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POLL for drone service providers: On average how many flights do you operate per customer project?
POLL - How many flights per customer project?
- Thread starter Drone Analyst
- Start date
Depends on project (length in day/s, weeks, months and size) and how much they can afford. 1 flight to ??????
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Understood, but looking back over the past year what's the average number of flights per project?
I would have to go thru my log book and determine how many battery changes there were per flight.
Example, I flew for 42 minutes and averaged 17 minutes per battery 2.47 flights that given day.
I have over 55 hours in just 10 months, some missions just one flight, other flights 4 hours
I have approximately 178 + landings and take offs. So maybe 3.25 flights per projects.
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MapMaker53
Well-Known Member
I had a 3-day assignment a few months ago and conducted about 30 flights at a huge industrial site that was being cleaned up. After each flight, I returned to the site office trailer where I would off-load the photos and video files to my laptop in case a fly-away or other loss were to occur during the next flight, pop in a newly charged battery, and head out again. I hope to have more assignments like that. But most of my assignments are single day shoots where I'll make 5 to 10 flights.
Dave Pitman
Well-Known Member
Similar work flow. I change out the SD card between flights and then transfer and qualify files to a laptop before leaving the site. A little more efficient maybe.
Average flights per customer? That's a tough one. Depends on the client, the scope of the work, the complexity of the project....
Some days we fly for 8 hours a day flying, charging, swapping out SD cards, flying, charging......
On some projects we are on-scene for 8 hours and fly less than an hour total. We shot in the Outer Banks for The Travel Channel and they paid our full day rates and we ended up with less than 45min of flight time total per day. Lot''s of traveling to & from the various shoots on boats and ATV's for just a little bit of flying. That weekend really skewed my average BIGLY.
I'd say for Real Estate it averages between 1 to 3 flights per project. It also depends on the airframe we are using. Using the Mavic we can get a lot more done per flight/pack. Using the Inspire less.
When flying fixed wing we can cover a lot of ground with minimal power consumption which skews the #'s more.
Some days we fly for 8 hours a day flying, charging, swapping out SD cards, flying, charging......
On some projects we are on-scene for 8 hours and fly less than an hour total. We shot in the Outer Banks for The Travel Channel and they paid our full day rates and we ended up with less than 45min of flight time total per day. Lot''s of traveling to & from the various shoots on boats and ATV's for just a little bit of flying. That weekend really skewed my average BIGLY.
I'd say for Real Estate it averages between 1 to 3 flights per project. It also depends on the airframe we are using. Using the Mavic we can get a lot more done per flight/pack. Using the Inspire less.
When flying fixed wing we can cover a lot of ground with minimal power consumption which skews the #'s more.
MapMaker53
Well-Known Member
I started off like that, just swapping out SD cards. But with 10 flights per day, I would need a lot of cards to do that in order to wait til the end of the day to transfer them and not be flying with video from previous flights on-board.
Rodger
Well-Known Member
Normally 1-2 and then there are the ongoing jobs, which are few and far between that document the construction of a building's progress.
That's how I did it until October of 2016. I was shooting for a commercial corp who owns a very large conference center and the local lake. I was making several flights of the same location (hundreds of acres) so I left the same card in the bird. On my last flight I encountered a Critical Battery Error and the aircraft went to AutoLand in the middle of the lake. I finally coaxed it to dry land and just as it was about to touch down (safely and dry) I lost Tx to Rx connection (it was landing on the far side of a hill and lost LOS) and RTH kicked in. Unfortunately the RTH was not set to clear the 100 year old oak trees and the bird hit the trees and vanished. I had a TON of data on that card and part of that data could NOT be recreated (we had shot video of a parade around the conference center LOL).
That was the last time I did multiple flights (unless a simple Real Estate shoot) on the same card.
Dave Pitman
Well-Known Member
Yeah, I carry at least 6 cards.
The time spent dumping is the same either way. For me, it's just nice to stay focused on flying and dump the cards all at once.
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Dave Pitman
Well-Known Member
Ouch That's a bummer.
when flying around water, I always try to strap on my Getterbacks. They won't prevent a dip but immediate retrieval is usually an option.
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That's EXACTLY what I use now as well. Lesson learned LOL.
@Dave Pitman have you "tested" one out yet? I'd like to test one out in a "controlled" environment. Now that I have my "Recovered" Phantom3P I might sacrifice a GetterBack and test it to see how quick and effective it is with a sUAS.
Dave Pitman
Well-Known Member
@BigAl07 I have not personally tested them. But before I purchased mine a few years ago, I watched a test done by another local RCer and was convinced that they were a worthy precaution.
I strap on 2 of them to hopefully counter the possibility that one would get hung up or whatever.
I strap on 2 of them to hopefully counter the possibility that one would get hung up or whatever.
Dave Pitman
Well-Known Member
Regarding the Getterback, I just had a chat with the developer and have a little info to share. I make a new thread for it here: Incident Over Water? Getterback
