During the global COVID-19 pandemic, the unmanned inspection team at Vertech Group has been very busy. One of the many new and exciting things we have achieved is our Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) accreditation to conduct commercial UAV (drone) operations.
This certification is a great achievement and seamlessly slots in with our RDVI division to execute unmanned inspection services. This now allows us to offer field surveys and open-area UAV-based inspections.
To attain the accreditation, we developed specific procedures and an operations manual that had to be approved by CASA to progress the accreditation process. The team were then challenged with a technical and capability mock assessment.
This required them to prepare detailed flight plans that laid out flight paths, landing zones, communication plans between relevant parties in the area of operations and detailed HSEQ risk assessments.
Despite 2020’s many challenges, it has been a very successful year for our UAV specialists. In April of this year, Vertech became the first team in Australia to be recognised as an approved service supplier by Lloyd’s Register for UAV inspections of classification vessels and structures.
By Sean Peters
