Drone business

[montecristo]

Does anyone here own or work in a company that uses drones to survey power stations, oil rigs, fields or some such?

Is it a good business?

[uber]

A chap I used to work with went and started a drone company and took a few million in funding. Started off buidling hardware and now has a partnership with DJI. Does a lot of oil fields, quarys, and construction stuff and has been using the technology in search and rescue in earthquake zones etc. I know they are banking hard but the dev costs were huge.

[surveyor]

What do you mean by 'Survey'? It's quite a wide term....

[montecristo]

I don't know enough yet, but I mean inspections e.g. for damage.

[EarlOfHazard]

You need a drone (obv); the necessary license from the CAA; and insurance. Some good info on Youtube.

Not sure about surveying power stations and the like that you intend; but with H&S requirements to construct scaffolding so that a person could investigate/survey at high levels - there are cost savings by using a drone. So yes there's a market. Also, weddings to consider - lots of demand for that..
Whilst doing some research, I found one company (not even in London) was charging nearly a grand for a whole day (8hrs).

[red_slr]

A friend of mine went pro and it did not work out.
Think carefully before you do anything as its a tough market and there are already lots of companies out there doing the larger scale stuff. On the smaller side you have the retired types who don't care about profits.