easyJet announces plans to use drones for aircraft inspection

According to easyJet, the tests indicate that pre-programmed drones can help cut the amount of time an aircraft is out of service following events such as lightning strikes or hailstorms compared to manual inspection that involves the use of gantry and staging.

Furthermore, such events can take an aircraft out of service for half a day or longer at locations away from a maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) facility where an engineer is not always available.

The system, which easyJet aims to bring into service in its engineering bases across Europe within 12 months, would relay information about the condition of an aircraft to engineers, who would then interpret the data and take appropriate action.

For the trial, Blue Bear and Createc’s RISER quadcopter was used in conjunction with a T-Series tracking system from Vicon, which assisted in referencing the location of the quadcopter relative to the aircraft in 3D.

Warren Lester, product manager, Vicon explained that Blue Bird has implemented certain technologies on its drone to help with navigation such as LIDAR and a camera in order to automatically navigate without any external tracking system.