Greetings everyone. I am a few days behind on this thread as I was in Chicago at the AUVSI Xponential convention. Thanks everyone for chiming in on our behalf.
Over the past couple years we have gotten very involved in the cell tower inspections happening around the country. We do the data collection for a large data company that is contracted directly by nearly every major carrier. They do not have pilots, but they do all of the data hosting, analytics and 3D modeling. We are required to fly specific sensors and specific flight patterns.
The end of last year and the first quarter of this year have put us in CA, CO, NM, TX, FL, NC,
SC, AL, GA, TN,
MA, NH, DE, RI and we have 3 or 4 new states on the horizon. In about 1 week we begin a new contract around Dallas, TX and then expect to be in LA and MS.
The data company told us a couple weeks ago that we literally have thousands of towers in the queue...we generally get them in groups of 200-500.
It does take about a week to train and this year they have added on a new piece of technology to the profile. They have begun having us do 3D scans of all of the interiors where the main electronics are (inside small buildings at the base of the tower). Training covers the basics (PPE, Safety, Emergencies, etc), the flight profile, the data packaging, the security access to the site and into the equipment rooms, carrier equipment identification, the handheld camera and tripod we use if we can not fly the tower (airspace and other reasons) and much more.
20MP sensor is required - which made the
Mavic 2 Pro a great aircraft to use. Many fly
P4P and some fly
Inspire 2 or Matrice.
Initially we were endeavored to train the local pilots for the areas we were going to be working in but the timing to get people trained compared to when the contracts were signed made that difficult to make work because we were always in such a rush to get people ready in time to meet our deadlines.
Now, we are having the most success with people who are willing to travel either regionally or nationally to the towers and can keep those pilots much more active then if they were waiting for the work to come to their area.
5G upgrades will keep these inspections necessary and a top priority for quite some time.
If this sounds like it is something you are interested in, please reach out to us...we very much appreciate all the pilots on these forums.
Thanks!
Here is the most direct way to get registered with us:
FLORIDA DRONE SUPPLY PILOT NETWORK REGISTRATION
And anyone who has registered recently but has not been contacted by us will be called this week to discuss your interests (we do more than just cell phone towers).
