The RAF has begun a technical evaluation of using a drone to support aircraft engineering tasks.
The technical evaluation, known as Project ASURVEY, is funded by Astra and is using drone technology to carry out some crucial aircraft engineering inspections that take place before and after every flight.
During scheduled maintenance, engineers must visually inspect every area of the aircraft for damage – a process that hasn’t really changed in the past 40 years. This can mean working at height for quite some time, but the drone can scan 95% of the exterior of the aircraft in just half an hour and tell engineers exactly where they need to look.
The initial technical evaluation will take place using a specialist drone to survey the Poseidon P8 in a hangar at RAF Lossiemouth. The project leaders have already received intensive training on how to operate it safely around the aircraft in a hangar. They’re now learning more about the data it can provide while training the drone to recognise all the different elements of each specific aircraft.
Once the drone is fully trained, the engineers will be able to use it to identify any areas of potential damage, rapidly and accurately, on any Poseidon aircraft in the fleet. This has the potential to save hours of work and help to quickly return the aircraft to the front line.
“There’s a real excitement around this technical evaluation and what it can potentially offer to the RAF. Now the drone has been delivered, we’ve started training the right people on how to safely operate it around an aircraft in a hangar. The next step is to teach it the specifics of each tail number so it can clearly identify even the smallest areas of damage. It’s great to see the RAF embracing the cutting-edge inspection technology available, to streamline and improve inspection processes.”
Flight Sergeant Andy Fleming, Project Lead
The drone uses a Basler Ace 2 PRO 24MP camera to capture over 1300 images, which produces around 5GB of data per scan. Part of the evaluation will assess how the RAF can make best use of the data to bring even greater efficiency to RAF engineering capabilities.
It is hoped that the proof of concept will be successful and that it can be rolled out for use on other aircraft across the RAF. It could even mean that those joining the RAF as engineers now may routinely be using drones in their daily work.
