About

“I have worked for over 20 years within the commercial aviation sector. I currently fly as a commercial airline pilot for British Airways Plc on the Airbus A380

My 12,000+ flight hours experience working within the intense safety culture of civil aviation are extremely beneficial to maintaining safe & efficient drone operations”

Simon Rutherford
Bubble Drones Owner & Commercial Airline Pilot

Bubble Drones Ltd is based in Whitstable, Kent, United Kingdom (company No. 13926317), and is approved by the UK CAA (Civil Aviation Authority).

I am both A2 CofC & GVC (General Visual Line of Sight Certificate, PDRA01) qualified. Privilege’s are limited to ‘visual line of sight’ up to an altitude of 120 metres (400 feet) and lateral distance of 50 metres (30 metres take-off & landing) from uninvolved people. For larger crowds this separation increases to 150 metres (distances can be reduced for involved people).

I have experience of working on numerous construction projects, often in busy urban environments in London which require special permissions and planning to fly in restricted airspace. Recently I filmed drone footage for BriteSpark Films on their upcoming Ch 5 series on Kent.

Post editing (if required) is all achieved ‘in-house’ using DaVinci Resolve 18 Studio providing clients with their preference of full or partial edited files (colour, music, titles, graphics, etc) in formats RAW. jpg. tiff, pdf, png, dng. MP4, etc.

Area of operation

Although focused around North Kent I am flexible in my area of operation and will happily commit to travel to your project site if required.

The fleet comprises of 4 drones. The DJI Mavic 2 Pro, the lightweight DJI Mini 2 and my latest addition, the DJI Mini 4 Pro drones which all offer both flexibility & versatility with amazing results. I also operate the DJI Avata ‘FPV’ (first person view) drone, which is a small agile ‘cinewhoop’ style drone which offers the latest style of cinematic photography for internal & external work. This drone is incredibly agile & designed with propeller guards for extra safety when working in tight spaces.

Meet the Fleet

Dji Mavic 2 Pro

Weight – 907g
Hasselblad 20MP/4K UHD 3-axis Gimbal Camera
1” CMOS +f/2.8-f/11 Adjustable Aperture
10-bit Dlog-M + 10-bit HDR Video 30fps
OcuSync 2.0 Transmission Technology
Up to 31 minutes Flight Time

Dji Mini 2

Weight – 249g
12MP 3-axis Gimbal camera
1/2.3” CMOS sensor with a 12MP camera
4K/30p and 1080/60p video (100 Mbps bit rate)
OcuSync 2.0 Transmission Technology
Up to 31 minutes Flight Time
F2.8 aperture (fixed)
24mm equivalent lens (84º FOV)

Dji Avata FPV Drone

Weight – 410g
Effective Pixels – 48MP
Sensor – 1/1.7-inch CMOS
4K @ 50/60fps, 2.7K/1080p @ 50/60/100fps
Colour mode – Standard D-Cinelike
Up to 15 minutes Flight Time
F2.8 aperture (fixed)
Max speed – 27m/s (manual mode)

DJI Mini 4 Pro

Weight – 249g
12MP 3-axis Gimbal camera
1/1.3-inch CMOS, Effective Pixels: 48 MP Sensor
4K/100fps and 1080/200fps video D-Log M (150 Mbps bit rate)
O4 Transmission Technology
Up to 34 minutes Flight Time
F1.7 aperture (fixed)
24mm equivalent lens (82.1º FOV)