Spent $300 on a drone for a dig site and it's been a mixed bag

I bought a basic drone last year to help map a site in New Mexico, thinking it would save us time on surveys. The photos are great for overviews, but the battery life is short and it's useless in any wind, which happens a lot out there. Has anyone else had a good or bad experience using drones for field work?

2 comments

2 Comments

jamieperez1mo ago

Yeah, the wind problem is a killer. We tried using one for a stream survey last spring and it just got tossed around like a toy. Even a light breeze messed up the photo grid. You end up wasting more time waiting for perfect conditions than you save. The short battery means you're constantly landing to swap, which defeats the whole point of a quick overview. Felt like a fancy gadget that only works on paper.

king.lisa1mo ago

But have you tried them with the new software? @jamieperez, last month we mapped a whole wetland in one morning because the drone could finally handle gusts. It auto-adjusts the photo grid in real time now. Yeah, battery life still isn't perfect, but with two charged packs you can cover miles before lunch. It's not just a toy anymore, it's a legit tool that saves days of bushwhacking.