“The drone invasion of Memphis has begun,” reports the Memphis Business Journal’s Ryan Poe, in a story detailing how Colliers International Memphis CEO Andy Cates has plunked down $2,000 on a DJI Phantom-series drone and handed it to a new hire, Hunter Adams, and told him to learn how to use it.
While Cates says he’s ahead of the competition in Memphis, he might also be a little ahead of the Federal Aviation Administration. This week the FAA warned that real estate agents who fly their own drones to take pictures or videos of listings can’t claim to be engaged in a “hobby or recreation,” meaning that the FAA could attempt to take enforcement actions against them if they and their aircraft have not been certified.
The FAA just authorized the first commercial drone flights over land, green-lighting flights of an AeroVironment Puma AE to conduct pipeline surveys for BP in Alaska. Source: bizjournals.com.
