Gathering Evidence for a Material Change of Use Application When considering a development application that requests a material change of use (MCU), most councils and government agencies require that you present a site plan showing, where appropriate, vegetation you wish to clear for the development. Some vegetation may be protected and it’s critical to establish prior to your application if protected vegetation species exist on the property and precisely where they are located, so you are not wasting expensive planning resources on locations that cannot be developed or require expensive planning permissions. Queensland Drones is a leading provider of aerial […]
Category: blog
News and views about the commercial drone services industry in Australia and specific uses of drone technologies, by Tony Gilbert, CEO of Queensland Drones.
Precision Aerial Road Surveys
Drone Mapping for Councils and Government While the use of surveyors may be critical for some elements of road design and road redesign projects, the addition of precision UAV mapping can make the work of your surveyors much more timely, cost-effective and efficient. This is particularly true for councils and government authorities seeking disaster funding for road and bridge repairs, where the speed of the application process is often critical to the success of the funding application. Based on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland Drones specialises in precision mapping and modelling of road reserves and roads designated for reconstruction, even in […]
How Long Will We Keep Using Helicopter Surveys?
How many more manned aviation incidents do we need before we start to close the book on helicopter inspections and surveys?
How Much Does LIDAR Mapping Cost?
As a general rule, we advise our clients to budget for LIDAR mapping at $2500 per day. The actual cost may vary up and down a bit from there, but it’s a good rule of thumb to start considering affordability and value.
4 Top Reasons to Choose Drone Surveys
Drone surveys are still a relatively new and not fully understood process for many people, but professionals in the engineering, exploration, surveying and precision agriculture fields are rapidly embracing the advantages of this alternative approach to gathering critical site data. Where once they had to wait for a traditional surveyor to go out to a site, often spend several days there gathering ground-based measurements, then more days or even weeks compiling and presenting the data in a usable format, these early adopters are getting usable data in just a couple of days. Even traditional surveyors are increasingly embracing drone surveys […]
How accurate are drone mapping surveys?
Can Drone Aerial Surveys Meet Engineering Standards? In this landmark article, Queensland Drones Chief Remote Pilot, Tony Gilbert, shares knowledge and experience gained over more than 10 years of aerial survey mapping, often working in close partnership with registered surveyors and engineeers. Well worth a read. Drone mapping surveys using photogrammetry can achieve absolute accuracy of around 2-3cm horizontal and 5-6cm vertical under good conditions, and as tight as 1.5-2cm horizontal and 2.5-4cm vertical when combined with surveyed ground control points and independently measured checkpoints. That precision depends entirely on equipment, ground control, and having the result verified by a […]
Aerial Photography Gallery
Here are a few aerial photos we’ve captured along our five year journey so far. Please let us know in the comments below what you think.
Aerial Landscape Gallery
Queensland Drones regularly provides landscape photography for property developers, rural and prestige real estate brokers, architects, building designers, tourism authorities and event managers. Here are some examples of our work. Click on any image to see it full size in the lightbox. Check out Drone Photography Services for more information about this service.
What Is a Contour Survey?
In this article, Queensland Drones Chief Remote Pilot, Tony Gilbert, shares his learnings from more than 10 years of topographic mapping and helping clients with elevation contour surveys Last Updated 30 August 2026 A contour survey is a way to easily visually understand the vertical and horizontal shape (the “topography”) of your land. By understanding the land contours, you can easily visualise or map how water will flow over the property when it rains, where it will collect, where it might erode the soil and many other important water flow characteristics, where to build access roads and how to farm […]
How (not) to make your fortune as a drone pilot
About three years ago now, the Australian edition of the Huffington Post online newspaper claimed that being a drone pilot would be the “job of the future” and that drone pilots could expect to earn $100,000 to $150,000 a year. This claim, and others like it, set a lot of people on the path to getting the Remote Aircraft Pilot’s licence (RePL) and/or their Remote Aircraft Operator’s Certificate (ReOC). (If you like this article, please give us some love on Facebook by commenting, sharing or at least giving us a “Like” for our trouble… if you’re in need of drone […]
