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Hertford, NC | Regarding manned agricultural flights, I would be surprised if you can't do the imaging cheaper from a real aircraft than from a drone. The reason I say that is due to the fact that older single engine aircraft don't depreciate very much.
You can buy an older 172 Cessna for $25,000 or less, operate it for ten years and it will still be worth about the same or more money. The 172 will cruise about 115 mph at any altitude suitable for imaging, with a payload of around 900 pounds, while burning 7 gallons per hour. You then have a tax deductible four place aircraft that you can use for many other things besides just imaging. If owning your own plane for the price of an old soundguard cab Deere doesn't appeal to you, then you can almost certainly get your local aerial spray operation or any flight instructor with a similarly cheap airplane to do the imaging for you for $150 an hour or less. I would think that if the 1/4 you are pondering is 10 miles from the airstrip, I could fly over, collect the data, and be back on the ground in about a half hour. Most of that time would be getting to and from the field, so the operation scales very easily.
If you really wanted to do it on the cheap, you could use a Cessna 150 which has only two seats, goes about 100mph, burns 5 gallons per hour, carries about 500 pounds and can be bought in the $12,000-$15,000 range. Renting one should run about $65 an hour for the plane, or $100 for plane and commercial pilot. | |
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