Starting a company..

M

meritflyer

Well-Known Member
What does it typically take to start an air tour company or maybe even an aerial photography company?

I HAVE NO CLUE!
 
How about going out and buying a cheap C150, or something, and doing flight instruction out of it. There should be no red tape from the FAA on this. The plane must get its 100hr inspections since it will be used for hire and it would be advisable to get yourself insurance as a flight instructor but that should be about it. You could charge $30-45hr plus make some profit from the plane (granted the maintenance does not kill you). You could then also do photo flights, sightseeing within 25NM, and provide rental on the aircraft...all without needing to operate 135 or 121.

Let me know if I am off on something please.
 
Subpilot has it right. I think he actually included everything that is possible too. Anything else would probably violate some rule.

Sounds good in theory but you gotta find that old plane that doesn't kill you in the mx department. Also if you are going to do the sightseeing thing, then you have to pick an airport within 25 NM of something worth seeing and that will probably mean expensive tie down/airport fees.
 
Shoot, I'm gonna get me a 150 and just run it up on the ramp and have kids pay me to throw watermelons through the prop. It will be like a modern day Gallagher!!
 
Actually something that I thought about doing to make some $$ was to get a plane and just take some nice photos of people's houses/buildings/property from the air and then print the photo as a 3x4 or something small with a nice watermark over it and put it in their mailbox. If they want a large print charge them like $30 for an 8x10 or something like that? Might tick some people off but you might be able to make money from others?

If you have your CFI ticket you could even find some PFTer to pay you to be the pilot and you could log it as teaching ground reference maneuvers? Make money from them too?
 
Sorry it's off topic but I had to:
subpilot said:
Commercial Pilot Training...$30,000,
Flight Instructor Training...$10,000,
Working for MESA...Worthless!
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Hilarious!!! It took me a looong time to process what was different, but well worth the wait!
Does anyone know typically what the process or time frame for a VFR 135 ticket is?
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As for the VFR 135, I believe it's a minimum of 500 hours total time, plus various cross country, instrument, night etc. The time all depends on how much money you have :) . This link should fill you to your hearts content.
 
put it in their mailbox.
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I like the idea, but the mailbox is for official postal business, so you will need to mail it to them, you can't just put it in there...legally at least.
 
Oh yeah, forgot about that whole legal USPS stuff. You can just go knock on their door and show them, probably more likely to get a sale like that if you just do a whole neighborhood at a time. If no one is home tape it to their door.

I'm tellin you guys, I bet it would make money if you had a nice photo.
 
This is actually done quite a bit. Most of my family still lives in iowa and every couple of years someone comes by with a small photo of the farm and they usually order one. I think we got n 12x15 for like 125 bucks or something. Digital has made it quite a bit easier as well becuase you can then edit things like cars, trash, etc.. out of the picture and the quality is OK just so long as your using a very high MP camera.

You shouldn't need a 135 ticket to do aerial photo stuff. Besides getting one would take longer and cost more than you'd ever want to put into something like this.
 
I was just thinking about it and my mom said she had a couple guys stop by her house and ask if she'd like an aerial photo. While normal neighborhoods wouldn't be good targets ranches, golf courses, farms, large factory areas, car dealerships, upscale neighborhoods with acreages are good places.

Basically what you want is somebody with a place they cant see end to end and with enough land or enough going on on the property to warrant a large aerial photo.
 
Texasspilot said:
I was just thinking about it and my mom said she had a couple guys stop by her house and ask if she'd like an aerial photo. While normal neighborhoods wouldn't be good targets ranches, golf courses, farms, large factory areas, car dealerships, upscale neighborhoods with acreages are good places.
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You can make a pretty penny with it. There's a guy in our area who sells aerial photography, he live in PV (where houses START at 2million), nuff said

Oh yha, and make sure your camera has some sort of stabilizer built in. Most digital cameras above the compact sizes have 'em. Plus, you want a lot of optical zoom, forget digital zoom.
 
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