I don't like to fly areas larger than 100 acres. Although I have flown 400 acres for 2d ortho only at 400ft AGL. For 3d I fly at 160 to 180ft AGL. Just got an email to compute a volume on a topsoil pile I fly a few weeks ago. This is only 6 acres, RTK drone flight at double grid is less than 10 minutes.
I got the cost of a flight from an old school company for a recent project I set control out for: $20k. It was easily $200k for what I've seen from drone operators. No way could they have done such a big area for $20k. From what I've seen the $200k may have been pushing it. But some ongoing small stockpiles. Sounds like a drone would work for that.?ÿ
@mightymoe I don't know, you might be surprised, the size of the aerial platform and sensor sometimes doesn't seem to be proportional to the cost... In fact the small UAV on larger projects is going to be a ton more work, and while UAV's are much closer to the subject being mapped and can get more detail (maybe) they also have a lot more acquisition time and stitching all the smaller images or LiDAR swaths together starts to cause some issues with accuracy on huge projects.
We just contracted to map about 4400 acres (seven square miles) in another state 650 miles from our hangar facility. 8 ppm LiDAR, 19 flight lines with total length of 55 miles and estimated 1.5 hours of on site acquisition plus ferry time. Worst case an overnight stay for the flight crew. Ground control will be a firm local to the project site.
Depending on site size of course and a few other factors, we have been competitive on projects up to 1500 miles away, people don't think to ask because they don't believe there is any way that could be true.
SHG
I've worked with old school companies for 43 years now. I'm way more onboard with them than drones.?ÿ
They are cheap compared to what I've see from the few drone projects I've been involved with. They need more orginazition.?ÿ