A family portrait. Shoot From the Sky

Surveying timber harvest from the sky. Shoot From the Sky

Easy view of roof and chimney. Shoot From the Sky

created by DJI camera Shoot From the Sky

AREA — Need to know how your timber harvest is going and don’t want to walk the property?  Want to sell some property and give potential buyers a good view of what’s on offer? Need to check out roof or chimney condition and don’t want to climb up there? Take an aerial photo. Tired of the same old, same old? How about a family portrait … from above?

What began as a fun toy for youth and adults alike, the drone has become a valuable resource. As the technology evolves, so do endless applications for everyday use and John Lewis of Bethel is right on the cutting edge, ready to use his expertise and equipment to address whatever is requested … within the law.

But it’s not just fun and games. Lewis is a certified commercial drone pilot, licensed by the FAA. And that in itself is no mean feat. In fact, the certification and licensing process is so in depth he would would be very close to an actual manned aircraft pilot’s license if he chose to get actual flying hours.

For Lewis, it began as fun.

“I bought a cheap $100 drone and started flying it around and thought it was super cool,” he says. “You get a different perspective. After about two weeks, I knew I needed a more expensive one … that really pleased my wife,” he chuckles.

Knowing he had to justify the expense, Lewis decided if he could use the more expensive drone as a side business, it would pay for itself and he could still have fun. So he set about becoming licensed.

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“The Part 107 Commercial Drone Pilot license is extreme. It is similar to (manned) pilots’ tests with regard to knowledge and exams,” he explains. He explains one has to go to a specific testing facility in Sanford and take the exams in a blocked testing room. You are not allowed to have anything in the room with you and everything you do is monitored.

He says there are specific rules for Small Unmanned Aerial System (SUAS). It cannot fly highter than 400 feet above the ground or any structure and must always yield to manned aircraft. It must have a licensed pilot in command who is expert on weather, wind, sectional charts (maps of the sky), classifications of air space, no fly zones and temporary flight restriction zones as well as federal law.

“For example,” he says, “this area is a Class G zone” which, he explains, has fewer restrictions. However elsewhere in Oxford County there is a different, restricted zone, over a military training facility. The sectional charts are a bit like topography maps but for the airspace.

“A temporary flight restriction might be over a stadium while a game is in progress (such as the Super Bowl or a Red Sox game).

“You also have to understand manned aircraft take off and landing patterns as well as all the terminology – like tower to aircraft communications.”

Every flight must have a flight record and every two years you have to re-certify, he says.

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But that’s only half the fun. The software the drone enables Lewis to do myriad tasks with the mathematical “heavy lifting” done by the computer. For example, photogrammetry. Photogrammetry is the science of taking measurements from photographs. The input to photogrammetry is photographs, and the output is typically a map, a drawing, a measurement, or a 3D model of some real-world object or scene.

Lewis says once you have that, the software can tell you volume and real world position.

“For example,” he explains, “Say a town buys 3,000 cubic yards of salt. The drone takes known points creating an orthomosaic map (like a Google satellite view) and after the salt delivery can tell if 3,000 cubic yards were delivered or only 2,800 cubic yards.

“The same technology can render 3-D models.”

So, say, you might need a new roof. Normally one would have to measure the square footage of the roof then figure out how many shingles are needed.

“With the drone it’s easy,” Lewis says, “In minutes it has the roof dimensions and the number of shingles needed.”

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“This technology is invaluable for excavation companies, general contractors, towns. The drone can do roof inspections, chimney inspections, real estate photography, overview of acreage, timber harvests and, for fun, family photographs, Facebook ads, website photography and so forth.”

Lewis can also do accident reconstruction (map crashes) for law enforcement but only if the law enforcement agency hiring him has a formal drone policy as required by the state of Maine.

Lewis is a wealth of drone knowledge and has hours of experience under his belt.

“My daughters call the drone ‘my girlfriend’,” he laughs, “which I’m sure they heard from my wife.”

Lewis mostly flies in spring, summer and fall simply because the drone’s batteries don’t much like cold. He won’t fly in the rain.

While Lewis is governed by federal aviation law, so is the general public, he noted. “It is a federal offense to shoot down a drone and is considered the same as hijacking an aircraft.” A drone is considered by law to be an aircraft.

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Lewis’ newest gig is an aerial recording of the Little Tim’s 5th Annual Ice Fishing Derby on March 7 at Worthley Pond in Peru. It’s a fundraiser for Camp Postcard and Lewis is a sponsor.

Anyone in need to the services Lewis offers can contact him at shootfromtheskydrones@gmail.com or find his services on Facebook: Shoot From the Sky.

 

 


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