30 Km BVLOS Demonstration Flight In Colombia Mountains

In this occasion, somewhere in South America, an Aeromapper Talon flew a mission autonomously to a target located 30km away from the operators, while maintaining at all times a strong communications and control link, successfully demonstrating its capabilities for Beyond Visual Line of Sight operations (BVLOS).

Description

Applications such as power line and pipeline monitoring, roadways survey, surveillance and wildlife control will greatly benefit with such characteristics.

The mission was carried out in the Andes Mountains of Colombia. The location of the flight is situated at 2,800m above sea level and the flight was performed at a cruise altitude of 250m agl. The UAV travelled over a body of water during 50% of the flight. The drone travelled a total distance of 60km in one hour of flight, still having plenty of flight time left, thanks to its 2 hour flight endurance.

The UAV could have gone further than 30km but the operators decided to bring it back since the area in the path of the UAV had peaks in excess of 3,500m above sea level. Further missions are being planned to demonstrate the capabilities to reach greater distances.

The Aeromapper Talon is the only BVLOS capable UAV system that is both hand launched and recoverable via parachute, under $10K investment. The operation was carried out in early 2016.

To read the complete press release:  https://aeromao.com/2017/06/19/aeromapper-talon-demonstrates-bvlos-capabilities-by-flying-30km-away-from-operators/

Summary

LOCATION: Andes Mountains of Colombia
UAV: Aeromapper Talon