Korean Air uses drones to examine airplanes

Korean Air started to use groups of the air drones to make visual examinations of the airplanes. This has significantly reduced time necessary for flight preparation.

Only four drones needed Korean company to reduce time for airplane examination from 10 to 4 hours.

Achievements in the area of unmanned air vehicles technologies for the last years urged more airline companies to use them for safety examination of the airplanes. But till today carriers just made tests of the technologies without applying them in practice. South Koran airline company became first who started apply in practice examination of the airplanes with the help of drones.

“Maintenance specialists in the past had to make visual examination of the body from the height up to 20 meters with the help of lift crane but now examination with the help of the drones allowed to increase safety in the workplace and maximize work accuracy and fastness,” – Press release of the Korean Air says.

Company has engineered and built specially for this purpose its’ own unmanned air vehicle. This quadcopter is just one meter in diameter and weights 5.5 kilograms. During inspection events that take place inside aviation shelter, Korean Air uses four drones at once for examination. Each of them is equipped with hi-tech cameras capable to identify just 1mm size details.

Drones work on the base of special software that allows them to collect images from certain parts of the airplane. If one or several drones go out of service during mission, other drones automatically undertake their work and finish examination on their own. Airline company informs that common use of four drones allowed the team of engineers reducing examination time from 10 to 4 hours.