so ive been flying commercially for about two years now, mostly real estate and some construction progress stuff on the side. got my part 107 about 18 months ago and things have been slowly picking up but im still doing my day job alongside it and honestly its exhausting trying to manage both.

the question is whether anyone has actually made the jump to doing drone work full time and if its sustainable. like not just doing okay but actually paying rent and saving a little. i keep reading these articles that say the industry is booming but my local market feels pretty saturated with guys undercutting each other to like $150 a shoot which barely covers my time let alone wear on the equipment.

curious if anyone has found a niche that actually pays decently or if im just being naive thinking this could be a real career. wedding and events seems oversaturated too. maybe inspection work? ive heard that pays better but i have no idea how you even break into that world.

inspection work is where its at honestly. i spent two years doing the same real estate grind you're describing and the margins are just brutal. transitioned into doing cell tower and powerline inspections about a year ago and its a completely different world money wise. the barrier to entry is higher though - most companies want to see you can fly in tighter spaces and they usually want specific sensors or thermal capability depending on the job.

the way i got in was just cold emailing utility contractors and honestly pestering them until someone gave me a shot. took about four months of nothing and then two clients came at once. now i have retainer agreements with both and its steady enough that i dropped my old job in march. wont pretend its been totally smooth but its working. if you have any technical background or can learn to read the data side of things that helps a lot because youre not just selling footage youre selling deliverables that engineers actually use.

not quite in the same boat as you since im still pretty new to all this but i did a workshop last year where one of the instructors said the real money is in specializing, not generalizng. like pick one industry and get really deep into it rather than being a generalist who does a bit of everything. he did agricultural surveying almost exclusively and said once you build relationships with a few big farms you can have work lined up seasons in advance. seemed niche but also kinda genius?