16 December 2024

By Edward Ghosn

My journey into the drone life began many years ago and it didn’t begin with drones. It all began in a little mountain village in Lebanon in March of 1961. This little country is in the Mediterranean Sea with Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south with the Mediterranean Sea on its west. I was fortunate and blessed to move to California, USA in 1965 with my aunt and uncle. I underwent a dozen or so operations on my legs to counter the effects of polio. My last operation was in 1975 before I entered high school. The nationally recognized Orthopedic Surgeon did wonders for me.

I am grateful to God for allowing me to come to the US, land of the free and home of the brave. After high school, I obtained a certificate as an audio engineer. After that, I decided to pursue a medical career as a Respiratory Therapist before getting married to the gorgeous woman who is helping me edit this paper and we had ten children.

In the early 1990’s I became fascinated with videography. I began doing small video projects and was encouraged to continue with this hobby, which became a side business, E.G. Video Creations. I videotaped a lot of weddings and special events, produced medical training videos and produced and edited The Rock Guitar Video You’ve Been Waiting For.

As my family grew, I developed an entrepreneurial spirit and found creative ideas to bring in more income. I added the business of doing digital photo transfers and 8mm reel to reel transfers to VHS. Film transfers were in high demand as media technology changed rapidly.

I also advanced my education by obtaining a BS in Business Management and an MBA in Health Care Management. I continued with my video business and shooting weddings and perfecting my creativity in post-production. By 2010 I was no longer working in the hospital setting but worked in education, teaching aspiring Respiratory students.

I was hired to shoot a wedding in 2020. The venue was in beautiful Oak Glen, California. I was searching the venue on the web and found an awesome aerial YouTube video of the venue. I was fascinated and intrigued by the video and I just had to have that clip in my post-production of the wedding video. I contacted the owner, and he gave me permission to use part of it. I thought it was awesome, and I just had to get more of these aerial shots. I developed a desire to use drones for videography.

After a bit of research, I purchased a cheap drone from a pawn shop. It was called The Beast (or something like that). The images were not good quality. I practiced and played around with it and took some videos and pictures, but they were not good enough for professional work. I realized that I could make money using my drone. During my research, I discovered that if I wanted to make money with my drone, I would have to register the drone with the FAA and get a pilot’s license called Part 107. So, in 2022, I registered that cheap drone with the FAA and began to study for the Part 107 exam. I continued to fly that drone and began looking for a professional drone.

The name DJI kept popping up and I realized that I had better buy a DJI drone because they were well-known drone manufacturers. I found my first Phantom 4 Pro version1 on eBay. I was able to save up some money to purchase it later in November 2022. I continued to study for the Part 107 and finally on November 29, 2022, I passed the exam the first time. Once I received my official Remote Pilot’s License card, I began to practice flying my Phantom 4 Pro. I practiced and practiced several times a week. The next step was to figure out how to begin making money. That was a challenge. I wasn’t sure where to start.

I found Dronersio and completed the onboarding process and it wasn’t much after that that I was offered my first drone job. It was a piece of vacant land in Calimesa. The winds were 10 mph but all went well. I followed the steps they laid out and I completed my first project. Wooo Hooo!!! I made $80 on that project. I continued to do more projects and began doing commercial real estate projects. I joined Drone U and began learning more about drones and their use in construction. I learned that I should set up an LLC and did so in November 2022. And so began United Drone Services, LLC.

In early 2023 I received an email from Drone Brothers in Michigan asking if I would be interested in doing a bimonthly drone shoot that would last for 1 year for the construction of a new Home Depot hub in Perris, California (10 miles from my home). I jumped on it! It was doing 11 Panos using Drone Deploy with my P4P.

By that point I had completed a dozen other drone jobs with Dronersio, but still couldn’t count on it as a main source of income, since the cost of living is very high in California. I was able to acquire my second P4P by mid-2023 and later that year I purchased the Autel Evo 2 version 1. On my last day of the construction project, I was flying the P4P when I lost signal and visual line of sight. The P4P went down on the roof and was rendered useless. I was able to locate the drone the next day and take a picture of its location. I was able to complete the project the following day. The construction project manager retrieved my crashed drone for me. I learned the importance of having hull insurance. I was able to get a new P4P with the insurance claim.

I continued to learn on the uses of drone technology. Roof inspections, Orthomosaic, Mapping, Thermal inspections, Cell tower inspections, Cinematic expressions, movie industry and the list goes on. I joined the The Pilot Institute to educated myself on the business aspect of the use of drones and conintued to use the Drone U website  as well to increase my knowledge base.My drone fleet increased to DJI Phantom 4 Pro V2, Autel Evo 2 Dual (with the Flir 640R payload) and the DJI Mini 3 Pro

I was becoming more confident from my experiences, but I realized that I knew very little about drones and their fast-growing technological use. I completed several mapping projects and dabbled with 3D rendering as well. I began looking for other drone hiring companies to do more jobs. I signed up with VidTech, Drone Videos and Zeitview and completed a number of projects for each of them but, I thought that the pay was not quite what I felt I deserved, so I began to market my services on my own. It had not been easy to get jobs with those businesses and I had been at my wits’ end when I found The Droning Company.

I read about Stuart Smith and I connected with his story and his need to provide for his family. He was from my era—the 70’s and 80’s—and he was a rock and roller in real life. I signed up immediately and he contacted me in record time, welcoming me on board. He encouraged me and provided guidance on how to get my name out there, using The Droning Company platform, so I could begin making money without the middleman. I look forward to continuing to learn and grow my business, while doing what I enjoy.

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