REPL Pole Inspector Pilot
Aerial Drone Pole Inspections
TIME | SAFETY | COST
New South Wales’ leading aerial drone pole and powerlines inspection company. Decades of experience in the utility sector and asset management. Aerial data collection is the benchmark used by the the country’s largest power authorities, able to detect and identify risks before they become hazards.
Difficult terrain can often be a great cause of danger and risks. Specialised equipment is generally needed to inspect chronic access sites. However, drones are able to access these locations with zero risk and without the purchase or hire of specialist equipment.
Restricted airspaces can limit the field of operations. However, selecting a ReOC certified company is essential for legal aerial drone operations and any possibility of conducting flights in restricted airspace. The ReOC certification is issued by CASA, that is the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, which thus allows for the pilot to apply for approval to operate in these zones.
The powerline inspection endorsement is a specific category for powerlines inspectors. This can be found via the filter of the CASA’s Remote operator’s certificate holders – directory.
Safework NSW revealed that ‘more than 12,000 workers were injured after falling from a height between 2014 and 2017. 25 died and more than 240 were permanently disabled.‘ Like it or not, working at heights is a significant hazard the utilities aiming to mitigate.
Drone inspections are a safe solution for the inspection of assets, with the inspector located on the ground with safe exclusion zones. Additionally, electrical hazards are greatly reduced by use of drone inspections.
Asset maintenance is a high operational expense. A significant cost of asset maintenance is inspection and reporting. To reduce the expenditure associated with asset inspection, leading network operators have opted for aerial drone inspection. The outlay of sub-contracting aerial drone inspection verses manual inspection costs proves aerial drone inspection is an efficient option whilst reducing the liability to the asset owner.
