So, Santa brought me a really cool photography drone (this one, from DJI), a Phantom 4 Pro… I’ve been playing around with racing quadcopters for a couple of years, but my family’s Jacksonville photography business needs drone photography. Racing quadcopters, especially with a camera and FPV goggles, is really fun but is not very conducive to Real Estate photography.

Which means, of course, that we needed a capable photography drone and FAA certification to fly it for commercial purposes. The certification is called a “Remote Pilot” certification and is described in Part 107 of the Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations, “Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems.” The certification allows operators to use a drone (called UAS) for commercial purposes (not allowed, otherwise), and requires some studying and passing a knowledge test.

Which brings me to the partial government shutdown. I just tried to schedule the test, and was denied… FAA knowledge testing is DOWN for the count, until the folks in Washington get their act together!

Hopefully they’ll do so, soon. Until then, I guess I’ll just have to be content flying for fun. Did I mention it was really fun?

Thanks for reading!

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