At 75 years of age, Bruce Preston flies a four thousand dollar top-of-the-range DJI Mavic 2 enterprise drone.
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In the last few months, the North Nowra resident has been studying to become a commercial unmanned aerial vehicle pilot so he can enhance his construction business' photography.
"I've already been taking photographs of our jobs just to get in a bit of practice and what a machine. The clarity of the photographs is absolutely magnificent," he said.
"The one I use has got sensors on it so you can't run them into trees or walls. It's got a homing function so if I lose sight of it, I can press a button and it will come back and land on a little pad."
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Bruce has had many jobs throughout his life, starting out as a tool maker before becoming an owner of a newsagency and a restaurant. At age 60 he decided to get his builder's license so he could partner with his son to start up a high-end home construction company which now operates in the Kangaroo valley.
Despite being the oldest in his commercial drone flying class, Bruce said he was quite active for his age because of the work he would put into his construction business.
But he said the drone flying, which wasn't so strenuous, was something for him to do for his business in his older age.
And he was open to the idea of meeting licensed flyers once his course finished.
"It could possibly get me around the country a bit and meet some interesting people like I always like to do," he said.
He encouraged people who have retired or who are looking to retire to take up the hobby because of the potential social aspect of it.
He said he had always been an enthusiast of technology and was one of the early adopters of the home computer.
"Many years ago I was into photography. I used to use SLRs with film in those days and print my own black and whites. And I also had a camera club with a group of friends where we would go and take photos of things," he said.
Bruce was receiving training at totalRPA in Bomaderry and he said there were a stack of competencies and manuals he had to learn in order to become a commercial drone pilot.
According to Bruce, the only downside is it is an expensive hobby especially if you plan to turn it into a money making exercise.
"It's not cheap. Just the initial course is two and a half grand and the commercial license is around one and a half thousand," he said.