Trying to understand the complexities of drone technology can be daunting for organizations just starting to leverage or expand their drone fleet. Ensuring all pilots are within regulations and company procedures or keeping a paper trail of each flight conducted present a significant administrative burden on program owners and pilots. Instead of focusing on growth and data capture, companies are spending valuable time and resources on flight logging, maintenance checks, and pilot sourcing.
At DroneDeploy, we’re automating and simplifying many of the administrative processes. Below are some of the top benefits of our Drone Operations Management solution.
Compliance and Pre-Flight Checklists
To ensure all pilots are in compliance with both federal and local regulations, consider custom pre-flight checklists. While DroneDeploy already provides a standard model that automatically activates when you begin your flight, users now have the option to add customized requirements.
Additionally, this records the individual pilot’s digital credentials and responses for each flight in case of an incident occurring. Custom checklists also work offline and block a flight if there is an incomplete checklist.
With our partnerships with Airbus UTM, we have made it extremely easy to acquire LAANC authorization in controlled airspace. LAANC authorization minimizes the risk of drone crashes, property damage, or danger to individuals on-site - and all of this critical information is automatically stored in the flight logs.
We have automated reporting for all program owners with one simple, consolidated report. The Compliance Report organizes all information about pilots and equipment. It also provides alerts, such as pilots without certification details or expirations, unregistered drones, outdated equipment, and the number of recent flights, pilots, and projects. With little effort required, scaling a drone program is easy with centralized compliance data.
DroneDeploy gives us the peace-of-mind and confidence that our team is flying safely and in compliance with all company policies and legal requirements.
Since using DroneDeploy, Occidental Petroleum’s drone fleet has grown to 57 Part 107 certified pilots, continually verifying that their program is meeting the internal company policies, and establishing a standard process and procedure.
Flight Logs and the Flight Dashboard
In conjunction with compliance, the flight log serves as both a legal resource and a record for flights completed. Full visibility from the entire drone program is available through the flight log, showing detailed stats on flight paths, speed, altitude, and flight settings. To make this process even simpler to navigate, program owners can view all flights and filter by date, pilot, or project, and track pilot performance or specific drone adoption. As is the case with other features, this information is all available in-app and completely automated.
Pilot and Equipment Management
The Equipment Management Report, using data from each flight log, helps program owners quickly identify the last known location, pilot, and project of any drone flown by the team. An admin can delegate equipment management to the assigned pilot or team leads, allowing them to set the operational status and registration details for each drone, especially helpful when discovering equipment close to expiration or over-used.
In the Pilot Management Report, one can quickly assess how often each pilot is flying and follow-up with pilots that are not flying as often as expected. This report is instrumental for internal communication to find top pilots, inactive pilots, and discover new project locations. Another benefit to this report is getting faster access to flight log data without page refreshes, easily viewing who needs to renew their certification, or whose certification has expired.
Regardless of a program’s size, DroneDeploy’s complete drone solution will be pivotal in establishing a uniform procedure across your drone fleet. Time-consuming in-depth trainings, multiple software, and manual workflows are made simple through Drone Operations Management. By keeping all of this information in one platform, program owners now have clarity across all of their pilots and equipment - helping them stay ahead of any potential security or compliance issues and focus on flying and growing a team.
If you’re interested in learning more about this solution, contact us today. Need more information overall? Download our 2020 State of the Drone Market report.