Photo by David Bowser

Flight School: Toby Lankford says flying radio-controlled helicopters is harder than flying planes.

What's the Buzz?

Pilot flies the friendly skies
but keeps feet on the ground

By David Bowser
Correspondent

It's not just the United States Air Force that is flying unmanned aerial vehicle missions. An Amarillo entrepreneur has taken to the air with his radio-controlled helicopters and airplanes and is making a nice living at it.

Photo by David Bowser UAv: Toby Lankford, president, CEO and chief pilot for Aerial Vista, performs maintenance on one of his helicopters.

"And I get to play with my toys all day," laughed Toby Lankford, president, CEO and chief pilot for Aerial Vista.

Lankford describes his business as an unmanned aerial media service.

"We do photography and video," Lankford said.

The Canadian native has been flying radio-controlled airplanes since he was 10 years old. He's been flying his radio-controlled helicopter for only a few years, and he admitted that the helicopter is much more difficult to fly.

"Helicopters are probably the most difficult radio-controlled items to learn how to fly," Lankford said.

The planes will almost fly themselves by comparison, he said.

"It's something that I wanted to do for years," the 31-year-old Lankford said. "Honestly, I had the idea long before the military was doing UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles)."

But it took a theft to get him into the business.

After graduating from Canadian High School, Lankford went into construction, but his equipment was stolen out of his truck in October 2006.

"I decided I'd go in a different direction," Lankford said.

Instead of replacing his equipment, he turned to his love of radio-controlled aircraft.

He said technology finally caught up with his idea, and he took off for the wild blue yonder with both feet flat on the ground.

"I went with it," Lankford said.

He uses both a helicopter and a plane and has several of each.

"We've been in business since last September," Lankford said. "It's been fantastic. It's growing about 30 percent a month."

Lankford uses a two-man crew. He flies the aircraft. The other person operates the camera.

"He'll position the helicopter," said Rick Kuehl, who often handles the camera chores, "and I'll position the camera."

 "It's all downlinked," Lankford said, "so we can frame the shot."

The cameras, mounted on a special bracket beneath the helicopter, will rotate 360 degrees and tilt 180 degrees.

Lankford has video glasses so he and his cameraman can see what the camera sees.

"It's like a big screen TV from a few feet away," he laughed.

 What the camera sees is also recorded digitally on Lankford's laptop computer.

"Right now the FAA doesn't regulate us," Lankford said.

He said that with the light weight of his machines, they shouldn't face any regulation problems in the future.

"We should remain unregulated when they do move into regulation," Lankford said.

He said the FAA is looking at regulating radio-controlled aircraft that weigh more than 20 pounds.

"All my equipment is less than 14 pounds," he said.

Lankford said the impact of a crash would be slight if he lost control and the aircraft went into free fall.

He said he carries insurance, both liability and on his machines.

"We do respect the FAA," Lankford said.

He said that if he's operating near an airport, he'll notify air traffic control and let them know what he's doing and at what height he'll be flying.

"Generally, we stay below 400 feet," he said. "That certainly puts us well below the legal limits for full-scale aircraft."

Lankford said he's expanding regionally.

"Most of our business is local," he said, "but we work with some companies in Lubbock. We work with some companies in Dallas."

He's shooting video for KFDA Channel 10-TV and counts among his clients some of Amarillo's more prestigious commercial real estate developers. He also shoots aerials for construction companies in Amarillo, Lubbock and Dallas.

"We have a who's who of clientele," Lankford said.

The television station can also record directly from the aircraft to the station's mobile van.

"We've done some work for a survey company," Lankford said. "We're wanting to move into agriculture."

He's already doing photos for environmental emission inspections for area factories.

In the past, the factories have had to bring in cranes for inspections, but on windy days, the cranes aren't always practical. They are also expensive, and the inspections have to be performed during specific periods.

"It's very expensive to have a crane out there," he said.

He said he's been talking with law enforcement agencies about doing surveillance, using thermal imaging that can be used to look for missing persons in the country or out on one of the lakes.

"The plane we can take out 40 miles from a ground station," Lankford said. "It's quite capable."

He said that he can set the cross hairs on a target, click the mouse on the computer and the plane will follow a car or truck.

"It will follow it without any more input," Lankford said. "Even if we lost control of the aircraft, it would continue to follow the vehicle."

He said he could follow something as small as a human walking in a crowd.

"It's that capable," he said.

Weather is a factor, Lankford said, but not as big a factor as with manned aircraft.

"If the wind is blowing up to 40 mph, we can generally still get out and take pictures," Lankford said. "We have all kinds of stabilization methods."

He said if he couldn't take pictures on windy days, he couldn't be living in the Texas Panhandle.

Jobs are customized to fit the needs of the client, Lankford said, and the fees are negotiated to match, but generally they'll run $250 to $300, which is much less than bringing in a crane or a manned aircraft.

He said there are other advantages to his radio-controlled aircraft.

"I think the advantage of our company is the high resolution imagery and low altitude," he said. "We can come in below what even a helicopter is legally able to do, especially in the city limits."

The resolution is 40 to 100 times better than satellite photography, Lankford said.

"Our imagery is unmatched by anybody," Lankford said. "We get angles that are completely impossible using any other method."

Lankford said he thinks that as costs of fuel and labor soar, he has a practical solution for the need of aerial photography.

"This is going to be the future," Lankford said. "It could be Lockheed or Boeing or it could be me."

He said he would rather it be him.

"The sky's the limit," Lankford grinned. "No pun intended."

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Posted: June 12, 2008