This category title is "Learning How to Fly For Real Estate" but it really needs to be entitled "Learning How To Fly Before Real Estate." Before you can approach a real estate agent or broker you have to be a confident pilot who can fly smoothly and safely. This post is not for all of you, experienced, pilots out there but I would love any contributions that you have to offer. It will make this blog a whole lot more interesting.
When I first decided to purchase a drone, it was just for the fun of it. However, I wasn't going to sink $1000.00 to $1500.00 in a drone and then crash it. So, I bought a couple of $20.00 drones and proceeded to get both of those stuck in the trees. I learned later that the toy drones are much harder to fly than a GPS guided drone that I ended up purchasing.
The next thing I did was watch a lot of YouTube videos showing my particular drone from taking it out of the box, introduction to controls, to the more intelligent flying programs. Bill Nichols's videos are a great beginning point for teaching yourself intelligent flying techniques that most drones have. Click here to see one. It's important to learn and understand all of your controls and settings. We will talk more about that later.
You can't spend too much time out in an open field practicing take offs and landings. You should practice flying in patterns, like, figure 8's, squares and circling around an object while keeping an equal distance to that object, all the while, focusing on smooth turns. While practicing your flight patterns go ahead and shoot some video so you can watch it later and critique yourself.
Once you get confident flying in an open field you may want to start flying around some obstacles. Adding cones to your open field is the safest way to do this at first, then you can graduate to flying among the trees. Many real estate jobs are going to require you to be able to fly through trees. The short clip below is part of a longer video of a home and yard where I had to fly through some trees. It was early on when I first started but it also shows you an example of jerky turns. Not good!
All of this practice make take some time but the worst thing you can do is get a realtor to give you a try and you deliver a poor quality production.
Finally, when you do, accidentally, back your drone into a tree, Don'y panic! And believe me that is easier said than done. This is why you need to know your controls without having to think about them. Practice! Practice! Practice!
Please post your questions and comments. Keep it friendly and respectful. The more input we get the better.