. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:08:45 What would the fines be like? Like, is it worth it? Is it, are they minimal?
Speaker 2 00:08:48 I, it, I think it’s like a $1,500 fine for that, depending on what you’ve done with the footage and stuff like that. So it can definitely come back and get you,
Speaker 1 00:09:08 Uh, so tell us about your most memorable experience doing drone piloting so far good or bad.
Speaker 2 00:09:15 Uh, it’s always fun. The first time you fly is always awesome because you’re like, man, I’m actually in control of this thing. And with the technology that we have, I have a DJI Phantom 4 Pro drone that I fly and the immersion that you can get with it. I mean, seeing the camera shot from the drone in real time, you’re flying is just awesome.
Speaker 1 00:09:38 What kind of camera specs does it have?
Speaker 2 00:09:40 Um, I would have to look. I know it’s got a one inch, I think, I believe it’s an aperature, aperture and that it’s got 4k video quality. Um, at 60 Hertz. That’ll just blow your mind. That’s
Speaker 1 00:09:53 Cool. Quality. That’s really cool. I saw some of the videos you, you sent for me to consider, um, earlier. And it was pretty, uh, pretty good detail. Yeah. So have you encountered any scenes that maybe you wish you hadn’t seen or maybe were, were surprised to come upon
Speaker 2 00:10:08 When you accidentally flyer, drone or a tree? That’s a scene you don’t wanna see I’ve done that now two times. And one of them was just yesterday while I was trying to capture some video for you. I was, I was trying to get some of the different modes that the drones can do. One of them is called follow and I was having my daughter run around a field and she was being goofy, trying to get the drone, trying to lose the drone from videoing her. And she did so, and the drone tried catching up to her and it flew right into a tree.
Speaker 1 00:10:43 Were you watching it on VR while you were flying it? Like I imagine that would be a scary experience that you couldn’t avoid.
Speaker 2 00:10:49 No. In while I’m flying the drone by myself without a spotter, I’m not allowed to fly with my eyes covered. I have to have the line of sight of the drone. Now, if I had had, uh, somebody, an adult with me sitting with me that could be watching the drone, making sure I wasn’t doing anything bad or had my eyes off it, they could have, I could have put on the VR headsets that I’ve got to.
Speaker 1 00:11:12 That that totally makes sense. Now that I think about it. Yeah. That’s, that’s a little bit too far out there, but that sounds is fun. And I’m looking forward to,
Speaker 2 00:11:20 Here we go. We’ll, we’ll get the headsets for, I mean, on the headsets that I have, there’s actually a tracking, um, mode that I could put it in where as you’re you’ll I’ll have the headset on you I’ll be piloting it kind of, I’ll just be controlling the forward and back, but you’ll be able to turn your head and you will actually control the drone turning left or right. And looking up and down.
Speaker 1 00:11:40 Oh, that
Speaker 2 00:11:41 Is, and so you’ll be up, you know, a hundred, 200 feet up in the air. And as you turn your head with these headsets, you’ll be taking that view from that elevation.
Speaker 1 00:11:50 Oh, that’s gonna be fun. Okay. Um, before we take a break, let’s see, is there any lingo that people getting into this hobby should be aware of or any words that might be a faux pas with other,
Speaker 2 00:12:02 I don’t know about faux pas. I mean, the community’s really open about trying to teach people and get them used to it. Um, crash. That’s a bad word. You don’t wanna use Trees look out. Yeah. You never, you know, I mean there’s rules that we have to follow as drone pilots that most aviation doesn’t have to worry about. Like we’re not allowed to fly directly over crowds of people. Um, you have to have, um, you don’t want drone flying outta the sky onto your head personally.
Speaker 1 00:12:34 When I was at the pool and there was a drone flying around,
Speaker 2 00:12:37 If they were flying directly overhead of like the pool and over people, then they’re in violation of FAA regulations.
Speaker 1 00:12:43 Oh, I don’t know that they were right above me, but still that’s interesting to know. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:12:46 It’s directly above. It’s kind of hard to, you know, well, the drone was three feet off to my side straight up. Is that for me or not?
Speaker 1 00:12:55 Right. I think the point is if it’s gonna crash down, it’s like die. Would it hurt someone? Yeah. Okay. I’m kind of curious about all these rules and if people even follow them, like there’s,
Speaker 2 00:13:05 If you’ve got people that are true to the sport with a hobby of, of flying the drone, they’re gonna try to, we, we don’t want the FAA making more regulations on us. We wanna have a good relat with the FAA. We wanna be able to have that Liberty to be able to make these flights and do great photography for people. And if we start getting regulated to hell, we.. it, it becomes un-fun for us when there’s more regulations than the joy of being able to fly.
Speaker 1 00:13:27 Sure. Okay. So it’s a, it’s a community effort to keep it on the up and up. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:13:33 But there’s always knuckleheads out there and I always have the rule that rules are for knuckleheads. And so if you’re gonna be in knucklehead with whether you fly your drone, we’re gonna up with rules and it’s just not gonna make it fun anymore.
Speaker 1 00:13:44 Yeah. I can see that. All right. So we scheduled this interview so that it’s a nice time of day to get out and
Speaker 2 00:13:51 It’s beautiful day in the fall. Yeah. In Maryland. So
Speaker 1 00:13:54 We’re gonna launch it, but I don’t even know if launch is the right word.
Speaker 2 00:13:58 Take off launch. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:13:59 Okay. Taking off
Speaker 2 00:14:00 Piloting.
Speaker 1 00:14:01 So, uh, I’m excited to actually see parts of my neighborhood from overhead. And then, then we’ll come back and finish the interview. After I’ve had some experience, I might, uh, have different questions after that or just a new respect for it at least. Sure. Cool. All right. We’ll come back. Okay. So we just got back from flying the drone around and it was pretty fun. And I feel like there’s so much, like you were telling me about features that I wanna play with more mm-hmm that we didn’t get to like the whole looking around at the VR to be able to look up and down and control the camera.
Speaker 2 00:14:50 Yeah. Head tracking.
Speaker 1 00:14:52 Right. That and, and to try, yeah. I wanna go kayaking and take it out and have it follow us. Mm-hmm so what is something about drone piloting that people don’t understand like licensing hours of operation, the flight plan thing that was involved, but easy. talk about that.
Speaker 2 00:15:12 So the FAA is cooperating with the community to be able to make it so that we can be legal and you still have some freedom. So when you’re within five miles of an airport, you do have to have FAA authorization and file a flight plan with them. And it’s called LAANC. And I can’t remember what the letters stand for, but, but once you have that authorization, you can fly up to the 400 feet. depending on where you are, when you get closer to the airport, they actually will put ceilings on your flight to like 100 feet or,
Speaker 1 00:15:37 Oh, interesting. Is it progressive as it gets
Speaker 2 00:15:39 Closer, as you get closer to the airport, they will put limits on the height that you can fly. But normally when you’re outside of that five mile range, you can fly at your own just about anywhere up to 400 feet, state parks, things like that at you have to contact the park. A lot of times find out what their regulations are, get approvals, possibly waivers, um, military installations, things like that. Those are no go places you can get in. Big, big trouble for that.
Speaker 1 00:16:09 I know we were mentioning earlier about, I think Sandy Point State Park, where you were at yesterday or a couple days ago that because it’s off season, it’s a lot more liberal.
Speaker 2 00:16:18 Yeah. They’ve, they’ve started working with some of these state parks so that the community can’t have the chance to fly in them when there’s not as much of a crowd. So like during the summer, we’re not allowed there at all. It’s prohibited. But during the course of between Labor Day and Memorial day over the winter months and fallen spring, we’re allowed to get in there when there’s not the crowd we can fly. Uh, when you are flying a Sandy Point, it is kind of unique because the bay bridge is right there and that is a considered a kind of security zone. So you’re not allowed to, to fly too close to the bridge.
Speaker 1 00:16:52 I was gonna say, it’s not one of those. I was looking on the app and there’s off limit zones. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:16:55 There are off limit zones, like over schools and things like that, that they don’t want you flying over. So the FAA put kind of zones that no, no go zones that you have to respect.
Speaker 1 00:17:06 So while we were flying, so we went down to the marina and did some cool stuff there. And then we came back to the house and up in our driveway and we’re going around our house and doing some things. We actually had some neighbors come over who were interested in flying drones. And so that conversation ensued and they were kinda just kind of interested. Obviously we referred them to the podcast to learn about some of the things. Right. But for people just starting out, what do you reckon?
Speaker 2 00:17:35 Well, don’t be like me and go up and buy the most expensive drone in the market at the time. Um, that’s just how I am, um, get a small drone, get one of the cheapo, $50, a hundred dollars ones from Walmart or something like that. And just start flying that and just get used to it, get comfortable with it. See if it is a hobby you even wanna pick up and invest in, because if you really wanna jump into it, you’ll be in thousands of dollars in no time at all
Speaker 1 00:18:07 My sister in-law and her fiance have one and they have it follow them along on some of their adventures. Mm-hmm um, and it’s just beautiful that the scenery captures and I don’t know what kind they have, but they only spent several hundred dollars. So I guess it’s a whole range.
Speaker 2 00:18:21 A lot of the technology is getting more affordable. Mm. And so they are having, they are starting to create drones and such that are more cost effective at up to, you know, between three and $700 that will have a lot of the programming to be able to do those follow modes or point of view or point of interest modes to
Speaker 1 00:18:38 That’s. Cool. Yeah. And I think that you could always add on some things you could add on like the VR headset you could add on mm-hmm , you don’t have to get that right away. But, um, yeah, you’re using DJI. We actually have one of our pieces of equipment that we use. We actually have used it for hobby. Dabbler is a DJI Osmo, Osmo. Exactly. So it does the gimbal stuff. Um, so it’s kind of fun and it’s a well supported platform and just company I think does, does a good job with all of their
Speaker 2 00:19:04 Technology. DJI is a great company, but they’re not popular with the us government. Oh. That is actually considered, uh, a security risk. So like the secret service and the military, and like that is absolutely prohibited from flying DJI products. There is actual issues with, they think the drones are being used as spy technology.
Speaker 1 00:19:34 Oh, good to know. Is there an American company that you would recommend that
Speaker 2 00:19:39 Off the top of my head? I’m sure there are some out there, but I don’t know if any
Speaker 1 00:19:42
Speaker 2 00:19:44 DJI is the industry standard. Okay. I mean there, the, the next drone that I wanna buy is the Inspire 2. And it starts at like $2,500.
Speaker 1 00:19:54 Okay. Maybe you can sell me your old one, my old beat up DJI. When my typical question would be, do you use this hobby to make money? But you are explaining that in order to make money doing, using your drone, there are certain regulations let’s talk about that
Speaker 2 00:20:11 You actually have to get certified and it’s called the part 107 certification, which is a FAA test. You have to go and pass. And so once you get that part 107 license, you are then authorized to make money on your video, um, photography and everything like that, that you’ve, you’ve made from the drone. As me as a recreational pilot. Now I can’t sell or make a profit on my flying.
Speaker 1 00:20:36 So how hard is it to get licensed? And obviously then you have to recreate your content. We talked about that earlier. Um, are you gonna use it for like what you photography real estate photography,
Speaker 2 00:20:48 All sorts. I mean, the, the, the entire marketing, I mean, there’s, there’s, you know, we were talking about attaching a thermal camera to a drone. Oh, what the thermal cameras. Oh. Um, if you get your part one 107 license, you could probably contact a lo local polices force and be like, Hey, I’m a certified licensed pilot for drones. If you guys have something coming up where you need a drone pilot to help search in some woods for like
Speaker 1 00:21:13 A manhunt,
Speaker 2 00:21:14 A manhunt or a missing child, or
Speaker 1 00:21:16 If that’s the case you’re working with, um, that sector, like, are, would you be allowed to fly at night with their permission? How does that work between the police and the FAA?
Speaker 2 00:21:25 There are, there are regulations, shoot of follow and get waivers. And with some drone flying, you can fly. You have to have the right lighting on your drone when you have a drone flying at night and you have to have a drone that can, the lights can be seen from three miles away. That way you’re not interfering with other air traffic or anything like that, or that they can see that you are in the air.
Speaker 1 00:21:45 Interesting. Okay. So, and then we talking, when we’re in front of the house and flying it, we were talking about the fact that you could use it for construction, even like seeing where a roof leak might be happening, inspecting the shingles
Speaker 2 00:21:57 There’s applications out there that will do kind of a scan of a property and actually create a 3D model of, and I can’t remember the name of the product off the bat
Speaker 1 00:22:08 From the photography. Like it’ll
Speaker 2 00:22:11 Because it actually has depth perception on the camera.
Speaker 1 00:22:14 Oh,
Speaker 2 00:22:14 Neat. For like agriculture, where’s your water run off where’s where do you need to get more water on your property? Oh, you know, there’s, there’s cameras like that, that can detect moisture levels in the ground. And you fly, you hire somebody with a drone that has the, a camera to do these,
Speaker 1 00:22:28 That it’s really cool greetings. So I’m a huge fan of when your hobbies pay for themselves. And is that what you aspire to do is like, have your drone hobby make pay for itself.
Speaker 2 00:22:38 It’d be awesome. And one point to do that. Yeah. But for me now, it’s just a matter of, I just like being able to fly.
Speaker 1 00:22:43 I can see that. And it’s kind of fun with the kids. Like we had a, my son caught the drone mm. When we were down at the water and that was kind of like, I, you could just see the smile on his face the whole time it was coming down to him. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:22:55 They create a lot more wind wash, like downdraft when you’re underneath that thing than you expect,
Speaker 1 00:23:00 It was still a cool experience. Everyone has questions and like, oh, what are you doing? And
Speaker 2 00:23:05 So it’s great for getting people to, to you wanna get to know people and, and people are, have questions. There’s not a lot of drones out there like that. So when you see somebody flying, when it’s like, Hey, it’s just kind of a natural draw for people to have questions
Speaker 1 00:23:16 Actually socially. So do you belong to any, uh, like social drone organizations?
Speaker 2 00:23:21 There are some out there, but I haven’t joined them yet.
Speaker 1 00:23:23 No. Okay. So if we got a drone, would that be social enough for you to like we could hang out and do drone things? Yeah, sure. Actually, what are, would our flight plans compete with each other?
Speaker 2 00:23:33 Uh, the FAA wouldn’t care about that. The biggest concern at that point is pilot awareness. Keep an eye on drone, not interfering with other pilots in the air. If you, if you collided with another, technically, if you collided with another drone, you’re supposed to report it. Oh my
Speaker 1 00:23:45 Gosh.
Speaker 2 00:23:46 And there’s a, I’d have to check the regulation, but anytime there’s a based on value. So I think it’s over like four or $500 or something like that. If there’s over that amount of damage on the drone, you’re technically supposed to report it because it’s
Speaker 1 00:23:58 Like a police report.
Speaker 2 00:23:59 It was a mid collision.
Speaker 1 00:24:01 Oh my goodness. That’s this is crazy. I see it. Like, it’s a toy, but I at it that it’s an actual, well,
Speaker 2 00:24:05 See, that’s part of
Speaker 1 00:24:06 The reason,
Speaker 2 00:24:07 Part of the reason when the FAA really wants to get you to get like that certification and everything like that is they want you to have a respect for flying mm-hmm . And so, and I, I do too. I understand that. Cause I actually, like I said, I used to fly in high school and college. You want people not just to go get a drone outta the store and just start flying it. You know, those hobby drones are great and everything like that. But if you’re really gonna get into the, the sport and the flying, they want you to have an appreciation of what you’re doing for it
Speaker 1 00:24:44 Is a drone, the same thing as a UAV and, uh, unmanned aerial vehicle.
Speaker 2 00:24:49 Okay. So you said UAV, but what the FAA is actually calling them is UASs unmanned aerial system.
Speaker 1 00:24:56 Is there a size difference?
Speaker 2 00:24:58 Uh, the FAA has regulations based on the weight of a drone, not necessarily the size, cause
Speaker 1 00:25:04 I’ve seen some of those hobby drones that they look like small airplanes, but like, you know, the wingspan is at least five feet. Oh yeah. They’ve got, are those UABs at that point?
Speaker 2 00:25:13 They’re, they’d be UAS is what they’re called. They use the terms interchangeably honestly, but UAS is typically the term that you’re gonna find the FAA referring to ’em for.
Speaker 1 00:25:22 Okay. Good to know.
Speaker 1 00:25:31 Thank you for listening to this episode of hobby dabbler. I hope you’re inspired to dabble in aerospace, even if it’s just something janky like attaching a GoPro to a kite, you already have. Don’t forget to subscribe. Leave a note in the comments and tell us what you think or drop me a line at Vanessa@hobbydabbler.com. Be sure to follow us on Insta at @hobby dabbler_official and facebook.com/hobbydabbler, where we post more hobby fodder throughout the week. Sign up to join our email list at ourwebsite: hobbydabbler.com to get notified when a new show drops and for insider news. Today’s episode is brought to you by Cress Consulting (https://Cress.Consulting). From online hosting to complete website design Cress Consulting is your one stop shop for digital marketing. Plus it helps pay for the drone we wanna get.

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