Sebastian_G wrote:
Flying videos watched mostly by pilots could do a lot better. If there was a decent European channel like steveo1kinevo I would try to sponsor it but I did not come across one yet…
I don’t think that’s really how the monetisation model works though Sebastian, I assume you are talking about the advertising funded part of the business where the targeting is a lot smarter than this video is about flying, you’re not a pilot I cannot show you an ad that is relevant to you.
Flightchops is definitely not CPL. He just passed his IR. Many trips are sponsored and he has a lot of patrons (I am one of those).
Steveo is an easy case because he clearly has a job (even two AFAI remember). Most do and their channel is an additional revenue.
Aviation101, I don’t know how he earns his living.
Many youtubers are leaving patreon, probably their fees have increased.
Making flying videos are not professional flying because nobody pays them to fly anywhere. If an entrepreneur needs to go somewhere and takes his plane, he doesn’t need a CPL.
@ sebastian : you may get a few candidates :)
CPL is the easy and cheap bit getting rich on YT is a hard one and needs lot of time and gear investment 
Jujupilote wrote:
Making flying videos are not professional flying because nobody pays them to fly anywhere. If an entrepreneur needs to go somewhere and takes his plane, he doesn’t need a CPL
I agree, this is the most sensible way of looking at it, but when it comes to regulation some agencies are not necessarily rational about rule interpretation.
Ibra wrote:
CPL is the easy and cheap bit getting rich on YT is a hard one and needs lot of time and gear investment
If you are skilled and know how to tell a story you don’t need super expensive gear. A bunch of gopros and an audio recorder is all you need for aviation, and that is what most of the people mentioned above do. Flightchops does more content outside the cockpit so he has a “classic” crew but that is not strictly necessary.
It seems obvious from the long history of people making money on peripheral activities that the only scenario where you may need a CPL is where the assignment is commissioned by somebody.
That is not what the regs say in the UK but every country has its own domestic laws on this. In the UK it is the ANO. In France, the stuff will be buried deep in the national laws and good luck finding them Many people have looked e.g. in connection with homebuilt aircraft.
So for example if you go up and take photos of traffic jams, and sell them to somebody, that seems ok, but if a local radio station asked you to do it and paid for it then you need a CPL.
Much more to the point, however, in Europe, you will need an AOC. There is very little in Europe – outside of pilot training, possibly – which needs a CPL but not an AOC. Maybe banner towing, crop spraying, and ferrying. You can ask the DGAC how much they charge for an AOC but in the UK the cheapest AOC (for A-to-A pleasure flights in a C172) costs about 10k initially and about 5k a year (15 year old numbers I got from one operation).
On flying videos generally, I am amazed anybody actually watches most of them. I have the stats on how many are clicked on, and then how many are actually watched to the end, and the latter is about 10%. I can imagine Helicopter Girl will get nearly 100% on the last one 
but that’s “soft p0rn”, not really “aviation content”. But then I guess revenue is on clicks, not on how many are fully watched.
BTW there is a recent policy change on YT. They used to check only the first 30 secs for copyright music, and even then they could not detect instrumentals. Now they detect them anywhere, and while they don’t block the video (presumably because almost everybody is breaching music copyright on YT) they will send any revenue to the copyright holders. So, if you use any music, it has to be unrecognisable. Having the copyright holder’s permission doesn’t hack it, according to one person who has been up that path.
Hahaha, this is a very funny topic and I hope there is some irony involved.
I find it simply ridiculous to think that YouTubing would require a CPL, remember that a CPL in itself is almost never enough since you need an AOC/SPO/DTO or another suitable operational permit in order to get money from the flying.
I think many of these YouTubers are great and I really hope that they can keep on doing what they do with a PPL.
Well, as a very small YouTuber by myself here some of my experiences/impressions:
I had a skiing channel for quite some time with around 400 followers on YouTube and 3,5k on Facebook. Every video reached around 2000-3000 views on Facebook and around 400-1000+ views on YouTube. I didn’t received a single penny from YouTube, even though YT accepted 100 followers in the past to earn money from advertisments. Now, the minimum is at least 1000 followers, but the income is still close to 0 below 10.000 followers.
Nonetheless, ski-areas sponsored me after a while with a free season pass, so I saved lots of money on ski tickets. This was a real nice side effect and saved me a lot of money in my young ages. I’ve removed many videos last year, some videos are still available though.
Since filming and editing is still one of my oldest hobbies (I had my first camcorder at age 9), I created an aviation channel to share some flights trough Europe, together with a good pilotfriend of mine. I have no intention to earn money from it, I just want to share some GA-traveling for fun. The channel can be found here. Unfortunately, decent time for editing fails me due to my job, so videos are only published so now and then.
Jujupilote wrote:
You will have many more than 15 followers if you advertised about it.That’s quite an important point. If your channel is small, one have to advertise it a lot, but it isn’t guarantee for success. It comes also to a part of luck. Nonetheless, advertising on all social media channels etc. costs almost the same time, as processing and editing the video. Honestly, I don’t like social media posts with endless hashtags and agressive advertisement. I feel more motivated to post some valuable (additional) information for my videos, as done here on EuroGA, so it has actual value to others.
I think to get followers you have to really work on it, with twitter, instagram, hashtags coming out of your ears, basically spend your whole day banging on the internet.Exactly! Putting money on advertisements is however not necessarily required, as long as you put lots of time in advertise your content on social media.
If there was a decent European channel like steveo1kinevo I would try to sponsor it but I did not come across one yet…There are several aviation channels in Europe, but none of them are indeed to say big. In Germany, there is an ultralight pilot called Pilot Frank with weekly videos and respectable 4k followers. Quite a special guy with even more special audience.
Peter wrote:
Much more to the point, however, in Europe, you will need an AOC. There is very little in Europe – outside of pilot training, possibly – which needs a CPL but not an AOC. Maybe banner towing, crop spraying, and ferrying. You can ask the DGAC how much they charge for an AOC but in the UK the cheapest AOC (for A-to-A pleasure flights in a C172) costs about 10k initially and about 5k a year (15 year old numbers I got from one operation).
Peter, what if I hire a plane and a CPL independantly and ask CPL to fly me on that plane to a destination I tell him?
I think that does not require an AOC.
Yes; correct. Forgot the most common use You need an IR for it to be useful though.
