1. Flight Planning
As an FAA Certified Commercial Drone company, we plan all of our flights in detail with our clients before leaving the office. This allows us to file NOTAMs and procure proper permission for our remote missions.

2. Ground Tie Points
We set manually gathered, high accuracy GPS points for repeatable future surveys. These points show up in our data and tie our model more accurately to the state plane for use in GIS software.
Since these points are referenced aerially within many images, we can triangulate their position and minimize bias and other error in our measurements.

3. Preparing the Drone
Our drones are small enough to be transported to any location easily. This lets us work in remote areas flexibly and with a very small footprint
We also always bring a back up rig and spare batteries to enable us to fly multiple data gathering passes.

4. The Visual Observer
Before taking off, we deploy our Visual Observer (VO) to a high point.
In rural Alaska, the VO is critical for safe flight operations as he ensures our drone is clear of all obstacles and especially other air traffic. We stay in verbal communication and coordinate safe operations.

5. Time for Flight
To deploy for flight we power up the drone, conduct calibrations to ensure quality data, and ensure the VO is ready to begin operations.
We then take off and conduct our data gathering mission. For this approx. 20 acre gravel pit the data gathering took us 25 minutes.
6. Gravel Pit Renders
Within our software we can measure any stockpiles, pit depths, areas, distances, and other features that you may want to quantify within your model.



