Do I need an NDAA compliant drone?
I’m a forester working in the southeastern USA for a private entity (nonprofit). Our last drone guy left and I have had classes in school in remote sensing and aerial mapping using pix4d. Through my job, I do a lot of GIS work (ArcPro desktop and QGIS for some projects) and my main usage for a drone would be aerial survey of site prep and practices, aerial photography for raster data (10-80 acres), and the occasional shot to show my landowners and our social media team the work we’re doing. I’ll be taking a course at my local community college soon to get the certifications needed. When researching a drone that I can use, my boss told me that we can’t use company funds for a DJI due to new regulations. What I’m wondering is would I be breaking any rules if I buy a DJI with my personal funds and use it for work? It’s looking like an NDAA compliant drone would cost way too much for my company to be willing to shell that money out, and it’s not strictly necessary that we have a drone operator, but I would like to add it to my resume and bring it to the company for some job security. If I were to buy a personal drone it looks like I could get a phantom or mavic for the range of $400, and there’s just not anything I’m finding that would be NDAA compliant and budget friendly.
Any help with this would be appreciated.