LHW Partnership LLP has held a CAA Commercial Operations Approval Drone Licence since early 2015, and in 2016 was augmented with an additional Operational Safety Case approval zone of 20 metres to operate in restricted areas that permits the use of UAVs (drones) in areas that the normal 50m area of control will not permit without extensive prior notifications and additional resource.

This necessitated constructing an aircraft with dual redundancy on all critical aspects including power supply, GPS, flight controller, and ESC, motors / propellers emergency parachute to satisfy the CAA that the reduced area of control was acceptable. LHW Partnership LLP designed, specified, constructed and commissioned the UAV to meet the required standard.

Since 2014 LHW has recorded several hundred hours of flights, and undertaken numerous assignments for commercial and private clients across the UK. 

LHW Partnership can undertake Visual Still & Video, and additionally Infra Red video and stills for scientific review.

The standard CAA approval allows the use of drones with control of a 50-metre area around the drone. Control means the people within the area are under the instruction of the pilot. In rural areas this control area is realistic, but for inspecting more urban areas, this will often mean that there are roads and other pathways that will need control. This is often impractical.

With a twenty-metre control area this equates to 16% of the area of control for a 50 metre approval.

This means most buildings can be inspected.

For buildings where a 20-metre approval is still not acceptable, then LHW has other solutions including extendable poles and hand-held photography. 

CAA Registered OSC Aircraft

Hexacopter Tarot T960 Frame

Pixhawk 2 Processor/Contoller wiith Dual inpependant Telemetry, GPS, Dual iMU and l Redundancy on all critical parameters including  power feed, propellor guards. 

6 x E1200 with  4216 motor and sine-wave drive ESC and 17" propellers

Gremsy T3 3 axis Camera Gimbal

Connex Amimon Video feed

2 x 5,000 mAH Lithium Ion battery pack

Max weight sub 7 kG 

Parachute fitted that stops propellors and auto lands in event of an incident

Retractable undercarriage

Mavic Pro /Hasselblad 20mp 

Yuneec H520 Inspection Aircraft

Parrot Anafi Upward inpsection UAV

Cameras & Solutions

Wiris Workswell 2 IR Camera (dual visual & IR) Flir Tau2 640 x 512 pixel

Sony A6000 Camera

Panasonic Gh4 Camera

Time lapse Camera

Vehicle Mount Gimbal for Infra Red & Visual Recording

Pole Mount (10m) for roof insoection work sub 20m

Stabilised handheld gimbal for video (Visual & IR)

Panorama Imaging

HD Video, Images and 360 degree  panorama images can be prepared with the Yuneec Typhoon H520 drone covered under the CAA 50metre approval