curious if anyone here has made the full jump to doing drone work as their main income. i see a lot of posts about side gigs and part time stuff but im wondering about people who actually went all in. im at a point in my life where i could probably take the risk - savings are decent, no kids, and my current job is honestly soul crushing so the timing might be right.

im trying to get a realistic picture of what that actually looks like though. like are most full time pilots doing a mix of things - weddings, real estate, inspections, whatever comes their way - or do people tend to specialize? and the business side of it scares me a bit, dealing with contracts and insurance and all that. i have my 107 and ive been doing occasional paid work for about a year but nothing that would come close to replacing a salary yet.

not looking for some inspirational story necessarily, more like the honest version including the parts that sucked

the honest version: the first year was really hard. i went full time about three years ago and i think i made maybe $28k that first year which was a significant pay cut from what i was doing before. i did everything - real estate, some weddings which i actually hated, a bit of construction progress stuff, one weird gig filming a car dealership. the inconsistency is the hardest part psychologically, you'll have a great month and think youve figured it out and then the next month is crickets.

what changed things for me was niching down into infrastructure inspection work. it pays better, the clients are more professional, and once you get in with a company or two they keep coming back. but it took a while to build that up and you do need to invest in some additional training and probably different equipment depending on what type of inspections. the business stuff - contracts, insurance, invoicing - is annoying but you just figure it out, its not as scary as it sounds once youre actually doing it. i use a pretty basic template contract i found and modified.

anyway im in a much better place now financially and i genuinely like my work so for me it was worth it but i wouldnt sugarcoat year one for anyone.

this is really helpful to read. one question - did you find that clients cared much about what drone you were flying, or was it more about your portfolio and reliability? i keep going back and forth on whether i need to upgrade my gear before i start pushing for more serious work