I swore off drone mapping for site progress pics until a 3 acre job outside Amarillo changed my mind

Terry Hernandez · 2026-09-29T23:05:05.315229+00:00

Six months ago I was dead set on doing my monthly progress walks with a camera and a measuring wheel. The wheel takes me about 2 hours on a job this size, and half the time the owner's rep calls me two days later asking why the dirt pile on the north side looks smaller in the photos than it did last month. I kept telling the super that drones were a toy for realtors and YouTube guys, not something a crew actually needed. Then a buddy who runs dirt work outside Amarillo told me he flies a $500 drone with a phone app and stitches the shots into a simple grid, and the guy has been doing this for 30 years. I figured what the heck and had him come out on a Tuesday to show me on 3 acres we were rough grading. It took him 12 minutes to fly the whole site, and the stitched image showed two things my wheel walk never caught, a drainage swale that was 8 inches off from the plan and a pile of topsoil sitting where a future pad was supposed to be. I have not grabbed the measuring wheel since. For those of you doing this daily, are you flying your own drone or hiring it out, and what app are you using to stitch the shots?

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I swore off drone mapping for site progress pics until a 3 acre job outside Amarillo changed my mind | Construction Tech - Talk Freely