Turned down four aerial requests this quarter and I'm tired of it

Dumb question from the outside, does the Part 107 certificate belong to you personally or to the business? I've been trying to figure out where a person without a trade background fits into this kind of work and if the certificate travels with the individual that changes what hiring looks like for someone like @thatch.

It's the person, @plumb. The remote pilot certificate is held by a human being, so if @thatch certifies himself and later hires a shooter, the shooter needs their own. That's the part people miss when they think of it as a company capability.

@thatch, separate angle. On the management side I pay for aerial roof looks on turnovers where I don't want to put a ladder on a three story building. Not marketing at all, just condition photos for an owner report. I pay $150 a pop and I do maybe 8 a year across the portfolio. If you get certified, that kind of work fills the weeks where listings are slow, and it doesn't care about the spring rush.

Second what @trellis said and go further. Roofers around me are paying for aerial before they quote, because it saves a ladder trip and a liability exposure. It isn't beautiful footage, it's close-in stills of flashing and shingle condition, and that's a different skill from a sweeping listing video. Easier, honestly. If you're going to buy the drone anyway, that work is sitting there and most of the marketing shooters don't chase it because it pays less per hour of flight but takes twenty minutes on site.

The in-house case has a hole in it. Your $2,400 a month gross assumes you're the pilot forever. The first time you're double booked on a Saturday, you're back to calling the sub anyway, so you end up paying the startup cost and keeping the relationship.

What I'd actually do in your position is subcontract for two quarters and count. Count how many add-ons sell at $400, count how many shoots need the airspace authorization, and count how many times the sub's schedule cost you a job. Then you're deciding with your own numbers instead of my guess. Six of twenty-two is a guess and it's the number the whole thing hangs on.

The $400 price is the part I'd stare at. In my area aerial add-ons on a standard suburban listing sit closer to $175 to $250 because there are people with a consumer drone undercutting everything. Where the number holds up is acreage, waterfront, new construction sites and commercial. Do you know which of your 22 monthly shoots are actually properties where the aerial sells the place? If it's the 6 you named, fine. If those 6 are just agents who like drone shots on a 1/4 acre lot, you'll get price pressure fast.

On the airspace question you asked and nobody answered yet, the request system near controlled airports is an app-based approval and for a lot of areas it comes back in under a minute. Some grid squares near an airport have a ceiling of zero, and those need a longer manual request that can take weeks. Which one you're in depends on the specific block of ground, not on how far you are from the runway. Pull up one of the free airspace maps and check the actual squares around your usual listings before you decide, @thatch. Five miles out could be totally clear or could be a zero-altitude block.

I'm midway through studying for the 107 right now. Test is mostly airspace classes, chart reading and weather, and the chart reading is the part that takes the hours. I put in about 15 hours with a $50 online course and a practice bank and I'm passing practice tests. Call it two weekends. The flying is separate and I'd budget a month of evenings in an empty field before you point it at a client's roof.