POLL - How many flights per customer project?

[Drone Analyst]

POLL for drone service providers: On average how many flights do you operate per customer project?

 

[MrTVR]

Just looked back over the last 12 months records and it’s between 3 & 20 in a single day.

 

[Drone Analyst]

Just looked back over the last 12 months records and it’s between 3 & 20 in a single day.

How many the majority of the time?

 

[MrTVR]

How many the majority of the time?

Average around 10 flights per day/job.

Why do you want to know this?

 

[Drone Analyst]

Average around 10 flights per day/job.

Why do you want to know this?

There's lots of conjecture out there about this. I thought it would be good if we all knew.

 

[Advexure]

Just curious, how is the data collected through these polls used? What do you folks do? An introduction here (Introductions) would be great!

 

[Drone Analyst]

Just curious, how is the data collected through these polls used? What do you folks do? An introduction here (Introductions) would be great!

Forum polls like this one are public for all to see and use as they wish. I don't have any particular use intended for this one. However, we do commercial drone market research and have partnered with DronePilots in the past. These are formal research surveys in which participants offer responses in exchange for free copies of reports. You can find more information about our research on my website: Skylogic Research / Drone Analyst - UAS / UAV Advisors - Cheers, Colin

 

[goodbiscuit]

I'm curious why 1-4 seems to be the norm..... I'm flying my *** off for my customers. Not that that means I'm doing better work or anything, it just seems I'm always flying a ton. Guess it totally depends on the job

 

[Dr. Ifly Drones]

This is like asking how many gallons of petrol you put in your car each time you fill it up. With no specificity about what kind of job or customer, the data you generate is useless. The number of times I will launch and land shooting a music video will be completely different than the number I do for a simple "site logistics review." Unless you differentiate type of job your data isn't going to have much value...

 

[Drone Analyst]

This is like asking how many gallons of petrol you put in your car each time you fill it up. With no specificity about what kind of job or customer, the data you generate is useless. The number of times I will launch and land shooting a music video will be completely different than the number I do for a simple "site logistics review." Unless you differentiate type of job your data isn't going to have much value...

Understood. I'm just wondering what you think your average is.

 

[MrTVR]

I’m always amazed by the number of ‘professional’ operators with just 3 or 4 flights worth of batteries.

We fly each of our drones with at least 12 flights worth of batteries available, i.e. at least 12 batteries for the I1 and 24 for the I2. Whilst some jobs only need 2 or 3 flights, it’s not good business sense to scrimp on batteries at the expense of getting all the shots you need.

 

[PortCanaveralFlorida]

I’m always amazed by the number of ‘professional’ operators with just 3 or 4 flights worth of batteries.

We fly each of our drones with at least 12 flights worth of batteries available, i.e. at least 12 batteries for the I1 and 24 for the I2. Whilst some jobs only need 2 or 3 flights, it’s not good business sense to scrimp on batteries at the expense of getting all the shots you need.

Capturing UAV footage should be what’s on the shot sheet and in your head.. somewhat. It’s ether sprinkled into the timeline to help tell the story in a short vid or, documentary of just flying flying flyin #yawn. Most “professionals’” know exactly what they need and can surly get that with 3-4 batteries. 12 batteries, let’s say potentially 15 min of vid each = 180 min. Ant no frigging way I’m going to look through that much material for a few clips I should have gotten with 3-4, if that’s the case then I’m not a “professional” UAV pilot/camera operator. Might was well go back to the saying…. spray and pray!

 

[goodbiscuit]

Capturing UAV footage should be what’s on the shot sheet and in your head.. somewhat. It’s ether sprinkled into the timeline to help tell the story in a short vid or, documentary of just flying flying flyin #yawn. Most “professionals’” know exactly what they need and can surly get that with 3-4 batteries. 12 batteries, let’s say potentially 15 min of vid each = 180 min. Ant no frigging way I’m going to look through that much material for a few clips I should have gotten with 3-4, if that’s the case then I’m not a “professional” UAV pilot/camera operator. Might was well go back to the saying…. spray and pray!

Still impossible to say though. I've been on feature film sets where I'll be with the primary team and i'll do one flight, not even a full battery, and when it's over, I get a "thanks so much! You're done for the day" type thing... so it really depends.

I'd say there's a correlation between higher production jobs requiring less flights, and as you go further down, there's more flights required

 

[MrTVR]

OK, so you are at a racing circuit from 7am until 8pm (real job) and the director says that he wants aerial coverage of the ‘stars in their cars’ whenever they are on track. We flew almost continuously that day and even with 24 batteries (12 sets for the I2) we still needed many recharges during the day.

Clearly my best example of the extreme, not a common occurrence, but all too often we would not be able to give the client what they wanted with just half a dozen batteries.

 

[Steve@AerialImagesPro]

Is this data mining cleared with Editor? Data mining of forum members is frowned upon without permission.

 

[Eyeup Aerial Solutions]

Funnily enough, when I video and photograph an acre of asbestos roof I do a lot more flights than if I go to take an image of a hotel for a client. Please don't pretend you are doing any useful analysis with data collected from such a broad question.

 

[Steve@AerialImagesPro]

Funnily enough, when I video and photograph an acre of asbestos roof I do a lot more flights than if I go to take an image of a hotel for a client. Please don't pretend you are doing any useful analysis with data collected from such a broad question.

also, what constitutes a 'flight' is every takeoff to landing? Cause this data is uesless. What if I said I usually only do 1 flight, but that flight lasts a 30 mins vs someone else that's says they do 5 flighs with each flight being 1 to 2 minutes?

 

[Dave Stanton]

This is a tough one to judge. Actual flights for us totally depends on the job. A few weeks ago I flew about 8 times in a six hour period for one job but most of the time we do 1 to 4 flights. I'm assuming one flight means each time I land and take off again (usually after changing batteries)? So, I voted 1-4.

 

[The Editor]

Forum polls like this one are public for all to see and use as they wish. I don't have any particular use intended for this one. However, we do commercial drone market research and have partnered with DronePilots in the past. These are formal research surveys in which participants offer responses in exchange for free copies of reports. You can find more information about our research on my website: Skylogic Research / Drone Analyst - UAS / UAV Advisors - Cheers, Colin

I would draw your attention to our forum rules - particularly rules 10 and 11.
Our community is not a ‘resource’ to be mined for your own company/organization.
If you have a problem with this please contact our site admin.

This thread is now closed.