I roll out of bed and step to the door. Frosty morning air streams in as I slide it back and gaze out at the vista before me. A mirror lake gleams in the sunlight, small birds dipping and sporting amidst a light layer of fog.
It's a big day today. A quick dip in the icy lake is followed by some stretches and freeform movement to get the blood flowing. I open up the back of the van and slap together a quick breakfast. Avocados on sourdough, smell of coffee wafting from the bubbling pot.
I eat reverently, gazing across the lake to the forest beyond.
Then it's time to roll. I have a few files left to process from the day before. I boot up my laptop in it's vibration-proof cradle, check the hotspot is working, and start the analysis. It's a big fileset, high resolution aerial images of a nearby farmers land. I make sure it's all running smoothly.
Six hours to completion.
Perfect.
Then it's off and away. The electric motor purrs gently to life, and I pull onto the dirt track behind the campsite. It winds up through forested hillsides back to the main road, and I turn out and accelerate onto the tarmac.
Even the main road winds up and dips with the undulations of the land. At times I pass by rushing rivers, then climb up to pastured hilltops with views of craggy mountains in the distance. All the while my laptop works away in the back, stitching imagery together, georeferencing it, creating one grand high resolution map of the land.
As I crest a last hill the azure sea glimmers on the horizon, with small towns dotted along the coast. I wind down towards them, and approach my destination.
The Hamilton city council want me to produce a map of the town for them. A high definition three dimensional terrain map they can use for flood modelling and town planning. An open access resource that citizens can extract data from to plan their own blocks, plugging it directly into 3D modelling programs to plan out their gardens, houses, and streets.
I pull into the carpark at the council chambers and head in to meet with the planning team. We run over some of the technical details, the boundaries of the map. They tell me the townsfolk have been informed of the day and time of the drone overflight, to alleviate privacy concerns. Once we've sorted out the details, I head up a hill on the edge of the town, from where I'll be able to keep visual communication with my aircraft.
I brew another coffee, and boot the flight planning software on my tablet. By drawing a simple shape on the map, the area to be captured is defined, and the software calculates the optimal flight path to cover all areas of the town, as well as the flight time.
With an hour of flying, I'm going to need a couple of battery changes on the drone. For this purpose, I have a small bank of spares that I charged off the vans auxiliary power supply the day before. I send the drone off on it's first flight, and check my laptop.
Three hours to go.
I sip my brew and watch the small aircraft sweeping back and forth across the town. The sea languidly shimmers beyond it.
Twenty minutes later the small craft buzzes back, programmed to return to base with five minutes of reserve power. I switch batteries and send it out again.
This time I pull my violin out of it's case and play a couple of tunes while I wait. 'Si beg si mor' and 'Drowsy Maggie' for the session down in Oldtown tonight.
As I play the last strain, the drone returns again. One more battery change and off it goes. I read a chapter of my current novel while the little craft works.
It returns one last time, and I pack everything for the road. I type out a quick message to the planners, telling them I'm all done and I'll have the imagery to them in a few days.
I drive down to the coast for a dip before I head on to tonight's parking spot at a friends farm. By the time I get there yesterdays data will be processed and I can check over it after dinner, before uploading it to the cloud for my client's inspection.
Credits:
Created with images by Matthew LeJune - "untitled image" • Sean Benesh - "Coffee Outside Setup | Corbett, Oregon"