In our last blog, we discussed the best industries to work in with your drones. In this blog, we discuss what drones are required for what industry. Multi-Rotor Drones (Photography and Aerial Inspection) Multi-Rotor Drones are the most common drone type. These are the easiest drones for beginners as they are more stable than other drones. They are also one of the most cost-effective drones on the market. Multi-Rotor Drones, in particular, Quadcopters, are the ideal candidate for Aerial Photography. Quadcopters offer unrivalled stability due to a rotor being on each corner of the drone. A camera can be mounted to the underside of the drone to take clear images. The most popular Quadcopters for Aerial Photography seem to be by the company DJI. DJI sell drones that have cameras prebuilt into them which is good if you’re looking for a drone to fly straight out of the box. However, if you’re looking for excellent image quality then it’s worth buying a drone that can mount a camera on it. When buying a drone like this make sure it is strong enough to carry the payload of a camera mount and the camera itself. The camera will also need to have a wireless shutter release in order to take photos unless the camera mount has it built in. A Quadcopter is also perfect for Aerial Inspections as well due to its ability to hover in place and stability. Quadcopters can also be small which makes them ideal to get into small places where larger drones would fail. Fixed-Wing Drones (Aerial Mapping, Powerline and Pipework Inspection) Fixed-Wing Drones resemble a plane in that they don’t have rotors and have a wing instead. These drones require a lot more skill and practice to use as the nose of the drone dictates where it’s going to move. If you’ve never used one before I’d recommend getting some drone training as these drones are expensive and you don’t want to crash them. Fixed-Wing Drones are ideal for Aerial Mapping and long distance flights as they are much more efficient at flying than Quadcopters and also run on a different source of energy. Unlike Multi-Rotor Drones which run on a battery, Fixed-Wing Drones can run off of gas which allows them to make up to 16-hour flights. This flight time makes them ideal for surveying large pipelines and power lines. The landing and taking off of a Fixed-Wing Drone can be really difficult and requires a lot of space as it needs to pick up speed in order to generate lift. VTOL-Hybrid (Delivery) Amazon have been developing a drone that is capable of delivering goods to hard to reach locations. The VTOL is able to take off and land vertically along with being able to move forward with speed. The Amazon drone is only in prototype at the minute and as such isn’t fully ready to be mass produced. Once everything has been designed to work efficiently and effectively this drone service will revolutionize the delivery industry. Make sure when you’re using these drones in a commercial sense that you have a PfCO License. Hummingbird UAV offer Fast and Full Drone Courses depending on your
