Alec Wilson, COO at Spexi Geospatial, encountered his first drone while flying a helicopter in Vancouver, BC. He then helped establish drone regulations before meeting the founder of Spexi, who was flying the planes Google Maps and Google Earth use to image the world. On today’s episode, Alec joins Bryce to explain how consumer drones have evolved to create an entirely new kind of infrastructure – one that outperforms helicopters, planes, and satellites at scale.

• (00:00) - How Consumer Drones Became Modern Infrastructure | Alec Wilson
• (00:56) - How did consumer drones enable the world's first autonomous aerial data network?
• (02:05) - How Alec was introduced to drones
• (02:55) - When regulations and drone technology converged
• (03:35) - How Alec (COO) met Bill (CEO) imaging for Google Maps and Earth
• (04:45) - The trick to drones as infrastructure? Keep it under 250 grams.
• (08:45) - How Spexi created a standard through autonomous flight
• (10:01) - How Spexi's autopilot enables drone infrastructure at city to continental scale
• (10:47) - Why use drones instead of planes or satellites?
• (13:17) - How are drones evolving and what does it mean for the people piloting them?
• (16:08) - What you need to fly with Spexi on the LayerDrone network
• (18:07) - Thanks to our sponsors

Benji Nevatt has been flying drones professionally since 2017, starting as a police department drone operator and now running Bluegrass Dronography in Western Kentucky. This episode explores the diverse work available to commercial drone pilots and how the industry has evolved over the past decade.

• (00:00) - The different kinds of work for drone pilots | Benji Nevatt of Bluegrass Dronography
• (00:21) - Introduction to Benji of Bluegrass Dronography
• (03:35) - Why Benji is interested in drone work
• (05:18) - Benji's first missions on the Spexi app
• (07:23) - How Spexi differs from typical drone work for clients
• (08:39) - Why Spexi flies small drones so high in the sky
• (10:20) - What Benji thinks about getting paid in tokens instead of cash
• (12:51) - How has US drone policy and regulation affected Benji's business in 2025?
• (14:56) - Drone or don't: which is the lie?
• (16:28) - An unsolicited history of drones

Connect with Benji at BluegrassDronography.com
Instagram, Facebook, TikTok: @BluegrassDronography

Hosted by Bryce Bladon (brycebladon.com). Edited by AJ Fillari (ajfillari.online)

Sponsored by Spexi.com and LayerDrone.org

What Makes a Successful Drone Pilot?

Graham Anderson, Ops Manager at Spexi Geospatial, has overseen 8,000+ registered pilots on the world's largest standardized drone imagery network. After years of managing pilots and analyzing performance data, he's noticed something most people miss: successful pilots share an intangible similarity despite their diverse backgrounds. He goes on to share:

• the three backgrounds that consistently produce top-performing pilots,
• how the network targets the "transitory hobbyist to casual professional" sweet spot,
• the surprising emergence of nomadic pilots who travel the country chasing missions, and
• why patience and preparation are the two keys to success on the network.

Discussed

• The intangible qualities that unite successful drone pilots
• Three common backgrounds that correlate with top performers: aviation, military/first responders, and creative professionals
• How Spexi targets pilots in the "hobbyist to semi-professional" transition who want to fly without running a business
• The economics of the network: targeting $40-60/hour for local pilots with micro drones
• How seasonal weather patterns drive continental-scale operations planning
• The unexpected rise of traveling pilots who follow campaigns across the entire US
• Why autonomous flight missions appeal to hobby pilots but may disappoint high-end professionals
• The challenge of balancing individual pilot feature requests with global scalability
• Community tips from top pilots on SD cards, battery management, and manual flight skills

Timecodes

• (00:00) - The Drone Network: Season 2 Premiere
• (00:19) - Intro: Graham Anderson and what makes a successful drone pilot
• (01:37) - What makes a successful drone pilot?
• (04:05) - What are the commonalities between successful drone pilots?
• (06:46) - What kind of pilot flies for Spexi and LayerDrone?
• (10:16) - What do drone pilots think of autonomous ("self-flying") flights?
• (13:21) - How do you plan operations for the world's largest standardized drone network?
• (15:55) - How drone pilots succeed despite bad weather
• (17:03) - Who are the thousands of pilots building LayerDrone?
• (21:52) - What does the data say about pilot behaviour and mentality?
• (24:19) - What does flying your first mission look like? Do pilots stick around?
• (26:14) - The weirdest thing about drone pilots that Graham has seen
• (27:35) - The most surprising thing about drone pilots
• (28:59) - The most surprising thing about the network
• (31:55) - Graham's advice for all drone pilots: patience and preparation
• (34:14) - LayerDrone pilots share their best advice for other drone operators
• (39:05) - Let's Play DYKYD: Do You Know Your Drones?
• (44:34) - Thanks to our sponsors, Spexi.com and LayerDrone.org

The DRONE ON podcast is now THE DRONE NETWORK. Cool!

How do you build the world's largest drone imagery network from scratch? Graham Anderson, Operations Manager at Spexi Geospatial, reveals the untold story of LayerDrone's journey from 230 test missions in a single Canadian town to covering over 200 municipalities across North America. Discover how consumer drones, blockchain incentives, and a community of pioneering pilots transformed a vision into reality—starting with test flights off a garage’s roof in Vernon, BC.

• How the network started with 230 missions in Cochrane, Alberta with color-coded Google Maps
• Scaling from 4 pilots to 5,000+ across North America in 18 months
• Why standardization was the key to rapid growth

• (00:00) - The History of the World's First Autonomous Drone Network
• (00:53) - Meet Graham: Ops Manager for the World's Largest Drone Network
• (02:36) - Spexi seeds LayerDrone when Bill wants bite-sized pieces of the earth mapped
• (04:46) - The Trusted Alpha and First Flights on the Network
• (08:29) - Today's flights vs. the trusted alpha
• (09:10) - The Known User Alpha
• (15:55) - The network's private beta
• (19:31) - The network's public beta
• (21:03) - The network's testnet
• (22:02) - Launching LayerDrone in 2025
• (26:15) - The big unlock for drones: standardization
• (27:21) - How pilots built the network
• (29:04) - Innovation or Idiotic?

Hosted by Bryce Bladon | Edited by AJ Fillari | Sponsored by Spexi.com & LayerDrone.org

Alec Wilson, COO of Spexi, explains how LayerDrone became the world’s largest standardized drone imagery network, and why Spexi made the decision to spin LayerDrone out into a public-good, crypto-economic protocol. He goes on to share:

• his journey from helicopter pilot to building one of the most ambitious aerial data networks in the world,
• the regulatory evolution of drones in Canadian airspace,
• how LayerDrone standardizes imagery from thousands of pilots, and
• why spatial AI, world models, and next-gen robotics companies are hungry for ultra-high-resolution, frequently updated aerial data.

Discussed

• How to go from flying helicopters to co-founding a drone training company that certified 10,000+ pilots
• The founding vision behind LayerDrone as an open-source, crypto-economic protocol for standardized drone imagery
• Why Spexi spun out LayerDrone and their role as the founding core contributor
• How the network balances pilot agency with safety requirements and regulatory compliance
• The relationship between Spexi (demand) and LayerDrone (supply)

Timecodes

• (00:00) - LayerDrone: the World’s Largest Standardized Drone
• (00:20) - Alec Wilson: Helicopter Pilot to Drone COO
• (01:51) - Alec co-founds Coastal Drone
• (04:17) - LayerDrone's founding vision
• (06:37) - Spexi's relationship with LayerDrone
• (07:47) - LayerDrone standardizes and coordinates thousands of drones
• (09:57) - Why take the risk of creating LayerDrone?
• (16:32) - Innovation or Idiotic?

Hosted by Bryce Bladon | Edited by AJ Fillari | Sponsored by Spexi.com & LayerDrone.org

Bryce welcomes Mapster (Sony), LayerDrone's top community contributor and the DePIN ambassador for drones and spatial data. As someone uniquely positioned between the crypto and drone communities, Mapster shares his decade-long journey from recreational drone pilot to DePIN enthusiast, explaining how his passion for hardware engineering led him to discover the convergence of blockchain technology and physical infrastructure.

Discussed:

• What DePIN really means for drone pilots (and why understanding DePIN isn't necessarily required to benefit from it)
• How Spexi is the perfect way to start flying drones
• Building a DePIN-mobile with a Tesla, Hivemapper, DIMO, and GEODNET devices

• (00:00) - Today: Becoming a DePIN and Drone Ambassador
• (01:04) - Mapster, Drones, and DePIN
• (05:54) - Why we keep discussing DePIN
• (08:52) - ...but why DePIN?
• (13:39) - How to join the network
• (14:51) - Innovation or Idiotic?
• (18:14) - The Bryce is Wrong!?

Hosted by Bryce Bladon | Edited by AJ Fillari | Sponsored by Spexi.com & LayerDrone.org

Graham Anderson, Operations Manager at Spexi, explains how cryptocurrency and blockchain technology are solving the drone industry's scalability challenge. He discusses how DePINs (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) are revolutionizing drone operations, how standardized data products unlock global networks, and why tokens enable coordination at scale that traditional payment methods cannot match.

Discussed:

• The $50B DePIN market and its path to $3.5T by 2028
• Why traditional drone services can't scale across geographies
• What crypto actually does (and doesn’t do) for a drone network

• (00:00) - How Crypto Empowers Drone Ops with Graham from Spexi_2025-11-10 11_32_35
• (00:47) - Guest Introduction: Graham Anderson, Ops Manager @ Spexi
• (04:06) - Today's episode: why do drones benefit from the blockchain or crypto?
• (09:42) - What does crypto "do" for the network? For pilots?
• (12:06) - The DePIN challenge Spexi overcame: hardware makes things harder
• (15:24) - Technologies like drones and crypto go through waves
• (23:09) - "Fight or Flight" Segment
• (25:59) - Segment: The Bryce is Wrong