so ive been doing drone work on the side for about two years now, mostly real estate shoots and the occasional wedding videography gig, and im at this point where i'm seriously considering just... doing it full time. my day job is fine but its not exactly thrilling and i feel like i spend half my week wishing i was out flying instead of sitting in meetings.

the money has been decent enough that its not crazy to think about but i genuinely dont know if theres enough consistent work out there to pay rent every month. some months i get three or four jobs and other months its crickets. i have my part 107 and a decent kit — inspire 2 plus a mavic 3 for backup — so its not like im starting from scratch.

anyone here actually made the leap to full time freelance? was there like a point where it just clicked and the work started coming in steady or is it always gonna be feast and famine? honestly any advice appreciated, even if its just "dont do it lol"

made the jump about three years ago and honestly the first six months were pretty rough. i think the key thing nobody tells you is that the flying is maybe like 30% of the job — the rest is chasing invoices, redoing edits for clients who dont know what they want, and basically just doing sales all the time. if you hate that stuff it gets old fast.

that said the real estate market kept me afloat when i started and then construction progress stuff started coming in through word of mouth. now i do a mix of real estate, some infrastructure inspection work and occasional film stuff when i can get it. the inspection side pays way better per day if you can get credentialed for it. worth looking into tower and solar panel inspection — those clients tend to have ongoing contracts which kills the feast/famine problem at least a little bit.

not full time yet but i've been building toward it and one thing i did was just start treating it like a business way earlier than felt necessary — like getting proper insurance, having a real contract template, all that boring stuff. I feel like it made clients take me more seriously even when i was still just doing weekend gigs. good luck with the decision though, sounds like you're in a better position than a lot of people who try to make the jump