Greg Barnes
- Jan 6, 2023
- 3 min read

Part 107 Pilot Feature: Jonah Santos

Written by Greg Barnes

Jonah Santos, Part 107-certified pilot!

At 2cofly, we love getting to know all the drone pilots in our community. Today we’re back with another pilot feature: Jonah Santos!

Jonah first got into drones in 2020 during the pandemic. There was an Amazon Prime Day sale featuring a DJI Mavic Mini, and yeah, he splurged a little. Jonah wanted to see that beautiful perspective of the ground from the sky — the kind of perspective you can only get from a flying camera. That Mini ended up bringing him so much pleasure, he absolutely loved it.

A drone shot at night of a road next to the ocean

A gorgeous photo Jonah took with his drone.

The problem was the wind resistance. “I won't forget seeing the camera straight but the body of the Mavic Mini was titled so much, looked like a good gust would flip it over mid flight,” Jonah said. “Yikes!”

This freaked him out so much that recently, Jonah decided to upgrade his drone to the new DJI Mavic 3. Since then, he’s never seen a strong wind warning on the controller, and even looking up at the drone, he’s never seen it flinch in the wind.

Jonah goes out all the time and flies — so often, that he’s gotten really good at taking beautiful photos and videos, even mapping. As his aerial footage started gaining attention, Jonah began getting messages from people on social media who wanted him to take pics of their property. Jonah was so excited, but in at least one case, he couldn’t do it. That’s because the property was located in a 0-grid Class D airspace, off-limits to recreational pilots. But Jonah wanted to be able to do those and more projects and to be able to fly in 0-grid controlled airspace, so he decided to pursue his Part 107 certification.

A drone shot of a man standing near a ledge.

A drone shot of Jonah at Oka Point.

As we at 2cofly were preparing our Part 107 course for release, Jonah messaged us (completely randomly) and asked if we do Part 107 training. Because he was one of our very first adopters, we gave him a nice discount!

Jonah says he’d definitely recommend our course for a few reasons. First, it’s more recent than a lot of other content out there. (That’s important because you don’t want to learn old, outdated drone regulations that are now expired. But with 2cofly’s course, we will be keeping our course up-to-date as new regulations are enacted.) The second reason he’d recommend our course is because there are other websites that offer Part 107 courses, but at a higher rate. (At $199, ours is really competitively priced.) And the third reason he’d recommend our course is — and this is the most important reason of all — it did its job exactly: it helped him go into the testing center with confidence… and pass.

Thumbnail of a drone-made orthomosaic map of Ypao Beach Park, Guam

An orthomosaic map Jonah stitched of Ypao Beach Park.

Jonah’s advice to future test-takers is to study at a good pace and don’t stress out. Take the time you need to learn well, and don’t rush in to take the exam until you’re ready. Use the quizzes and tests throughout the course to prove your knowledge. Jonah also liked the fact that on our quizzes and tests, there are bracketed numbers on each and every question, and those numbers correspond to a chapter and section. So if one question or topic stumps you, you can reference the number and go back and watch that video lesson again.

Now that he’s passed his test and is Part 107 certified, Jonah plans to use his drone to take property footage for some family members of his who are real estate agents. But Jonah loves his drone (and flying) so much, that ultimately he’d like to be able to expand his horizon to use his drone as a full-time job — and maybe even work at one of the drone companies on island!

2cofly is a full service drone service provider in Guam and Micronesia. Our company has two primary focus areas: construction and education.

We work with construction and engineering firms and offer: