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Learn more about one of the few drone video services in the region.
Chris Moody says Autonomous Flight Technologies of Roanoke is one of the few drone video services in the region, though there are “several doing it illegally [and] no one else is offering surveying and map-making services.” It’s a new field with new technology in a new age.
“People come to this business from one of two routes,” says former journalist Moody, who owns AFT with founder Josh May and Paul Stoutamire. First is the hobbyist and “Paul and Josh built their own drones for years … I saw drones as a great platform that would emerge in the new media. … I bought one to focus on working for golf courses.”
The business—videography, photography, surveying and map-making using drones—is five years old “technically,” says Moody, but “in this incarnation a little more than two.” The FAA gave its approval in October of 2015.
The quality of the videos, used for marketing, promotions and showcasing, says Moody, “is movie-projection level.”
Customers are varied: from a developer in Charlottesville to Floyd Fest to APCo to the Western Virginia Water Authority, Roanoke County Department of Tourism, National Weather Service and the Greenway Commission.
Costs vary wildly, depending on what the client requires, but the service often adds something unavailable in the past: speed. Says Moody: “Drone technology allows us to make maps that are far more accurate and a bit cheaper than has been possible, but the biggest change is the amount of time it takes to create them. What took weeks to complete can be returned in one or two days.”
info@autonomousflight.us
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