Drone Photography Services were asked by the National Trust in Cornwall to use drones to check the condition of the cliffs, by flying between ground and sea level.

We took still images and video to check the level of erosion in areas that were not visible.

This helped National Trust staff to determine how undercut the specific coastal area were and to make decisions about the feasibility of existing coastal path routes, and installing a low post and rail fence on the path edges in future.

The Cornish coastline was subject to extreme weather conditions at the end of 2017, so visitor access and public safety was also a concern.   The image below from the drone survey established the extent of the erosion and how the sea was affecting the zawn.

All of our pilots are CAA approved and are skilled in flying aerial survey drones to get a view of those “difficult to reach” places. We can fly our drones close to the cliffs to get detailed aerial camera ultra-HD 4K video footage or 20 megapixel still aerial images.

Cost Effective Coastal Surveys

Drone Photography Services offer a very cost effective, quick solution for coastal errosion surveys compared to more expensive traditional methods of hiring climbers to scale down or abseil down the cliffs.

No one leaves the ground, so the National Trust did not have to worry about climbers and the wet cliff faces.

This is very useful if the rock structure is unsound or has difficult or complex access. We were able to fly the drones down below cliff level, down to sea level from ground level.

National Trust staff stood with us and monitored the video on the ground in real time, as we flew down the cliff face towards the sea level.  Even with the cold and windy December weather we were able to fly all morning with very little disruption.

All of the coastal cliff images were sent to the client via the cloud to view on their laptop, tablet or PC.

They were able to zoom in on all of the detailed images, to inspect the cliffs cracks and erosion, for full analysis.

Drone Photography Services are a registered supplier of the National Trust for drone services.