Czech company Primoco UAV SE and Norwegian Special Mission AS teamed up together back in 2020 with aim to verify the potential of drone-based flight inspection. The result of mutual cooperation, a world-unique UAV equipped for flight inspection missions, was flight-tested in Iceland in August 2021. The trials represent the most comprehensive comparison of manned and unmanned calibration to date.
The flight inspection industry is long-term facing a repeated requests for further miniaturisation of the flight inspection equipment and obviously also for finding more efficient platforms allowing to drive down the cost and increase availability of the service. The unmanned technology, especially when connected with easy ferry to the calibration destination as regular cargo, is considered as one of the most promising future platforms. Until now the flight inspection community were hesitating to accept large UAVs mostly due to lack of clear legal definition of their operation. But this has changed, when Primoco customized its One 150 UAV with 150 kg maximum take-off weight, a plane fully compliant with latest EASA drone regulations. The plane was added with on-board flight inspection equipment, the UNIFIS 1000 RPAS (a modified version of the industry standard UNIFIS 3000), a set of antennas and other special components.
- Instrument Landing System (ILS)
- Markers and FAN Markers
- VHF Omni directional Radio Range (VOR)
- Distance Measuring Equipment (DME)
- Non-Directional Beacon (NDB)
- Visual Approach Slope Indicator (VASI)
- Precision Approach Path Indicator (PAPI)
