so ive been doing smaller property surveys with my mavic 2 pro but got asked to map about 800 acres for a solar farm project. never done anything this big before and wondering about the best approach

was thinking multiple flights obviously but should i stick with dronedeploy for planning or switch to something else? also worried about battery management and keeping everything consistent across multiple days if weather doesnt cooperate. the client wants orthomosaic and elevation data so accuracy is pretty important

anyone done projects this scale before? feeling a bit overwhelmed tbh

800 acres is definitely doable but youll want to break it into smaller chunks. i usually do 150-200 acre sections max to keep flight times reasonable and make sure i can get good overlap between sections

for that size id probably use litchi or ugcs for flight planning since they handle large grids better than dronedeploy in my experience. make sure you have plenty of ground control points spread out and consider renting an rtk setup if the client budget allows for it

just finished a 600 acre job last month actually. biggest thing is weather consistency - try to fly everything within a few days if possible or youll get weird lighting differences in the final mosaic. also bring way more batteries than you think youll need, i went through 12 batteries across 3 flights and barely finished before losing light