Elimco E300 inspects 100km of powerline in single flight, Medellin Columbia
Elimco has carried out a new inspection service with the E-300 Viewer.
This time, the task was not an easy one.
The Elimco UAV team was requested to make a single flight over more than 100Km of powerlines within a practically unaccessible area in the mountains of Colombia to carry out a high definition inspection.
Together with that came also the news that most part of the area was under guerrilla control, that there was no practical operation place around for take offs and landings, that the wind at take off was nearly 45Km/h, the wind during flight was expected to gust up to 70Km/h accross, that there would be quite some clouds and that the terrain was at 3.000m above sea level.
OK ….the E-300 Viewer can handle that!
Finally, we stumbled upon an undulating cow pasture with heavy slopes but we set the landing at one of the valleys which measured roughly 20 meters surrounded by electrified wires and loaded high grass and with souvenirs from the cows.
Launching with the catapult was uneventful except for the need of someone to hold the wing due to strong and gusty wind. The rest of the flight was also uneventful except for a few clouds that visibly rocked the UAV at the exchange of some impressive images which we wanted to share with you.
The flight plan recorded was almost 100Km from take off to the start of the powerline followed by another 100Km back following the line at roughly 200m AGL.
More than 2.000 high definition images were taken, processes and analysed to deliver the customer a full and detailed report on the integrity, risks and menaces to the powerline according to the information parameters and quality required by the customer.
The video was taken from the starboard wing of the E-300 during the flight described above.
