Field Notes
Field notes from real UAV thermal missions: operator lessons, checklists and practical techniques that only show up outside the lab.
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Annual Verification: When a Thermal Payload Needs Recalibration
How to know when a UAV thermal payload has drifted out of specification: verification versus calibration, trigger conditions, a simple field check and what a certificate should contain.
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The Thermal Payload Pre-Flight Checklist
A 22-point pre-flight checklist for UAV thermal payload operations, covering mechanical, electrical, imaging, radiometric and mission-specific checks — with the reasons each item exists.
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Thermal Reflections and False Hot Spots: The Most Common Misreads
Why shiny surfaces produce fake hot spots in drone thermography, how to recognise a reflection in seconds, and the material-by-material risk table for inspection work.
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What a Thermal Inspection Report Should Actually Contain
The structure of a defensible drone thermal inspection report: required metadata, finding classification, image pairing, measurement conditions and the fields auditors look for.
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Gimbal Troubleshooting: Drift, Horizon Tilt and Video Dropouts
A field diagnosis order for the three most common gimbal camera complaints: yaw drift, tilted horizon and intermittent video — most have simple causes.
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Gimbal Camera Maintenance: Keeping a Stabilized Payload Healthy
Stabilised gimbal cameras are precision electromechanical instruments. Cleaning, storage, transport and pre-flight habits that prevent the failures technicians actually see.
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How thermal drones reshape search after dark
A mission-led look at night search: why the first heat source is rarely the answer, and what actually makes a thermal image useful when a ground team is waiting.