We drove out to Bithour to look for field sites which we had identified as possible study areas from Google Earth. The first one we stopped at was just North of Bithoor and was part of the seasonal floodplain. It transitioned nicely from open grassland to sand bars adjacent to the river and has plenty of open space to launch from and, more importantly, land in. As we were unlikely to find anywhere better than this we noted down a few things and then headed back. After heading off Dipro headed to the magistrates to pick up our consent forms which had thankfully been approved and then take them to the military base and the police station in Bithoor to inform them.
We spent the afternoon checking all the kit, charging batteries and making flight plans so that everything is ready to go in the morning. Fingers crossed all goes well.
In the evening we talked the aerospace department about the UAVs they are building on military contracts – they have crazy specs with over 8 hours flight time and ranges of 150km and ceilings in excess of 8,000 ft. These have great scope to be used in other applications