WiseSkys – Aerial Photography and Services

Heat, Humidity, and Battery Performance: Summer Drone Ops in the South

Flying commercial UAS missions in the southern summer means dealing with heat and humidity that affects battery performance, electronics longevity, and pilot endurance in ways that don't show up until you're already in the field.

July 28, 2026 — Jeremy Yates

BVLOS: What It Is, Why It Matters, and Where Commercial UAS Is Headed

Beyond Visual Line of Sight — BVLOS — is the single most transformative capability in commercial UAS operations. The ability to fly a drone beyond the pilot’s unaided visual range opens entire categories of work …

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July 28, 2026 — Jeremy Yates

Flying in Controlled Airspace Without an Internet Connection: How FlightDeck’s Airspace Checker Works

Cloud-based airspace tools require connectivity to work. Rural tower inspection sites frequently don't have it. FlightDeck's Airspace Checker runs against locally stored FAA data — it answers the authorization question with no cell signal required.

July 21, 2026 — Jeremy Yates

Operations Over People: What Part 107 Actually Allows and How to Stay Compliant

The ability to fly a drone over people is one of the most commercially valuable — and most frequently misunderstood — capabilities in the Part 107 rulebook. Events, real estate, construction sites, public spaces, urban …

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July 21, 2026 — Jeremy Yates

How Wind Gusts Affect Tower Inspection Drones Differently Than Mapping Drones

Published wind limits are a starting point, not an endpoint. Tower inspection operations in gusty conditions carry risks that don't show up in a drone's spec sheet — and they're different from the risks a mapping mission faces in the same wind.

July 14, 2026 — Jeremy Yates

Night Time UAS Operations Under Part 107: Rules, Requirements, and Real-World Tips

Night UAS operations under Part 107 changed significantly with the FAA’s 2021 regulatory update. What previously required a specific waiver is now permitted for certificated Part 107 pilots — but with requirements that many pilots …

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July 14, 2026 — Jeremy Yates

Closing Out a Project Right: Archiving, Invoicing, and Your Flight History

Project closeout is where flight records either get preserved properly or disappear into a tangle of old spreadsheets. FlightDeck's Combine and Archive tool merges completed project data into your master history and resets the system for the next job.

July 10, 2026 — Jeremy Yates

How Multi-Threaded Upload Saves Field Time on Large Tower Inspection Jobs

Uploading hundreds of photos from a rural tower site on intermittent cell signal is where a lot of field time disappears. FlightDeck's S3 upload system uses multiple concurrent workers and a persistent manifest so that interrupted uploads resume exactly where they left off.

July 7, 2026 — Jeremy Yates

4th of July & the 250th: What Drone Pilots Need to Know Before Flying at Dusk

July 4, 2026 isn’t just Independence Day — it’s the 250th anniversary of the United States. The Semiquincentennial. Every major city, countless small towns, and millions of people will be outside, looking up, celebrating with …

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July 1, 2026 — Jeremy Yates

What Is Geoid Undulation and Why Does Your Drone Altitude Depend on It?

Your drone records altitude relative to the WGS84 ellipsoid. Google Earth displays terrain relative to the geoid. That gap — called geoid undulation — is why camera icons sometimes appear underground in Google Earth, and why FlightDeck's Geoid Calculator exists.

June 30, 2026 — Jeremy Yates