Green matters. It is not just a trend, a buzzword, or a marketing tool. Green matters because we need to try to hand over a healthier planet to the generation that we are raising so that they can breathe fresh air and enjoy all of the natural resources that the world has to offer. So what are you doing to provide this for future generations?

One of the reasons that traditional aerial services are so expensive is aircraft fuel. At the time of this writing, Jet A fuel is about $1.40 per litre. That’s the same as or better than the price of the fuel that you put in your car. So ask yourself this: “Does my car use enough fuel to justify charging more than a thousand dollars an hour to run it?”. A traditional aircraft uses enormous amounts of fuel, in fact, the average Bell Jet Ranger (Bell 206) that is used for many aerial survey services uses 141 litres of Jet A fuel per hour! A typical car would need to travel at over 1,000 kilometers per hour to use 141 liters of fuel in that amount of time (drag and all other rules of physics aside).

Let’s use a little bit of simple math to look at environmental impact. Jet A fuel in a turbine engine like the Jet Ranger’s emits about 2.6 KG of CO2 per litre. This means that if you employ a Bell 206 to perform aerial services for one hour, you are adding 367 KG to your CO2 footprint and adding all of that CO2 into the atmosphere. That’s one third of a tonne per hour. Now add the amount of time that it takes to get the helicopter from it’s home base to your site, and you could be producing almost a tonne of CO2 for a one hour survey.

Now let’s look at one of Aerobotika’s greenest UAVs for aerial survey. This aircraft is entirely electric. Yes, it takes CO2 to generate electricity in many places, and yes there are other impacts from electricity production in areas that use green generation like hydroelectric. But that little electric aircraft uses 10 ampere hours of electricity to fly for 1 hour and it does it’s job at the same cruise speed as the helicopter.

10 amp hours of electricity produces an estimated 0.296 GRAMS of CO2! That is 100,000 times, or 10,000,000% less CO2 than a helicopter. As for those other environmental impacts, we are such a minute share of those impacts that it is immeasurable.

If you are looking for a more efficient way to collect your data as far as cost, as far as environmental impact, or as far as the carbon footprint that your customers are demanding; this is the lowest hanging fruit that you can find. Give us a call to talk about what we can do to provide modern aerial services that are efficient beyond what you previously thought possible.