New aerial imagery business

A PILOT’s licence and a drone was all it took for Tom Watson to launch new Cairns start-up SkyStock.

The online portal can offer customers more than 1500 aerial images of Far North Queensland to assist in town planning, land and property sales and government research.

Where aerial imagery for a specific location is unavailable, Mr Watson offers services to connect customers to professional photographers who operate drones, aircraft and helicopters to assist in acquiring the required shot.

“The database provides customers with efficient, quality and cost-effective access to aerial imagery in one convenient and central location,” he said.

“I saw a gap in the market that wasn’t being filled and thought this would be advantageous to business, especially in a growing city as that of Cairns where you only have to count the cranes in the sky to see that the city is moving forward.

“With the ever-changing Cairns cityscape, I can only imagine a need to replenish the aerial photographs in the near future.”

He said he had recently worked with two developers, as well as two government departments, to provide current imagery of the city. Each of his client’s goals were to showcase potential for investment in the Cairns region.

“By combining four clients into a single helicopter shoot allowed SkyStock to keep costs minimal for each client,” said Mr Watson.

Mr Watson has previously spoken out advocating the use of drones to eliminate the safety risk of manned aircraft surveys.