Aerial Work, Flown Legal

Certified for paid work

I hold an FAA Part 107 remote pilot certificate, which the FAA requires for any paid aerial job. Controlled-airspace authorization gets checked and cleared before the shoot, so the flight is legal where you actually need it. Footage shot without that isn’t an asset; it’s exposure. How I check airspace around Peoria →

The aircraft

Primary platform is a DJI Mini 5 Pro: a full 1-inch, 50MP sensor on a compact airframe, flown with prop guards and an extended battery. 4K/60 HDR for motion, up to 4K/120 for slow-mo. Small enough to work a tight lot, sharp enough that the stills hold up printed.

Four kinds of work

They’re genuinely different jobs, and they get planned differently:

  • Automotive — top-down reveals and rolling tracking shots that don’t exist from the ground.

  • Real estate and property — listings, land, and acreage shot to show the whole story: lot lines, setting, what’s actually around it.

  • Events and promotional — establishing shots and crowd energy that make promo content feel bigger than it is.

  • Construction and site — progress documentation from a repeatable angle, so month-to-month sets actually line up.

Recent work

Two pieces are up on the channel and on the Aerial & Drone page. Sunset From Above is a 4K cinematic reel over downtown Peoria. The LB Tree & Land promo is a full client job — air and ground, cut to 32 seconds for their marketing.

Aerial photo of a car on a rolling highway, central Illinois
Rolling highway, central Illinois
Aerial frame from a drone pass over a central Illinois car meet at golden hour
Car meet pass at golden hour

Packages start at $225 for a focused set of edited aerial stills from one location. Photo + Motion starts at $375.

Central Illinois. Insured per flight.

Send a location and a date →

Benjamin Hoffman

I'm Ben Hoffman. I run SilvaDes out of Washington, IL. I've modeled parts in Creo for seven years, I fly as an FAA Part 107 remote pilot, and every part is designed and printed here in the shop. More at silvades.com/our-story.

Previous
Previous

What’s Next at SilvaDes

Next
Next

The SilvaDes Channel Is Live