Paul Aitken: Living the Drone Life

Transcript

[0:00:21] Charlie Hoehn: You’re listening to Author Hour, enlightening conversations about books with the authors who wrote them. I’m Charlie Hoehn. Today’s episode is with Paul Aitken, author of Living the Drone Life. Are drones just a hobby or can they be an investment in your future? Paul believes they are the latter as he’s taught people all over the world how to change their lives with drones. In this episode, we cover everything you’ve been wondering about, about drones. For instance, what’s the best way to get started? How will drones shape our society? What are the new business opportunities that are coming in to play? How does Casey Neistat get away with flying drones in downtown New York City? By the end of this episode, you’ll have the insider’s playbook to flying drones for fun and profit. And now, here is our conversation with Paul Aitken. I want to start the interview off with your story Paul, can you tell me what ultimately led you to drones?

[0:01:46] Paul Aitken: Curiosity.

[0:01:49] Charlie Hoehn: Curiosity? Here’s actually a better question. Okay, let me try this. I want to hear about the problem that you had to overcome that ultimately laid the foundation to writing living the drone life.

[0:02:05] Paul Aitken: The problem I had to overcome. The reason I got into Drones was actually quite simple. At the time, I was just exiting a business called the party trolley and getting into my own media company.

[0:02:18] Charlie Hoehn: And the party trolley I take it is what it sounds like? It’s a party bus?

[0:02:24] Paul Aitken: Yeah, it was before Uber though, that’s kind of the funny thing, it was the first shared ride carrier here in Albuquerque was the first bus that you could call on your phone and figure out where it was and only paid five to 10 bucks a ride because you were sharing the party bus with everyone else that was on it. It really created a unique social scenario, which I absolutely love challenging people’s social perspective because after living in Europe. You realize that normal doesn’t mean anything.

[0:02:55] Charlie Hoehn: It’s all relative.

[0:02:57] Paul Aitken: Yeah, exactly, yeah. You know, having the party bus was more than just the solution to a problem, it was always a way to open people’s minds and broaden their horizons and from there, I went into ride media doing social media, online advertising, online production, which were things I was very familiar with party trolley, it was kind of a natural thing and one day, when my clients said you know. I’ve been seeing a lot of areal pictures, this was back in 2012, I’ve been seeing a lot of areal pictures and I would really love a picture of my building and my property so I can showcase how far away we are from other things in the city and this was at the time was for a security firm. They were really focused and driven on showcasing the proximity of their building to the town around them because one of the biggest problems in Albuquerque is crime and our police force has an abominable, terrible response time. It’s something like 17 minutes so there’s a private police force out here and they want to showcase how fast they can respond to calls because this has become such an issue here in Albuquerque and that’s why they wanted an aerial photo. I talked to the owner of the company who actually ended up being a partner in Drone U and he was like look, I’m going to send you out to a school, you’re going to learn everything you need to know and you’re going to come back and take this picture for free for me. I was like, that’s it? No –

[0:04:22] Charlie Hoehn: Great deal.

[0:04:23] Paul Aitken: Anything else in our journeys? No. I went to school and as soon as I went to this school in Arizona, full blown university, teaching people UAS engineering and the first day I went to school…

[0:04:33] Charlie Hoehn: UAS?

[0:04:36] Paul Aitken: Yeah, Unmanned Aerial Systems. It was like one of the every first schools, it was founded by an old predator pilot, like military to the T and I didn’t realize it then but I realize it now, the furthest thing from what I would actually be doing. It’s just kind of funny. The first day, we’re at school and we’re outside and me and my buddy are goofing off and I’m like, you know what? We just sat in class for eight hours, I want to fly, this is what this is all about. Pull out the drone, fly, there is this little challenge, you got to find this person on building, found it in like 30 seconds and the owner of the school is like, I want you to train for me. I’m like, what? He’s like, you have a natural talent at flying, I want you to train for me. I trained for him for a couple of years, maybe like a year and a half, I think it was until he died and I flew for the national association of broadcasters and I taught people from CNN to Fox News, to BBC, ITN. News networks from around the world like way before drones were cool. Then I went back to the same guy, I got his aerial photo for him and he saw a couple of other people fly and he was like, Paul, you don’t fly like any other person I’ve ever seen, I’ve seen a lot of people fly drones and they fly in linear movements, they fly in straight lines, every time I see you fly, you’re in some organic natural motion. The drone never actually sits in one place, you’re always telling a story. There’s something about that and that’s when I was like, I really appreciate that, thank you. This is actually one of the problems I realize that this other school is that they’ve got all the technical information but they’ve got no one to show other people how to fly and that’s why they ask me how to fly and this was back in 2013. They were paying like 1,500 a day for me to train other people to fly drones. I said to the guy who invested in me to go to school, I said, you know, one of the big problems is that, there’s just no practical information, there’s just no information out there, they really showcase people, this is how you fly, these are the three steps to take off, these are the three steps to landing because at that time, drones were so new that people didn’t’ really understand the lifecycle of drones or the human training cycle. Meaning, where do most people crash, what are the failure points, you know, what really happens? After training now for five years, I’ve realized three really specific points and I’ve written, well as you know, we’re on this show talking about book, wrote this book but I also published another book and I have two more books coming out this year about drone U and the thing is that, I really wanted to give people the practical no BS - This is really what you need to know, to not only limit liability and limit risk. But truly enjoy the flight experience. Truly you know, increase your confidence and elevate your experience. I think that that passion, albeit, it’s taken a long time to really click with people, that passion is really what’s driven me and I feel like the success of this business because deep down, people know my Why. They know why I’m in this. I love to fly, I want to teach other people how to fly so that they can enjoy flight more, they can lower their learning curve. Also, it’s more than that, it’s macro right? People know how to be responsible and they’re enjoying flying more. Chances are, we’re going to retain our freedoms to fly through responsible piloting. More people are educated, more people know what to do, they can find the nay Sayers with intelligent arguments without raising their voice while also showcasing people the emotional aspect of flying, the ideology that you may be stuck in a chair your whole life but you can still experience the skies in ways never before seen and I’ll be honest with you, we have one student right now, his name is John and he’s been wheelchair bound for a couple of years sand I almost came to tears when I saw him fly for the first time. Because you see someone who’s been so restricted their whole life and then they can just sit there and experience the world unaided. For them, it’s just this total freeing moment and that feeling of helping other people out is really why I’m here. I’ve always thought as flight as like a bird, I’ve always thought about, well, if birds can make a turn on a dime but a plane can’t, why. You know? Then you learn about propeller tracking and you learn about what is it called? Rotating blade stall and you learn bout all these things that inhibit helicopters and planes from doing these things but drones are ultimately and fundamentally different because they can fly in any direction except for straight down.

[0:09:19] Charlie Hoehn: that’s fascinating.

[0:09:20] Paul Aitken: I’ll explain that in later life.

[0:09:22] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, sure. Take me really to the moment – you had all these incredible experiences, training these reporters and really seeing the industry start to take hold and shape up and you were training all these people, when did you realize that they’re just wasn’t enough information out there, when did you really decide I need to write a book? I always thought that books brought about credibility but in all honesty, it was my business partner who brought it up and he said you know, I think a book is going to give you and this company what we need. Was like, well what’s on? He’s like, well you’ve already got tens of thousands of followers on Instagram and Facebook and all this other stuff but we need older people to look at this in a more traditional way to bring about more credibility and authority. It was like, well, that kind of makes sense, I totally get it you know? I never thought I would write book but then when I started doing more and more research about the behavioral psychology and behavioral economics behind the whole thing, it was like wow, this is a really good idea and then I listened to Tucker Max on the Mike Dillard podcast, it’s like the choose your – no, that’s Altucher. It was Mike Dillard’s podcast, I forget the name of the podcast but Tucker Max was on there and he was talking about book in a box and the company that he built and why books are so prominent and what had happened with this plumber and it was really the plumber story and thinking about your question, I think it was really the plumber story is the answer. Hearing that plumber story on the Mike Dillard podcast about how this regular average Joe plumber went from you know, making six figures a year to like eight figures a year and all he was doing was providing content and nuanced information on exactly what he was doing because his whole career, he was focused on doing things right and building relationships with people and giving out the right information. He started on the right track but it hadn’t brought the revenue because of the delivery method.

[0:11:38] Paul Aitken: Paul, if you could give us three reasons why your book is awesome. Three reasons why everyone should read my book. Well, number one, if you love to fly, you’ve ever taken a passion to the skies, you love the feeling of being up in the air, even if it’s just a passenger jet and you want to really experience that, you want to deep dive into an emotional powerhouse of unabridged curiosity and unabridged exploration and adventure, you want to understand how to perceive the world at a new perception but do it well in a way that never really endangers your life. Never really endangers your way of being or how you make money, you’re going to want to read my book because it’s going to teach you not only how to fly, it’s going to teach you how to enjoy it while limiting liability, while limiting risk but really, it’s about understanding the psychological difference from going from employee to an employer and turning your passion of flight into a profit. If you love to fly, if you ever even thought about flying and you want to take to the skies, make sure you don’t take to the skies and crash, take to the skies and take flight.

[0:12:52] Charlie Hoehn: That’s nice and I…

[0:12:55] Paul Aitken: Like remember that or something.

[0:12:56] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, it didn’t sound scripted at all. I’m curious about the regulations and the liabilities that you talk about. I’ve never flown drones but I’m interested in it as a videographer. I’ve done videography for a long time, I’ve seen the shots that some of my videographer friends are taking and it’s amazing but I’m also friends with somebody who worked at a drone company that just got shut down. I forget their name, they launched on kick starter, they did really well, they were on Ellen, people were taking them to ski resorts and skiing down the mountain with them and they would track the user and follow them and take all these amazing shots. It was incredible but the company had some financial issues, I don’t think they got shut down because of regulatory issues but I know that one of the blows to the company was when ski resorts all decided, no more drones. They’re a hazard, can’t have them. What are some of the risks in legal issues that people could potentially face when they first start doing drones. What do they need to know?

[0:14:17] Paul Aitken: Well, it’s very interesting, the question that you bring up and the time you bring it up is very interesting because right now, a very big thing came down form the FAA and it’s really making people question this whole thing about part one of seven. Up until 2016, there really wasn’t any law, there really wasn’t any at all. The FAA has gone about and saying, well in 2007, we define what drones are, that’s fine if you actually go and read the paperwork, they define drones as 128 foot wingspan killing machines. Not 350 millimeter sized quad copters. They tried to interpret their definition of drones in 2007 to be drones of current day, well, luckily the courts threw that out multiple times and they try to go after someone, Rafael Parker from UBA who was flying a drone way back in the day and they tried to get them for a commercial flight on drone, you can’t fly drones commercially unless you have a license. That was struck down by the NTSB and they said, currently the FA doesn’t have any authority. That all changed in 2016 when the FAA came out with part one of seven and part one of seven is a whole new definition for drones, it says, you can fly in any air space except for controlled air space, you need to get authorization for controlled air space. You can fly up to 400 feet, you can’t fly over a hundred miles an hour and you can absolutely never fly over people so when we’re talking about flying over people, I mean, you directly over people’s heads, we’re not talking about you know, flying over cars, the FAA does talk about flying over cars but essentially, the issue is if you fly a drone for commercial purposes and the way that the FAA looks as this is are you advancing your business? If you advance your business with a drone and you are not licensed, every single time you put a battery in that drone, it’s now going to cost you more than the drone itself. $1,100 per fine for essentially not following the rules of droning. Well, you know, when I said that you asked the question at an interesting point in time. There is a guy, Casey Neistat or whatever you say his name, on YouTube and he’s made a huge blog and then he slowly got into drones, the guy flies in restricted airspace, breaks just about every rule you could ever think of and drones flying over people, flying over New York City and New York city is the most restricted and controlled air space in the world and you know, he’s like flying midtown Manhattan like it’s no big del. Like TFR’s don’t exist. TFR’s are Temporary Flight Restrictions are the things that stop people from flying planes when important people come in town or events or football games, basketball games, things like that. Well recently, May 3rd 2017, Casey said, literally, on YouTube, “I’m being investigated by the FAA.” So everyone was like, “Finally, this guy is going to get slapped on the wrist.” We didn’t really care what he gotten forced against because no one really wants to see another person wind up in serious trouble, we just want to say like, “Look, this isn’t okay. What about all these 30,000 pilots that have done the right thing, followed the rules, got the licensed to fly?” They’re fighting now with regulators who are asking for 90 days to get air space authorizations, which is totally ridiculous because a helicopter pilot can get one in 30 seconds. You know, people all over the country are trying to do this legitimately and Casey Neistat’s out there in May 3rd. FAA says, it’s not conclusive evidence that he was flying in restricted airspace.

[0:18:02] Charlie Hoehn: What?

[0:18:03] Paul Aitken: Yeah, no, I’m serious.

[0:18:05] Charlie Hoehn: Hundreds of millions of people would disagree, he’s got seven million followers or something on YouTube. His videos are among the most popular, that’s ridiculous.

[0:18:16] Paul Aitken: Totally ridiculous so that’s why we’re recording a story about it on Monday because we really think it sends a really large message to everyone in the drone world that unless you hit a person, you’re not going to get in trouble. I mean, literally comes down that simple. Unless there is something that draws the attention of local media, you’re not getting in trouble. That is a really big problem. Well, congress and the senate are already reacting to it. I mean, they knew about this before we did and I finally just figured that out, thanks to a foyer request. Now, the very thing that I have been afraid of is happening. Canada already did it, Canada used to let people fly everywhere, they thought drones were a great thing, Canada’s prime minister and myself used to have a very similar mentality about drones that drones are like a cellphone. They’re simply a platform to solve many different problems via applications. The difference between a phone and a drone is that the drone can move freely in space. So, that’s literally what I think of as a drone and if you go technically in deep dive, a drone, all it is, is something that’s remotely controlled with an imaging sensor, that’s all it is, that’s the technical definition. That being said, you know, Canada used to be a really free and open place to fly. Now, you have to be 500 meters from a person, a vessel or a building. I know Canada’s a big wide-open country but tell me one city you’re going to stay 500 meters away from any of those things? Now, because the FAA let this happen but also the FAA said, hey, you got to register your drone and the senate came back – excuse me, the FAA said you got to register your drone, they implemented a law and three weeks ago, John Taylor won a case that said no FAA, you can’t do that, there is a previous federal law that says you can’t make a registration. Now, the FAA has lost on federal registration, you don’t have to register your drone anymore if you’re flying it for fun and this case with Casey Neistat just came out. In the past couple of weeks, we’ve had I think it’s six or seven different bills that are trying to limit where drones can fly, they’re trying to give states the power to recognize where drones can fly which would be a huge disaster in my opinion. There’s only one government entity that controls the skies, that is the FAA. If we have hundreds or hundreds of thousands of local municipalities trying to tell us where we can and can’t fly. It is going to be a nightmare. We are already so far behind the learning curve when it comes to using drones for industrial applications, it’s kind of sad. In fact, I have heard rumors, speculation that people are planning on suing the FAA for antitrust violations because you can ‘t tell a helicopter pilot you know, sit on a runway, call in the tower and we’ll give you authorization to fly and control the air space. Tell a drone pilot, you have to wait 90 days, you as a videographer, you know, when was the last time you got 90 days’ notice before any project. Like come on.

[0:21:29] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah that’s true.

[0:21:32] Paul Aitken: What the FAA losing the registration battle, with the FAA not going after Casey Neistat, it’s really kind of change the tide and I know I’m probably not helping the sales of my book right now but I want people to know that I’m about honesty and integrity and I love to fly and whatever happens with the senate bills and congressional bills that if we can educate more and more people on how to fly safely, ultimately we’re going to all help out each other. I hate this saying because I think it’s a racist – southern saying but they say, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander and I really do believe that that is kind of the case here with drone pilots. Now again, hate the saying but I don’t know another one that would be as good.

[0:22:10] Charlie Hoehn: Author Hour is sponsored by Book in a Box. For anyone who has a great idea for a book but doesn’t have the time or patience to sit down and type it out, Book in a Box has created a new way to help you painlessly publish your book. Instead of sitting at a computer and typing for a year, hoping everything works out, Book in a Box takes you through a structured interview process that gets your ideas out of your head and into a book in just a few months. To learn more, head over to Bookinabox.com and fill out the form at the bottom of the page. Don’t let another year go by where you put off writing your book. Well let’s transition to something a little bit more upbeat that may help the sales of your book which is, what are businesses I can start? What are the possibilities of being a drone owner?

[0:23:19] Paul Aitken: What a fantastic question. Charlie, good question. You know, there are endless jobs that you can do with a drone, in fact, every single day, it seems like there is a new use. When I first started Drone U, we had isolated 300 separate businesses that would use drones to solve problems you know? You know, you talked about video right? Video is simple. I got a flying camera in the sky, why is that a big deal? Most people don’t understand that most cameras are not stabilized so the fact that you can move a camera through the air and have it stabilized, meaning it’s not jerky is a big deal, right? That solves a problem of having stabilized footage.

[0:23:58] Charlie Hoehn: Another problem it also solved when drones became popular was, people don’t’ understand how expensive it was to fly helicopters and get an hour of footage with a camera. It was like, $30,000 for a Hollywood studio to do that. Now, you can do it for less than 500 bucks forever.

[0:24:19] Paul Aitken: Yeah, I don’t know if it’s $500 but it’s definitely a whole lot cheaper. It really depends on where you are, you know, if you’re doing drone based missions, you’re going to get paid 70 to a hundred bucks to go fly someone’s roof but if you’re flying for HBO.

[0:24:34] Charlie Hoehn: I’m saying, if you own the drone, I’m sorry.

[0:24:37] Paul Aitken: Got you. That makes sense. But going back to your question, you know, what uses are there for drones? Right now, we’ve counted over a thousand. Let me give you a really weird one that most people wouldn’t think of. Let me give you two, number one, most people think of sight, think of what you can see, vision as, well that’s everything out there, I can see it right? So because of what I can see, I know what’s out there. Well what if I told you that your eye can only see one percent of all light. One percent, think about that but with drones I can now see up to 30% of all light. You know people have always said, finding a needle in a haystack is impossible or are you otherwise. If I know the composition material of the needle, let’s say it’s tin. I can go into a chart and I can look up the absorbents and reflectivity of light for tin. I can set my hyper spectral camera to look for nothing but that set of reflectivity and absorbency. So imagine I am looking at a black screen and the only thing that comes up white is tin. So now I fly over that haystack and I can’t see any hay. Literary I can’t see anything. It just looks like a blob of black but in the middle of that blob of black is a tiny little white dot and that little pixel would represent finding a needle in a haystack. I talk about that in the book. I use turquoise as the example of someone left their turquoise ring on the beach and it was their wedding ring and they could never find it ever again and they think it’s lost forever.

[0:26:10] Charlie Hoehn: Oh gosh, are drone commercials going to become the new gold detector infomercials?

[0:26:17] Paul Aitken: It’s just a matter of time Charlie.

[0:26:20] Charlie Hoehn: A guy walking on the beach and he’s saying, “Oh my wife loves the weight I loss and she’s really proud of the ring that I found”.

[0:26:30] Paul Aitken: Yeah, that is true. I think the one you’ll see before that is from Coca-Cola from the guy sitting on the beach. It’s like, “Man this trip would just be perfect if I had a Coca-Cola right now” and all of a sudden you see a hexacopter fly overhead and drop a Coca-Cola and voila! Human convenience and laziness has hit the epitome.

[0:26:52] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, seriously which by the way are companies like Coca-Cola pursuing that or is it the bigger companies like Amazon that are concerned more with distribution and fulfillment?

[0:27:04] Paul Aitken: So it’s more companies like Amazon who are interested in distribution and fulfillment but I will say, I learned a famous saying from an FAA inspector back in 2013 when I flew an airshow for the FAA which a lot of people don’t know that the FAA was even doing that back then, they were, and he told me. He’s like, “Paul, there will be drone law but I am here for 20 years and let me tell you something, it’s going to be three to five years before we see drone law”. That was in 2012, four years later drone law. So he was right on the money. I talked to him again a couple of months ago. We were talking about Amazon and flying over people is a big deal but the FAA has talked about loosening up on those regulations while DHS is like no way. Well same thing with Amazon. FAA wants to allow Amazon to utilize the skies but the way that the law is written right now no drone pilot, no drone can carry anything for hire. They cannot carry it, they cannot carry any material item for hire, they cannot transport any item for hire, they cannot even carry anything under the code of the law that affects the flight characteristics of the vehicle itself which is really important if you understand center of gravity. So with that being said, I don’t think we are going to see Amazon flying drones in our skies for a minimum of three to four years. Now they are pressing on it. The Trump administration has said that they are pro-drones, you know actions speak louder than words. So what actually happens I guess we’ll see.

[0:28:41] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, so let’s get back to the original question about businesses I can start. When you were giving the tin example my mind actually went to, “Oh I bet the DEA loves drones to be able to find huge illegal drug” I don’t even know, I am forgetting the word but people who are growing drugs illegally in their homes due to high powered lights or whatever. Are there more practical applications that you see as an aspiring entrepreneur could use either that example or another example of a business they could start around drones?

[0:29:20] Paul Aitken: If I had two grand in my pocket and I could start a business with drones, I can do a couple of things. Number one, I could fly real estate all day long. That’s one thing that I did and heard off, really cheap but if you really focus on what type of client you want, you realize the four quadrants of clients, low maintenance-low profit, high maintenance-high profit and blah-blah-blah. You quickly figure out once you acquire a skill you want to go after those luxury clients. The people that actually pay because they see the value so you can go from entry level real estate to luxury real estate and then going to land and then going to brokering land and again, if I got two grand I can start a social media advertising business. I can fly real estate really quickly. I can fly golf courses really quickly, you can do live streaming at events. I’ve personally done the work –

[0:30:09] Charlie Hoehn: So before you give more examples, I’m curious what exactly would you be doing with real estate? Would you go to a realtor and say, “Hey I’ll take footage of your homes and I will charge $200 an hour” or a $100 a home? How would you go about that?

[0:30:30] Paul Aitken: What I found in my research from flying myself but also flying from the thousands of pilots that are a part of Drone U, most often drone pilots are most successful in real estate when they offer packages. So not only are they taking the interior photos but they are taking exterior photos, aerial photos and normally aerial videos. So we’re seeing the area where the house is, the location of the neighborhood but we’re also seeing the backyard, the front yard. What are the neighbors actually look like, are the neighbors yards kind of crappy or they really nice? Is it going to affect my home value or not? Then we can fly right into the house, give people a nice stabilized look into the house, what it looks like and really give people that virtual tour except for the – the virtual tour has all these spaces where the camera stops. You just click through like we move over here, move over here. We can give again an unbridged tour of the house that stabilize and provide it as marketing. So for a lot of people that don’t understand, people do buy homes over the internet quite frequently and if you can engage a home buyer on the internet by giving them a real world example of what it would be like to be there in the house, chances are you’re going to get a better sale. In fact, now there are statistics out there that showcase a drone photo that’s taken within 30 feet of the roofline of the house can actually statistically increase, if you’re a realtor, your home or your listings propensity to sell faster. So the pictures that were tested were just interior photos, exterior front photos and then five different aerial photos from different perspectives because we wanted to see which one is actually selling and we found out that the pictures, the aerial pictures that have the house, they’re just over the roofline like literary just over so you could see the backyard and the neighborhood surrounding it. Those photos tend to sell houses and have a higher click through rate than every other photo that a realtor puts on their website.

[0:32:24] Charlie Hoehn: Wow, that’s amazing. I totally believe that. So give me some more examples Paul of other businesses apart from you started saying you could shoot a golf course quickly. What are some other things that people could do with drones?

[0:32:40] Paul Aitken: Well see the funny thing too is that we’re only even talking about what I call the EO side of drones or the EO optical which is essentially just means it’s a video camera but with drones we can also map things. So now instead of using surveyors to map things we can use drones to take thousands of pictures and stitch them together to create three dimensional models where people are measuring points and distances. Right now I’m competing for a bid with the MLB so that they can actually measure points and distances inside of the stadium to measure the margin of error in the radar guns to ensure that the accuracy on the radar gun is to part.

[0:33:18] Charlie Hoehn: Wow, yeah.

[0:33:21] Paul Aitken: You see that you can really deep dive here and I can give you thousands of uses and the next one is most people don’t know that electronics heat up before they fail. So if I fly a thermal camera around a wind farm, I can figure out which windmill or which turbine has a higher propensity to fail over the other ones. Well another issue is cooling these things. They got really, really hot. Well every single blade has a little hole at the tip of the blade. So that when it rains all the rain goes inside of the blade has a place to essentially funnel out. Well birds love these little places to make nests and this is actually a significant problem on wind farms which you would have never known and drones can literarily fly a camera on top of the drone, point a thermal camera up on the blade, look in the hole and see if there’s a nest, if there’s water damage. There’s just so much you can see. Let’s take it even further, what if I bought a house and I want to know if my house has mold in it. I want to know if my house’s roof is significant. I want to see if this realtor really knows what the hell they’re talking about and I want to see if the structure and foundation is really sound as they say it is. Well if I fly a drone with a thermal camera at a certain time of day with a certain temperature deviation, I can see cracks in the foundation, mold in the corner, water leaks, roof leaks and significant structural damage all from the sky. Let’s take it one step further. Let’s say I own a ranch. So I already figured out, “Hey I don’t want to buy this house. I want to buy a ranch. Oh well, there’s alfalfa crops out here. Well do the alfalfa crops actually yield or does it just look pretty?” well we got there, we fly a drone with a multispectral camera and do you know what we can see with that? Disease before it takes over the entire crop. We can see water density indexing so we can actually see how much water is on the ground and where it’s coming from. But not only that, we can see even deeper. We can see phosphorus levels, nitrogen levels, everything. I mean this is why you are seeing companies trying to create no fly zones over their buildings because what we can discover with these cameras is fascinating and it’s never ending. Like I said every single day there is a new use for drones. I helped a company PG Knee at California. They have an efficiency system where they go out and they try to figure out if people’s homes have good seals around the windows and doors. Because chances are most homes they actually waste 60% of the energy that goes into the home. So they have this little thing that they plug into the home and they test the Hvac unit to see how much hole there is blowing into the house but also how much pressure is escaping the house. So they take pressure test. Well now, they’ve changed from taking pressure test to just flying a drone over the house when they use the machine because now they can actually see and visualize the leaks of air from the drone using a thermal camera.

[0:36:24] Charlie Hoehn: That’s unbelievable, wow.

[0:36:27] Paul Aitken: Just let me throw there, hold on, let me really mind blow you and your listeners. Cancer is a big problem in this country right?

[0:36:32] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah.

[0:36:33] Paul Aitken: Have you ever heard of mid-infrared cameras?

[0:36:35] Charlie Hoehn: I’ve heard of an infrared but not mid, no.

[0:36:38] Paul Aitken: So for all of you dermatologist out there I’m sorry but there is now a new camera. In fact it was developed here in Albuquerque by the University of New Mexico and San Diego National Labs in conjunction with Law Keith Martin and this mid-infrared camera can actually see, literary see through your skin and tell you if you have growing cancer cells. So we’re talking about what does the future look like or what does life look like in the future. Well imagine of instead of walking into the hospital through those two sets of double doors, you walk through an arch and there’s mid-infrared cameras and not only are we able to see if you have cancer or not but we’re also able to see if you’re on drugs and what your heart rate is? Yeah.

[0:37:25] Charlie Hoehn: Wow.

[0:37:27] Paul Aitken: Do you want the ultimate mind blown because I got that too.

[0:37:31] Charlie Hoehn: Yeah, go.

[0:37:31] Paul Aitken: I worked on this project a long time ago and this is in fact I found out it’s being used today and I think people should know about this. So again, crime is a very big problem. People have been like, “Why can’t we solve crime? Why can’t we do it? There’s got to be a better way” there is a better way although society may not let it happen. We can solve all crime in five minutes. Literary five minutes minority report is real. I worked on a project called Gridlock and essentially this is mimicked after a project that was used in Afghanistan which was called Project Angel Fire. What Project Angel Fire was is essentially is we were really losing the battle in Iraq. A lot of people don’t know that. We are really, really losing that people would blow up our soldiers, IED’s were a big problem, you probably remember this in ’04, ’05 and ’06 and they were like how do we figure out who is putting these bombs down. This is a really big problem and we have no way to fight it. They were like, “Well we’ve got these Arche Nines, these reapers which can essentially fly for days on end, we tend to fly them from Nevada all the way to the Middle East, run their mission and fly all the way back on one tank. So how do we solve the problem? Well what if we flew a drone five – 600 feet up over the entire city and we can take a picture every second of the entire city right? Click, click, click, well Bobby Joe decides that he wants to rob Wells Fargo so he goes down to the Louisiana Paseo and he robs Wells Fargo. Well I got a phone call from the police because they know Gridlock exists and I’m still taking that picture every second click-click-click “Hey Paul at Tuesday 11:59 AM Wells Fargo Louisiana and Paseo, we had a robbery there and we were unable to find the suspect” so I go back in time, click-click-click, 11:58. I see a blank Lincoln pulled up to the Wells Fargo, he robs the bank and now I go forward in time. Click-click-click and I followed the car back to his destination, send the police there. Problem solved.

[0:39:39] Charlie Hoehn: It doesn’t prevent the crime though to your point.

[0:39:42] Paul Aitken: It does not, no. it does not prevent the crime like Minority Report and I hope we never get there but this system is currently being used in Baltimore Maryland.

[0:39:52] Charlie Hoehn: To solve crimes.

[0:39:54] Paul Aitken: Yes.

[0:39:55] Charlie Hoehn: That’s pretty cool.

[0:40:00] Paul Aitken: The uses, the problems that can be solved by drones are endless. It’s all leading up to the creativity of the operator.

[0:40:07] Charlie Hoehn: True, so tell me about what some of your readers have gotten from your book, maybe your favorite personal success story of somebody who’s either started a business or used drones to change their life.

[0:40:24] Paul Aitken: First of all I love seeing people post pictures of my book on Facebook and it’s all the time and I have gotten a couple of emails that have brought me to tears about people who are literary on their last limb in life and working this job they hated and they slowly got into drones and they slowly started doing real estate but there is one particular guy and I will never forget him and in fact, I respect this guy to the T. His name is Chris Gannon and he lives in Tennessee and he was one of the first drone new members and he read the book and I remembered he called me one day because I knew him before he got the book. So he got the book, read the book, went through everything and he called me one day and he was like, “You know Paul I’m really trying to figure out what is the right point to quit my job and start full time with my business.” He’s like, “My business is growing so fast, I don’t know what to do. I’m trying to figure out who to delegate all these work out to. I’ve got to edit photos, I’ve got to edit videos. I’ve got to go to the next shoot” he’s like, “I am starting to get in the flow. Work flow is happening so fast and I really just don’t know what to do. When is the right time to make the jump from working for someone to working for yourself?” and I told him “that doesn’t exist”. There is no such time, I mean you could have 18 months of revenue built up to save to start your business and you could still have a catastrophic event and lose everything. You really have to play every card right and I told him don’t quit your full time job in the winter because drone jobs unless you’re an experienced pilot drone jobs typically have a high propensity in the summer and then drop off in the fall unless you are an international pilot then essentially you just start flying that out in other countries. Which is what a lot of our pilots do. In fact I fly for Marriott. A lot of Marriott drone videos are mine and one of my students took one of my contracts and you know what? It was one of the best moments of my life honestly. So I was like, “You know what? Good for you, you followed the system and it worked for you and that’s what it’s about” right? I mean come on, so in fact to take it even one other level there is this guy, Div, who owns ZM Interactive. He’s the king of kings when it comes to flying drones and he and I flew way back in the beginning. I forget the movies that he was doing, The Expendables. All The Expendable movies were his drone shots but he and I were flying and he used to do all of the San Francisco Giants stuff, all the San Francisco’s baseball team, the football team, he did all of their stuff. Well Roger, one of my students and also read the book, he now has that contract. So the guy who was really good, filming these big time movies, had all the big contracts in San Francisco lost all the sports contracts to one of my students.

[0:43:11] Charlie Hoehn: That’s pretty cool, your students are poachers. I like it.

[0:43:16] Paul Aitken: No, it means our students do what I’m saying. I wish there were more people like that you know?

[0:43:21] Charlie Hoehn: Of course, so Paul let’s say I’m a listener. I am all on board. I love the idea of getting started with a drone, apart from your book what is the kit that I need to get? What drone do you recommend I’d buy?

[0:43:36] Paul Aitken: So I’m glad you asked this question. I’d only recommend one of the cheapest of cheap drones. It’s called the Syma X5C. It’s a total POS and you know what? For your first drone, that’s what you need, a total POS because you can crash into a wall a hundred times and it’s not going to break. You crash a DJI Phantom, Spark, Mavic, Inspire, Matrice one time you’re going to lose the whole thing and you’re going to be out thousands of dollars. So the Syma X5C is $50 bucks and it has no hover control, it has no altitude control and it has no gyroscopes. So it really tests you in your flying ability. You have to learn the intricacies of pitch, roll and yacht. You understand that when you take a banking turn it is natural in physics to lose altitude as you’re turning so you’ve got to increase the throttle as you are doing it and then once you fly that thing to the point where you break the first motor which normally happens in the first three weeks or so if you fly it all the time. Or you fly it around your cat and you let it swat it out of the air for fun, I love playing with my cats like that, once you do that, you move up into a Phantom, a DJI Phantom. So 50 bucks for your first drone, a thousand for your second drone but that first drone, if it doesn’t have stabilization control, if it doesn’t have altitude and hover control, it is going to teach you how to be innately a better pilot than most people out there because most people out there learn to fly with hover control, meaning, when they take their hands off the sticks, the drone is just going to hover and stop in space. This little tiny X5C is not going to do that, it is going to force you to learn the hard way which in drones is the only way to learn because remember, so many things can go wrong and in the drone world, if you lose one drone over a crowd of people, your business is over forever. If you are serious about taking to the sky which is a blast and it is really hard but it is a whole lot of fun. If you’re ready to do that, buy the cheap drone, see how you like it, keep doing your day job, have fun with it and if you really start getting into it, take on some real estate jobs, do them for free, see if you like doing it, see if you like working with realtors. Realtors are hard to work with, I’m not going to lie. I’ve moved almost completely away from real estate but if you can do that, you’re on the path to success. I feel like the best quote I’ve ever been given about business is that right at the moment, when you want to quit, when you’ve been running your business for years and you feel like man, breaking even for like 15 months and I just don’t know what’s happening and god, I really need some money and what am I going to do? That point when you’re ready to give up, you’re ready to quit, that’s the point and the quote where you keep chopping wood. Why? Because most people quit and if you can stay the course, you can stay steadfast and believe in yourself. That point is the point of your success because that point when you want to quit, you keep going, you’re going to be successful I guarantee it.

[0:46:46] Charlie Hoehn: Love it. That’s a good police to wrap, where can our listeners connect with you and follow you?

[0:46:53] Paul Aitken: Great question. If you guys love this show, if you had a lot of fun, you want to learn some more about drones, check out the ask drone U podcast, you can find it on iTunes, just ask drone U. You can also go to thedroneu.com or check out my book, droneubook.com.

[0:47:11] Charlie Hoehn: awesome. Thank you so much Paul, this is excellent.

[0:47:15] Paul Aitken: I had a lot of fun Charlie, thank you, really, I do appreciate the opportunity, your other shows are amazing and I have a new podcast to listen to so thank you sir.

[0:47:24] Charlie Hoehn: You got it. Many thanks to Paul Aitken for being on the show, you can buy his book, living the drone life on Amazon.com. Also, I want to give a big thanks to our listeners who wrote reviews for author hour on iTunes. I want to read one from Mark Freeman. Mark writes: This episode was chalk full of great advice. The number one lesson I took away from this was the boldness of leaving your book in bookstores so readers could see it. What a novel strategy, I love it. I realized that now, more than ever, authors have to take responsibility for promoting their work, thanks to this episode, listen to this podcast, you’ll be glad you did. Thanks Mark. In the episode, he was referring to is the one we did with Honoree Corder called Marketing Your Self-Published Book. So, check that out. Thanks again for listening to Author Hour, enlightening conversations about book with the authors who wrote them. We’ll see you next time.