Dynamic Flight Planning Optimizes Acquisition

Surdex has implemented Dynamic Flight Planning (DFP) to provide our crews with optimal flight plans every day. Our DFP uses airport, airplane performance and weather data to calculate the shortest path to capture sites. Traditional planning is done before a project starts and remains fixed throughout a project; by optimizing flight plans daily, flight time is reduced by an average of 15%. This tool significantly improves acquisition efficiency for large projects like the USDA’s SLI and NRI programs, with tens of thousands of sites. The video shows the steps of the automatic flight line calculations. The processing takes less than a second, so the video is slowed down in order to demonstrate the process.