Our Work
The main goal of Star Air is to build amazing drones that help the planet.
Our focus is on Firefighting, supporting nature science and scouting for illegal fishing and hunting.
If you’re part of a science program and think that drones could be of help to you please get in touch, we LOVE a good challenge. Send us an email with your current challenges and we’ll see what we can come up with, no charge to you.
Newsletter: Click Here
Wildlife Counting
Drones are an amazing way to get a better view of the land. You can cover a lot of ground in a short period of time. We’re currently working with Transport Canada to get permission to fly long range. Currently there are laws in place that limit the distance you can fly your drone. The drones can travel up to 30kms away, but are limited to close range. You must keep the drone in visual range, which is not very far.
Star Air Vision has earned the level of Advanced RPAS and we have drones that can cover a lot of ground. Please get in touch with us to find out what we can do for you. If you’re not local to Vancouver Island, we can train you to be legal in your area and get you flying. We are also able to travel anywhere in the world with our drones but you’ll need to get in touch with us for a quote.
In 2020 we had a chance to fly at Mt Arrowsmith with permission from the park.
In the photo above you can see the Marmot sitting on the rock. Here’s a zoomed in shot:
The drone that was used for this observation weighs less than 250 grams and will fit in the palm of your hand. It’s a perfect drone for not disturbing wildlife. Animals that are as small as Marmots are not afraid or concerned about the drone. Marmots spend a huge amount of their time watching for predators and have good reason to be afraid of anything new to them. We’re really glad that we’re able to monitor wildlife without any kind of disruption to them.
Drone Consulting
Drones are an amazing tool for science. They can travel into terrain that people can’t. It’s easy to get high resolution photos and videos.
Where it gets tough is deciding on which drone to get. What licenses do you need and do you need to register the drone? It’s not just the cost of the drone you have to worry about. How many minutes of flight time do you need per flight? This will determine what batteries you need and how many? What about charging the batteries in the field? Can the drone fly in the rain or bad weather?
If you’ve got questions about drones in anyway, we can help. We have consulting fees as low as $20 via email. We can help with building your own drone, how to get certified in Canada and the US. We can help with planning which drone would work best for your needs and so much more.
We’re an open source company, in 2021 we will be launching a blog where people can ask questions without consulting fees. There will be articles on which drone should be used for which job, how to get the right license and what kind of costs are involved.
Drone Flight Training
Want to offer your staff and volunteers something amazing? Why not get them some hands on flight training with drones. We have a fleet of aircraft that are perfect for the first time flyer. No experience is needed and you’ll walk away with a whole new outlook on what drones can do.
Please get in contact with us to discuss class options.
Drone Engineering
Designing and building is a constant here at Star Air. From solar powered long range gliders to racing drones. Coming in the near future is a proof of concept for a firefighting drone. As we move into 2021 Star Air will be moving into heavy lift autonomous drones. Just imagine a drone that can fly your gear up the mountain so the staff and volunteers don’t have to. We will be able to deliver just about anything up that 4 hour hike to the field location. We might even be able to sneak a bottle of wine into the payload (at not extra cost).
Remote Cameras
Something that drones have brought to the world is a need to transmit high definition video over long distances.
We’re currently working on long range camera traps that can send photos over great distances. But it’s not easy. The concept is easy, we can transmit the WIFI signal over 20 kms away but how do we power it in the field? How do we keep the costs down to something practical.
Follow along with us on this journey as we look for the best way to make this dream happen. We’ve sent medium to low resolution photos over 5kms away using solar power and timed data transfer.
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Solar Powered Wifi Repeater
This project is the heart of our big plan. With solar powered wifi repeaters out in the world we can get data from just about anywhere. Mesh networking is were you take multiple repeaters and daisy chain them together. Which ever repeater has the best signal is the one that sends the data, they can hand off data to each other and transmit message over a very long range.
Although we won’t be able to watch netflix on this network from the top of Mt Arrowsmith any time soon… we WILL be able to transmit photos from camera traps in real time.