9 Line Aerial Media, LLC.

09/22/2026

Here is a sneak peek at a model we are currently cleaning up, patching holes and trimming edges. We had to sit back and marvel at the quality of the Wingtra MAP61 payload and what it allows us to create....and at centimeter level accuracy. The end customer will be overlaying all of the GIS data over the top of this in ArcGIS Online. They'll see the most current version of their city as it stands today with water lines, hydrant locations, valves and more.

Our Cityscapes modeling program is one of the greatest tools you can have in your toolbox as a mayor, engineering firm, city engineer and beyond.

When would you like us to make your city virtual? Drop us a line!

09/17/2026

*SIGH*

Fine….I GUESS we’ll share the sky with you. Just stay in your own lane!

09/05/2026

Monday morning: a room full of people with almost no aviation background.
Saturday morning: FAA certificated remote pilots.

Five days at the LIUNA Chicago Training Center. Regulations, airspace, weather, sectional charts, human factors, and hands-on flight time with the WingtraRAY.

What made the difference was the real-world context. Every regulation got tied to a mission we’ve actually flown at 9 Line Flight Systems (a branch of 9 Line Aerial Media). Every weather concept tied to a day we had to make a go/no-go call in the field. Study guides teach you the answer. Scenarios teach you why it’s the answer.

Class average on the knowledge exam: 90%.

For perspective, about 481,000 people in the U.S. hold a Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate. Out of 347 million, that’s roughly 0.14%.

Meet the 10 newest.

Congratulations to each of you. You earned this.

08/14/2026

With heavy rains come heavy flooding at times. Being able to gather bare earth data and see the direction of water flow is a specialty of ours! If your city needs to detect the areas where you’re having water issues, this is a great place to start. Also, if you need to run water lines through certain areas of dense trees and other vegetation, our LiDAR penetrates through to allow you to see exactly what’s going on “behind the scenes”! Reach out to us for more information!

06/28/2026

Making sure we leave our mark!

06/12/2026

I’m going to brag for a second.

We’re really, really good at LiDAR.

Not just collecting it, the part that matters is what happens after the flight. Clean classification, clean surfaces, and deliverables an engineer can drop straight into a workflow without spending hours fixing weird artifacts.

The screenshots here are a quick peek at what we’re pulling out of a single dataset:

- Ground classification (separating vegetation/structures from bare earth)
- Bare earth TIN
- Contour lines that actually look like contours
- Elevation surfaces (DEM/DTM/DSM)
- Point clouds you can trust for measurements, profiles, and volumes

If you’ve ever been handed “LiDAR data” that was basically just a messy point cloud dump, you know why this matters.

These images are just the tip of the iceberg. We can also extract breaklines, generate slope data, roadway edges, stockpile volumes, drainage features, and whatever else your design team needs to move.

If you’ve got a project coming up and you want fast turnaround with deliverables that are ready to use, send me a message. Tell me the site location, what you need out of it (contours, surface, volumes, CAD/GIS export), and your deadline, and we'll have it for you!

And as always.....you can expect fast turnaround times because we are powered by Wingtra!

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05/31/2026

When a firm hands us a corridor, a construction site, or an infrastructure asset, they get back classified LiDAR point clouds, high-resolution orthomosaics, contours, volumetrics, and 3D models, all at centimeter-level accuracy, in a timeline that consistently surprises people who are used to doing this the old way.

We started 9 Line Aerial Media as a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned business after 23 years in the Air Force, and have built it into a serious geospatial data shop. We are an authorized Wingtra dealer and fly Blue UAS compliant platforms, which matters on federal and state-funded projects where the procurement language is tightening. We have active work in the Chicago metro area right now and we are looking to take on more subcontracting relationships with engineering firms and primes who need reliable, high-quality aerial data without the overhead of managing it themselves.

Engineering firms that have brought us in are consistently getting data back faster and at significantly lower cost than what they were used to. The point cloud you see here was flown, processed, and classified for delivery. The orthomosaic detail is real. The contours come from a bare-earth ground model, not interpolation shortcuts. This is the standard we hold ourselves to on every job.
If your firm has upcoming corridor surveys, site documentation, infrastructure inspections, or any project where geospatial data is on the scope, let’s connect. We are ready to work!

04/07/2026

We are beyond honored to have had Wingtra come and feature our company. It’s a team effort and they’re the greatest team members you can have!

Since drone regulations in the US tightened late last year, business owners who've depended on DJI have been facing decisions about what system to switch to. Brian Layhew saw the decision coming early. And he knew that the system he'd buy had to be better than what was leaving behind. His company, 9...

04/04/2026

03/21/2026

Proud moment for us at 9 Line Aerial Media.

A few weeks ago we were down in Greenville, TX providing Wingtra instruction to the Vets to Drones organization at Veterans Outpost. Watching that group of veterans learning new skills, building confidence, and seeing what this technology can unlock was the kind of day that sticks with you.

Now the WFAA Channel 8 crew has released their story, and I am grateful they took the time to spotlight what this group is doing.

As a veteran-owned company, we do not see “supporting vets” as a slogan. Veterans are family, no matter what branch, job, or chapter of life they are in. That is exactly why we show up for organizations like Vets to Drones, and why we will keep showing up.

If you are a veteran looking for a new mission and a community that gets it, I hope you will connect with them.

A new program started in Greenville is helping veterans from across Texas find new jobs as they re-enter civilian life