Dronedesk case study
unique drone use-case
How Chris uses Dronedesk to support growth and partnership for Aerial Ashes
Christopher Mace was creating a new service in the drone industry.
But he was facing a problem. Putting together plans for each flight was time-consuming and complicated. And the resulting plans were hard to share with customers, stakeholders, and partners.
Which is why he turned to Dronedesk.
What is Aerial Ashes?
Chris had spent 30 years flying helicopters for the RAF, conducting countless flights carrying both people and supplies.
And, on occasion, ashes.
Chris realised that, if a few people wanted their ashes scattered from an aircraft, there might be more. And only a few of them would have access to an RAF flight.
So, when Chris left the RAF, he founded Aerial Ashes. He took some off-the-shelf equipment and carefully modified it, with full CAA approval, to properly scatter ashes. Soon he was conducting scatterings all over the UK, scattering ashes in locations as diverse as personal property to university campus, golf courses to race courses.
Aerial Ashes was in demand. But Chris was finding it difficult to keep all the paperwork together.
And when Christopher came across an advert on social media for Dronedesk, he realised he'd found just what he needed.
Making flights easier
Our founder, Dorian, built Dronedesk to solve the exact problem Christopher was facing: to streamline the process of planning drone flights and keeping the information in one place.
So when Christopher started using Dronedesk to plan his flights, everything was much easier.
Manually planning a flight can involve hours poring over different maps and databases trying to find out what's going on in the airspace. Finding who you need to notify, who you don't, and where you can fly can take hours. Which is why Dorian put all that information right into Dronedesk.
Speaking of informing airspace operators, Christopher particularly appreciates the way Dronedesk not only contains information about ground and air activities, but also notifies other people about Christopher's own flights.
And Dronedesk puts all of the permissions, site maps, flight information, restriction zones, all in one place. And, more importantly, makes it easy for anyone to view and understand thanks to the job pack..
Sharing job packs
There's a lot of information linked to a drone flight. The client details. The operational statement. The site map. The risk assessments. Keeping all of that information in one place isn't easy, which is partly why Dorian built Dronedesk in the first place. But sharing that information is a challenge too, which is where the job pack comes in.
This sort of clear, comprehensive information isn't just useful for impressing clients. It's also vital for your audit trail should you need to demonstrate your operations are complying with regulations.
But it can also make it easier to get work.
And the job pack has a more day-to-day benefit. Part of Aerial Ashes offering includes multiple drones on a single flight, either one drone filming while the other drone scatters or scattering the ashes of more than one person (something they call a coordinated release). And coordination is indeed key; each drone operator needs to know exactly what they're doing and when.
And, of course, with the growing success of Aerial Ashes, Christopher needs to find more drone operators to help fulfill the growing number of flights.
Supporting future growth
Christopher has seen Aerial Ashes through four years of operations and now it's time for more operators to enter the fold. And Dronedesk will help the team manage that by including team and equipment management information all in one place.
All the details of flights are logged, naturally, but Dronedesk also makes it easy to see everything from your team's operator IDs to drone serial numbers, maintenance requirements to certification renewal, hours logged to upcoming jobs.
We're so proud to have helped Christopher bring peace and closure to so many people, and we hope we can continue to help him for many more years to come. To find out how Dronedesk can help your business, get in touch today.
All quotes are from Christopher Mace - Founder of Aerial Ashes
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