We were delighted to be invited to come and film alongside the team from the BBC’s The One Show down at the Swanage Railway.
We were part of an article that they were creating regarding the rejoining of the Swanage train station to the main railway line, something that’s been achieved through a huge amount of work by a team of volunteers in a large part. We were to provide aerial footage of the beautiful steam engine puffing its way along the route – the chocolate box Dorset countryside and you really couldn’t ask for a more picturesque backdrop.
A very friendly farmer allowed us to use his field as a takeoff and landing site as it was adjacent to the rail track, giving us the opportunity to get beautiful views of the train as it headed over from Corfe Castle towards Swanage. Then we moved off to Norden station where we were able to interact even more closely with the train as it left the current final station on the line, filming almost trackside to create rising views of the drone disappearing into the steam plumes as the engine chugged beneath.
Despite relatively high winds on the day, our Matrice and Inspire fleet of craft were more than equal to the task of creating stable and stylish footage to capture both the engine and the environment with plenty pieces of the footage being used in the finished piece on BBC 1.
What to Ask a Drone Operator Before You Hire One
Commissioning aerial photography, a roof inspection or a solar survey means buying the legal basis of the flight as well as the imagery. UK drone regulation changed completely in 2020, and the old shorthand no longer describes anything real. This is a plain guide to the four documents a professional operator should be able to produce on request, what each one actually permits, and the site-specific paperwork a properly run job generates before anybody takes off.
When a Solar PV Thermographic Survey Can Actually Be Flown
A solar thermographic survey only produces usable evidence when the array is generating properly. IEC TS 62446-3:2017 sets the minimum at 600 W/m² in the plane of the array, and sun elevation, sky stability, wind, wet panels and a curtailed array will each close the window on their own. This post explains why those conditions decide the data, and why a survey flown outside them tends to return a false all-clear rather than an honest result.
Hot Spot, Bypass Diode or PID: Reading Solar Panel Thermal Signatures
A thermal image of a photovoltaic array records surface temperature, and surface temperature is a symptom rather than a diagnosis. This post sets out how the signatures are actually read on an operating array: what a single hot cell suggests, why a uniformly warm third of a module points somewhere entirely different, how potential-induced degradation gives itself away by geometry, and why severity under IEC 62446-3:2017 is framed with caution rather than asserted from one temperature figure.
