Local pilot turns passion into successful business

An aerial shot of Great Blue Hill after a recent snowstorm (Cape Cod Aerial Photography)

Bill McGonagle always had a yearning to fly. “It just was something I always wanted to do,” he said recently. “It’s an expensive venture. I could never afford it. Then one day I could afford it.”

In 1999, he got his private pilot’s license, then went on to earn an instrument rating and is now a commercially licensed pilot.

In 2003, McGonagle was in a sandwich shop in Dorchester when an old friend walked in. Rick Rota had been a good buddy of McGonagle’s when the two were students at Milton High School. In the years after graduation, they became busy with their own lives and lost touch. McGonagle went on to attend college, get married, start a family and move to Canton. He is the director of transportation for a firm in Boston. Rota has a successful career as a professional photographer. They had not seen each other for a long time until that chance encounter in the city.

Rota told McGonagle that he had been meaning to call him because he was planning to get his pilot’s license. McGonagle was a member of the South Shore Flying Club and had shared membership in two planes. He took Rota, who ultimately did not earn a pilot’s license, on the first flight of what would become a new career for both of them.

“It started off as a fun thing,” said McGonagle, who described himself as an amateur photographer.

The friends would fly to Martha’s Vineyard for breakfast or to Nantucket for lunch. On those flights, McGonagle and Rota did more than talk and enjoy the view.

“We took pictures. What else can you do?” McGonagle said, estimating that they took hundreds of aerial shots of Cape Cod, the islands, Blue Hills, and towns along the south shore.

They started showing their photos to people, who suggested that they create a website so that others could see the pictures and perhaps buy them. McGonagle and Rota followed up on that idea and were amazed by what happened next. They were contacted not only by people who wanted to buy their pictures, but by others who wanted to hire them to fly and photograph specific areas and pieces of real estate from Canton all the way down the Cape.

“We were like, ‘Wow!’” McGonagle said. “Then we realized that this was more than just fun.”

Today Cape Cod Aerial Photography takes photos and videos for real estate companies, engineering firms, and private citizens. They use aircraft at Norwood Airport, which includes a Cessna 172 from which they can remove the doors if necessary. For most flights they simply open the windows. They also hire helicopter pilots and use the helicopters available at the helicopter school at the same location.

A view of the Eleanor Cabot Bradley Estate in Canton (Cape Cod Aerial Photography)

They have photographed residential real estate, commercial real estate, ferry terminals, and have done work for attorneys who needed photographs of large land areas and buildings. When businessman Christy Mihos built an $8 million home in Yarmouth, he hired McGonagle and Rota to take aerial photos of the property. Mihos later bought and renovated a PT boat. He and his son drove the boat to Yarmouth from Newport, Rhode Island, and hired Cape Cod Aerial to fly over them and video the transport while they were in the water below.

“We followed them the whole way,” McGonagle said. “It was awesome.”

McGonagle and Rota also use drones in their business. “We held off for years,” McGonagle said. “It saves me a lot of fuel money.”

Cape Cod Aerial owns two drones, purchasing new ones as the technology improves. McGonagle usually drives to a location and sets up the drone, abiding by air space regulations and maintaining the drone at a level of 200 to 300 feet. He’s impressed by the stability that using a drone affords as well as the quality of the final product. “The video that comes out is HD video,” he said. “It is just amazing.”

He has used drones to take pictures of golf courses, Reservoir Pond in Canton, and the Blue Hills.

The two friends go up in a plane almost every weekend, weather permitting, and McGonagle relishes what he sees from the air. He described driving the streets of Canton for the last 16 years since he moved to town and then seeing them from above. “When you take off,” he said, “it’s just amazing to see things.”

He speaks with awe and surprise when he talks about the role that flying has played in his life and how Cape Cod Aerial Photography came about.

“We love to fly,” he said. “We just love to fly. This is just a bonus for us.”

For more information on Cape Cod Aerial Photography and to see the galleries of photos, including aerial shots of locations in Canton, go to capecodaerials.com.

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Posted by Mary Ann Price on Feb 18 2016. Filed under Features. Both comments and pings are currently closed.