Austrian Airlines is testing out a new system that uses autonomous drones to inspect its aircraft for paintwork and structural damage. The company says it has been using the drones—supervised by an aircraft technician—to inspect its 36 Airbuses since the middle of the year. It plans to continue the tests until the end of 2019 and expand them to include the airline’s Embraer fleet beginning this month. According to Austrian, drones have cut inspection times of four to ten hours to less than two hours.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/recent-updates/unmanned-vehicles/airline-testing-aircraft-inspection-drones