In S6E21 of Sky Commander Academy, we drop you onto your first real construction site mapping job—muddy boots, site trailers, excavators swinging steel, trades everywhere, and a superintendent who cares about schedule, safety, and proof of progress, not your cinematic reel.

This episode walks you from “We’d like some drone mapping” all the way to deliverables the project team actually uses—while you stay safe, legal, and out of the way of very large moving machines.

In this episode:
📥 The first email / phone call – Turning “Can you fly our site?” into clear scope: area, frequency, schedule, no-fly zones, and what “success” looks like to each stakeholder
👷 Stakeholder map: who’s really your client? – GC, owner, surveyor, safety, project manager, site superintendent—who cares about volumes, who cares about photos, and who just wants you not to slow the job down
🏗️ Pre-site planning before you touch a prop – Drawings, site plans, crane locations, laydown areas, adjacent roads/houses, airspace, and how active the site will be when you fly
🦺 Safety & site induction like a grown-up – PPE, sign-in, toolbox talk, “no-go” zones, radio channels, and how to show you respect construction rules before you ask for anything
🚜 Flying around big iron without becoming a hood ornament – Excavators, cranes, dump trucks, telehandlers, concrete pumps: how to stay visible, predictable, and out of their blind spots
🛫 Designing your mapping mission – Altitude, overlap, flight lines, GSD, and when to add a second lower pass for detail shots vs keeping it simple
📍 Ground control & checkpoints (or not) – When you need survey-grade accuracy vs “progress picture” accuracy—and how to coordinate with the site surveyor instead of stepping on their toes
📸 Progress photos that actually help the team – Key angles: entrances, laydown, foundations, structural steel, MEP roofs, parking, neighboring properties, and repeatable “time-lapse” viewpoints
📊 Deliverables by stakeholder – Orthomosaics, DSMs, contours, volume reports, markup PDFs, fly-through videos, and quick PNG exports they can drop into PowerPoint and site meetings
🧾 File naming, sharing & expectations – How to package data so it’s easy to find next month: dates, revisions, versioning, portals vs links, and how long you’ll keep raw data
🗣️ Talking through your first job with the team – A short, confident debrief: what you captured, where accuracy is strongest, any limitations, and ideas for improving future flights
🚀 How construction mapping sets up your BVLOS & utility future – Corridors-in-miniature, moving ground risk, stakeholder juggling, and documentation habits that scream “program-ready,” not “YouTube drone shooter”

If your plan is “show up, send the drone, send a link,” this episode will tighten that up fast.
If you want GCs and project owners to quietly think,
“This pilot understands our site, our schedule, and our risk,”
this is your first-construction-job playbook.

Respect the site. Work with the crew. Deliver maps they actually use.
Prove you can fly it smart—or don’t fly at all.

🌐 SkyCommander.ca
🎧 Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever serious pilots train.

#SkyCommanderAcademy #ConstructionDrones #SiteMapping #ProgressCapture #DroneMapping #UASIntegration #DroneCareers #MissionReady #FlySmart