LIDAR Landslide Capture

2023 – A Big Year for Solar Farm Inspections

LiDAR in Napa Valley

Our largest LIDAR job yet — Over 600 acres mapped in 2 days with GREAT results and deliverables to our customer.  Our partner GeoWing helped validate and process while we did the aerial captures.

Traveling For Drone Jobs Is NOT Glamorous

Pretty Video – Not our usual “gig” but definitely in our wheelhouse

In mid-April we got a uncommon call from our partner, ConnexiCore, asking if we could capture some 4K video for Public Service Announcement for a local water agency in Orange County California (we said “Yes!”)

Usually ConnexiCore calls when they need us to do something crazy (like the bridge inspection described on our blog post here.)  This wasn’t a ‘easy’ shoot by any means… and it turned into a terrific project!  We captured 12 different sites over 3 different days — each site was relevant to the Santa Margarita Water District including their headquarters building.  The good news is that it is always sunny in SoCal!

And the final edited video (edited by ConnexiCore) came out great!

 

Port of Long Beach Inspection of Long Beach International Gateway Bridge (aka Gerald Desmond Bridge) Complete

After many attempts, the inspection of the new Long Beach International Gateway Bridge is now complete. Great job team since at any one time we had 7 pilots, crew and helpers on the bridge at a single time.  Great job team!

UPDATE (May 13, 2022):  This podcast was just published describing the challenges of this inspection.  Listen to it here:
https://www.400feetstories.com/1944666/10607417-how-sky-ladder-conquered-the-mission-impossible-bridge

 

A ship travels under the Long Beach International Gateway Bridge in the early morning hours.

 

Pilot Lucie flies our M300-RTK with H20T sensor during our daytime inspection attempt.

 

Using a spotlight on a 2nd M300, the primary M300 captures it’s OWN shadow being casted onto the bridge tower.

 

Yes, that’s Frank Segarra supporting the bottom line of the Cable-Cam (November 3, 2021 @ 12:35am)

LA Times Writes About Artwork Sky Ladder Drones Helped Create

It was a late afternoon call on a winter’s afternoon with a very strange request… can you capture clean photographs the billboards on The Reef building just South of downtown Los Angeles for an upcoming art exhibition. With our experience capturing photos and videos of digital billboards for other clients, this seemed straight forward — until you realized they are 800+ feet wide.

The artist and artwork that has incorporated the photos we took the next evening just launched and is AMAZING.  Here’ a LA Times article which covers Sayre Gomez’s amazing artwork.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/newsletter/2022-03-19/essential-arts-sayre-gomez-sculpture-los-angeles-city-council-essential-arts

 

Port of Long Beach – Coker Barn Inspection Complete (inside and out!)

Tasked with the inspection of a Coker Barn in the Port of Long Beach was not an easy task.  First, wearing fire resistant clothing was hot and uncomfortable… but then flying both inside and inspecting the outside was challenging.  Especially since we could NOT enter the 800 ft by 200 ft building.  Great job pilot Petr, thank you for your help!

 

Over 1 Million Square Feet!!! Façade Inspection Complete at Seattle Children’s Hospital

After 5 full days and 3 separate pilot teams, we supported a huge ConnexiCore project by successfully capturing one of the most difficult façade inspections.  Capturing both visual and thermal images, the team captured every square foot of the façade at Seattle Children’s Hospital.  And this all done in the winter ‘rainy’ season!  It was terrific working with Kirk, Bugg and Petr (and the ultra professional Seattle Children’s Hospital team.)

Finding Oil Wells with a Magnetometer – In the Field in Mississippi

After being rained-out (including lightning) — our capture of magnetic data to find oil wells here in Mississippi went terrific.  Thank you to the whole team who helped make it a success.

JB Checking the data on the Magnetometer.

 

BJ managing the humidity and batteries.  Having local support was invaluable!!!

 

Batteries, snacks and computers all are needed to make sure everything flies.