Drones in Agriculture: DJI Agricultural Drone Clinic
David: Hey everybody, David Plummer and Michael Ferguson from Aerial Influence here with our sixth entry in our Drones in Agriculture series. Thank you so much if you've joined us for the entire series or for past series as well — thank you. We really, really appreciate it.
Today we're talking about drones and agriculture, and we're talking about something special — a new Aerial Influence offering called the DJI Agricultural Drone Clinic. We will be specifically talking about agriculture and about drones in agriculture.
Michael: And the ecosystem that you can use with basically all the drones (the software, the spraying drones) and putting it all together.
David: Not only is the clinic going to be an overview of agricultural drones, we're actually going to put our knowledge to use. We're going to show people how it's actually done. We will take people out and fly a map, then come back in and rebuild it in DJI Terra. We will show people how to do it so they can essentially learn from our mistakes and what we've done already. The clinic will be at Aerial Influence and we're going to essentially give the ins and outs of the whole agricultural drone process.
Michael: We're thinking about it being a 1 1/2 day clinic that goes over anything from the Phantom 4 RTK, the Phantom 4 Multispectral, using RTK, using Terra, using DJI Ground Station Pro to help with the mapping, and then ultimately putting it into an MG-1P or a T16. In addition to that, what we want to do is figure out how to best help people that want to sign up for the clinic. We want to know what their operation is and what they want to accomplish. Is it for their own farm? Is it for a business that they're doing? And not because we want to know about it, but because we want to help them do the FAA 137 process and get that petition sent in, because that can take anywhere from 90–120 days just to be reviewed.
The main reason we're doing it this way is because we've talked to a client who was trying to get their exemption and doing it themselves. Long story short, they missed the season, and we don't want that to happen. What we don't want is for someone to have paid for a class and paid for their drones and everything, and then all of a sudden be unable to use them that season because some paperwork got hung up and now they're stuck with 2020's drone.
David: And then they can't use it.
Michael: The idea is that you can come to the class, we help you with the FAA 137 and we show you the introduction to all these different drones. If at the end you just want to get your 137 and you end up going with another drone altogether for spraying, that's fine. We just don't want to be charging you for the class and the drones, and then all of a sudden you miss your window or something like that. That's why we've kind of split it up like this. That's why we have the big overview class — we are trying to make sure that you will get your 137 petition out the door so that that can start. It's a long process of sitting on a table and then being reviewed.
David: And really, we've said this all along: the last thing we want is to sell anybody a drone that ends up being a paperweight. We don't want to sell somebody a drone that is going to sit in the corner of their garage, because either they’re afraid to use it or they’re not sure if they’re legal to use it. The whole goal of the clinic for us is to make sure we're getting the right drones in your hands. We don't want to sell you something more expensive just because we might make more on it, because you're not going to be a happy customer. You're not going to come back to us, and you're going to tell everyone that we sold you something you didn't need. I think that's something we pride ourselves on. We cut the BS out of it, and we want to know what you want to use it for.
We'll give you a specific drone in the agricultural world that is going to work for your purposes. I think what makes us different from a lot of drone dealers out there is we're not sitting here pushing the quota or the sales records that we need to hit. Obviously those things are wonderful, but we know that's not going to be the answer to long-term business growth. And you guys are all a part of that as well, part of our growth.
Thank you so much for reading. You can reach us via our email address, contact@aerialinfluence.com or you can call us at (312) 278-7232. We will have more information on the clinic if you give us a ring. Alright, thank you guys so much. We'll see you next time.