The highs & lows of drone inspection

Unrivalled mind-bending roller coaster and Siberian railway bridge drone inspections show off the manoeuvrability and precise control of the Elios drone in confined areas.

Flyability’s Elios drone was used to inspect the infrastructure at West Edmonton Mall’s (WEM’s) World Waterpark and Mindbender roller coaster in Alberta, Canada. Due to the Elios’s unique ability to fly in confined spaces, personnel from WEM, InTech NDE (Flyability reseller and flight training partner), and Applus (the contracted inspection partner for the mall) were able to look much more closely at the infrastructure supporting the park’s attractions than they ever had before. This cut inspection times from 10-20 hours to just one to two hours, and potentially reduces the cost of inspection by more than 80%.

WEM personnel found that not only did the Elios help make inspections faster, safer, and more economical, it also allowed them to see things they had never been able to see before. Even with the help of scaffolding, parts of the infrastructure in both World Waterpark and indoor amusement park Galaxyland are difficult or even impossible to inspect using manual methods, but with the Elios they were able to fly into these tight, high spaces and get a close look at every nook and cranny.

Read more in the latest issue of PCE-International