The line looks fine
from the road.
Transmission, distribution and pipeline patrol flown structure by structure, at the speed the inspection needs. Detailed and general patrol, thermal and corona support, and storm response across the American West.
Ground patrol tells you a structure exists. Air patrol tells you what it is doing.
A truck can reach maybe a fraction of a transmission corridor in a day, and only the parts with a road. The rest gets inferred. An aircraft covers the whole line in sequence, at eye level with the hardware, with an inspector looking at the components that actually fail rather than at the ones that happen to be accessible.
The value is not speed for its own sake. It is continuity: every structure looked at the same way, in the same order, at the same offset, so this year's patrol can be compared honestly against last year's.
We fly patrol as a two-crew operation whenever the inspection is detailed. The pilot flies the aircraft and nothing else. The inspector inspects and nothing else. That split is not a luxury; it is the reason the work stays safe next to energized conductors.
Six patrol types, one aircraft,
one set of habits.
Most utility clients buy two or three of these. They are listed separately because they are flown differently.
Structures
Steel, wood, concreteThe slow, close, methodical pass. We hold station where the inspector needs to look and stay there until they are finished, then move to the next structure.
- Insulator strings, bells and hardware
- Dampers, spacers and armour rod
- Foundations, guys and anchors
- Nest and wildlife activity
- Structural damage, lean and corrosion
Conductors & splices
Span-by-spanFlown along the span rather than across it, so the inspector reads the conductor continuously instead of catching it in glimpses.
- Broken strands and burn marks
- Splice and sleeve condition
- Clearance to vegetation and structures
- Sag and clearance anomalies
Right of way
CorridorEncroachment is the finding that gets missed from the ground, because from the ground you cannot see the whole corridor at once.
- Vegetation growing into clearance
- New construction inside the ROW
- Access road washouts
- Erosion and slope movement
- Unauthorised use and dumping
Thermal & corona
Sensor supportWe fly the platform; your specialist or ours runs the sensor. Both want the same thing from the aircraft: a stable, quiet, predictable ride at the right offset.
- Infrared hot-spot survey
- Corona and UV inspection
- Night thermal windows where required
- Repeatable pass geometry for comparison
Pipeline patrol
Part 91 / 135Routine surveillance of buried and above-ground pipeline, flown to the interval your integrity programme calls for and documented the same way every time.
- Leak and seep indication
- Third-party excavation near the line
- Exposed pipe and washout
- Valve site and facility condition
- Marker and signage integrity
Storm & outage
Call-outAfter weather, the question is simple: where is the damage and what does the crew need to bring. An aircraft answers it in an hour instead of a day.
- Damage assessment sweeps
- Access route reconnaissance
- Crew and material spotting
- Repeat passes as restoration progresses
Patrol is a two-way document long before it is a flight.
What you get back
- Structure-referenced findings list
- Geo-tagged stills and video where requested
- Priority coding agreed with your standards team
- Flight track and coverage record
- Same-day verbal on anything urgent
What we need from you
- Circuit maps or a GIS layer
- Structure numbering convention
- Your inspection standard or checklist
- Airspace or landowner constraints you know about
- A named contact who can take a call mid-flight
How we fly it
- Speed set by the inspection, not the schedule
- Consistent offset and altitude per pass
- Two-crew for detailed inspection work
- No pass repeated from memory; it is flown again
- Everything logged, nothing reconstructed afterwards
How we set it up.
None of this is unusual for an experienced utility client, but it is worth putting in writing so the first briefing is short.
They completed our transmission-line inspection two days ahead of schedule with zero disruptions to service.
What utility clients ask
before the first block.
Close enough for the inspector to do the job and no closer. The offset comes from your standard, the voltage, the conditions on the day and the pilot's judgement in that order, and it is briefed before the first structure rather than negotiated in the air.
If someone tells you they will fly whatever offset you ask for, that is not confidence, it is a hazard.
Yes, and winter is often when patrol is most valuable: ice loading, storm damage and access problems all show up then. Short days and mountain weather mean the windows are tighter, so winter work is planned with more schedule slack than a summer block.
Either. Many utilities put their own standards inspector in the aircraft because they own the coding decisions. If you would rather we bring the observer, say so early; that changes crew planning and the quote.
You get a call before we land. That is the point of having a named contact who can act on it. The written finding follows, but the phone call comes first.
Normally an hourly flight rate plus mobilisation, with a daily minimum on remote blocks. Seasonal patrol programmes and standby arrangements are quoted differently; tell us the interval and mileage and we will lay it out properly.
Send us the circuit map. We'll tell you how we'd fly it.
Storm and outage call-out, 365 days a year.
CALL DIRECT · 208-315-5769