We are often asked by other contractors what our most useful piece of equipment is. So whilst Matt was editing our 2017 creative Showreel I asked him!
“Ha! This comes up all the time and the answer will probably surprise you…”
“After four years operational across a number of sectors I like my creature comforts. We are often up really early, certainly that is the case for creative work. Often the call time for the shoot doesn’t come through until late the night before the shoot day. The client never factors in your travel time from a human factors point of view….”
“We are pretty committed to safety, in fact it is one of the factors that distinguishes us from the competition. As such we try and look after the staff and sub-contractors. Can you see where I am going here?… Turning up onsite tired and grumpy is not only unproductive, it’s down right dangerous…”
“So really, our main production / site vehicle and our Honda generators are the most utilised bits of equipment. There is nothing worse than arriving at a location at ‘O’ dark thirty and having to sit around all day. Our built to order crew vehicle has hot and cold running water, tea and coffee making facilities, a fridge, a bed (that’s only for me though!) and can run off grid for two days including battery charging.”
“We can charge prosumer drone batteries like the TB50, TB47 and TB48 batteries without even firing up the generator, or if it is a heavy lift job the generator comes out. Even then the quiet pack generator can be some distance from the van if required. On large sets we can plug in to the sparks feed on location and set the kit up under the awning so we are not jumping in and out dodging rain showers”
“With generators it really is buy cheap buy twice, we use Honda EU20i gennys that can be linked if necessary. These will run and run and run. I remember once when we were on a forest site in around 2014, there was snow on the ground, we’d left base around 05:00 and then in the middle of nowhere, 10 clicks of the public road we got a puncture followed by the cheap generator refusing to start. These sort of ‘trials’ lose you work and certainly lose your profit if you don’t plan well.”
“I always laugh when people say the barriers to entry are low to bring UAS into your own company. Whilst that is certainly true in terms of aircraft and training, the support package to make your UAS team functional and box of those 7P’s is a hell of a lot more expensive but absolutely necessary.”
So for well equipped professionals contact ROAVR | UAS. Our creative work can be seen at www.roavr.agency
Human Factors is about understanding human behavior and performance. When applied to aviation operations, Human Factors knowledge is used to optimize the fit between people and the systems in which they work in order to improve safety and performance. ROAVR provide consultancy advise for the installation of safe systems of works, Operational Safety Cases and environmental policy.
