An Okotoks company can now fly a drone farther than the eye can see without having to continually ask for permission.
In-Flight Data received a one-year licence from Transport Canada to fly drones day or night, fly over 400 feet above ground and well beyond the sight of the operator.
“We are now able to mix with a manned air-craft in the same air space,” said Chris Healy, CEO for In-Flight Data, located at the Okotoks Air Ranch airport. “Not only that, we are able to do it for a full-year. Up until this point, certificates have been one-offs, one day, a couple of days that’s it.
“This allows us to repeatedly fly these missions day in and day out.”
In-Flight Data received its Beyond Visual Line of Sight certification on Canada Day.
Healy said In-Flight Data must still provide a follow-up report concerning things like where it was flying, who it was flying for, the type of aircraft and other details.
Typically, drones cannot fly over 400 feet because the lowest level for a manned aircraft – planes, helicopters - is 500 feet
The drones must be flown under the guidance of public safety directions. They are not allowed to fly willy-nilly with manned aircrafts, Healy said.
However, Healy said In-Flight Data has the expertise and experience.
“Transport Canada looked at our organization – do we have people who are capable and competent of conducting missions like this?” Healy said. “We have over 30,000 hours of flight, military, commercial and recreation… It was a very long and detailed process.”
So far, all of the flights done by In-Flight Data operators above the 500-feet altitude level have been done during training at the Foremost Centre for Unmanned Systems.
“You can’t just grab an aircraft from Best Buy and pull this off – this is very hard to do," Healy said. “This is for experienced operators only. You aren’t going to get a certificate from Transport Canada unless you demonstrate a successful and safe track record of operating very advanced drones.”
The greater altitude gives the Okotoks business a larger eye-in-the-sky.
“We need to cover wide areas of ground and to do that we need altitude,” Healy said. “For example, working for public safety we could fly for any provincial wild-fire crew in Canada… In order to maximize the amount of ground that we can cover, that we can map, we need altitude.”
Healy said he believes In-Flight Data is the lone private company to have this licence for a year in Canada.
“This is a first step into doing more beyond visual line of sight flights and expanding not only the types of data we can collect but the kind of customers that we can fly for,” he said. “Such as railways, energy companies.”
He said many energy companies have long-distance corridor assets, such as pipelines, that have to be inspected on a regular basis. Healy said that inspection is now typically being done manually, using trucks, planes, helicopters and others.
“With drones those assets can be inspected at a much lower cost, and a higher rate of frequency,” Healy said. “Instead of being inspected every six months, it could be done once a month.”
Some of the drones are capable of working some 125 kilometres from the In-Flight Data operators.
Healy lifts up a Stealth bomber-like SenseFly ebee-x drone. It is operated from a laptop, which is connected to a powerful modem that keeps the drone in the air.
The SenseFly can fly 90km/hr. It weighs about two kilograms.
“It’s complex,” Healy said of flying a drone at high altitude and a great distance. “There is a whole host of miniaturized electronics, radio components, radio modems…they are capable of travelling great distances very safely which is why they are on the Transport Canada advanced (operations) list.”
In the future, Healy said it would be possible to work for public safety, for example assisting with wild fires.
He said the certification is the crack in the door for such things as on-passenger transportation with a drone, which Healy estimates is 10 years down the road.
“We have been working for this certificate since I started this company,” said Healy. “This will allow us to grow our company in the Foothills, Canada and internationally.
“We are looking forward to being able to grow a multi-million dollar tech industry in Okotoks… We are really proud to be in Okotoks.’
At present there are a dozen employees at In-Flight Data.
For more information go to www.inflightdata.ca
