Recently we had an experimental drone flyover of part of the escarpment. Professional drone flyer and photographer John Mills was the pilot.http://www.johnmills.photos/
It was a perfect day for the flyover, no clouds in the sky and little wind. The drone sounded like an angry beehive when flying over us, but its capabilities were impressive.
We have the first still photos available and are looking forward to producing a short video in early 2016.
So how might Nga Uruora use drones in the future? There are many possibilities. While Google Earth is great for mapping, if we could regularly fly a particular route we would get a good record of how our vegetation is changing. The quality of photos are so great we can see individual trees. Over recent years we have been using ground based photo points to see changes in our environment. But drones could make this much easier and with better records.
We could potentially use a drone for weed control in the future. Spraying those very hard to get to boneseed or pampas on steep and dangerous sites.
A drone could check our tracks for damage following a storm.
Maybe somehow they could help us with our animal pest control in the future?
We don’t want to spoil the ‘wilderness’ experience of those enjoying those escarpment by having lots of drones buzzing over. But Nga Uruora will be exploring how drones can help our work in looking after our unique part of the Kapiti Coast.
Ngā Uruora - Kāpiti Project (Inc) 