About Us | Lighthouse Aerial Imaging

All About Us.....

Lighthouse Aerial Imaging started, like many drone businesses, as a hobby. Many years ago, owner, Bob Thomas, got into various forms of remote controlled aircraft, including RC helicopters.
When he saw his first quad-copter he was hooked!
It started with a horrible Chinese knock-off with lousy flight characteristics, to custom-building his own quad-copter complete with live video, telemetry and mission planning.

Of course there were a few “learning moments” along the way…….

DJI started making “drones” better than we could.
They were smaller, better flight time, more built in capabilities, and a Warranty !!
We purchased a DJI Mavic Pro and it opened up a world of possibilities. It was our workhorse drone. In fact, it’s been called our “shirt pocket” because it just does almost everything I need it to do. We put over 200 flight hours on it before retiring it.

Then along came our DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise Dual, with thermal imaging! This amazing drone is custom built for industrial and public safety applications.

**This drone can be rigged for flights over people as well ! Considerable advanced planning is required for such flights.

We also make it available to our local volunteer fire department at no cost.

The Mavic Pro was recently replaced with the awesome Autel Evo II. It has longer flight time, higher wind resistance and 8K video with a Sony sensor! It’s also easily upgradable with different cameras.

With a digital lossless zoom, it’s perfect for industrial inspections where it’s not practical to get too close.

The latest addition to the fleet is the DJI Phantom 4 Pro+ !
This amazing drone has one of the most versatile cameras with a 1″ sensor on the market. It’s’ very rugged and is highly programable for autonomous flight.
This drone can also be fitted for flight OVER people!

With ALL drones on site, there is about 5.5 hours of flight time BEFORE recharging any batteries!

Check out our Services pages, and you’ll see that we do a lot more that just take pictures.

QUALIFICATIONS

All pilots are fully licenced by Transport Canada for Advanced Operations (RPAS-Adv. Ops.) and all aircraft are registered with Transport Canada and approved for, at minimum, “near bystander” flight. We also have drones available for flights OVER bystanders.
This means that for most missions we can perform the flight with proper safety guidelines without extra Transport Canada authorization. We can determine if further authorization is required, such as SFOC (Special Flight Operations Certificate) or Controlled Airspace authorization. If needed, we obtain all authorizations if they are available.

When thinking about requesting aerial photography, please keep in mind that all flights must be within visual line of sight (VLOS). Some missions might require more than just a pilot to complete it safely and within regulations.
Currently BVLOS (beyond visual line of sight) flights are generally not approved unless in the rarest of circumstances.
We will not attempt to obtain such authorization.