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Propelling: Mistakes Made by Drone Early Adopters – And How to Avoid Them

Drones are here to stay, with UAVs and other solutions making surveying, imaging and a variety of other tasks much simpler. This can bring a wide range of benefits to your organization – provided you can avoid common pitfalls drone early adopters face. On this episode of Propelling from Microdrones, host Shelby Skrhak was…

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Drones are here to stay, with UAVs and other solutions making surveying, imaging and a variety of other tasks much simpler. This can bring a wide range of benefits to your organization – provided you can avoid common pitfalls drone early adopters face.

On this episode of Propelling from Microdrones, host Shelby Skrhak was joined by Hanno Truter, Microdrones’ Sales Manager for Africa, to highlight some of those slip-ups and how you can avoid them.

The duo discussed evaluating the best fit for your unique needs, ensuring the right infrastructure and teams are in place before adopting drone use, and the mistakes Truter commonly sees early adopters make.

There are five key considerations for companies looking to bring drones into the equation – engineering quality, data accuracy, airframe design, cost and flight time capability.
Cost is particularly critical. Truter said he’s seen many an early adopter go with an unproven solution built on recreational success and regret it in the long run.

“Regardless of your business, there’s a well-worn saying from Benjamin Franklin,” Truter said. “‘The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.’ Many drone novices try to get started with ill-suited drone platforms. … You need a serious solution and an accurate solution that was purposely built to deliver a specific geospatial result. It really isn’t worth trying to take a shortcut.”

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