599 GUIDES · REGULATIONS, PRICES, CRAFT · PAGE 4/29

Professional drone guides — page 4

EU regulations, real prices, mission preparation: concrete answers before commissioning a drone service.

• Heat islands and canopy plans: at what scale to measure, and what the drone adds to the satelliteSentinel-3 sees the kilometre, Landsat the hundred metres, ECOSTRESS seventy: enough to rank a conurbation, not enough to arbitrate a schoolyard. What a thermal and photogrammetric drone survey brings to a municipal canopy plan, its limits, and 2026 prices excl. VAT.
• Drone and hot-mix asphalt plant: ICPE heading 2521, mixing tower, silos and aggregate stockpilesA hot-mix asphalt plant falls under ICPE heading 2521 in the registration regime, runs non-stop through the paving season and stands over thirty metres tall. What a drone documents — silo and bitumen-tank insulation, stack, corrosion, aggregate and millings stockpile volumes — and what it does not certify. 2026 prices, excl. VAT.
• Drone and crushing-screening plant: ICPE heading 2515, mobile units, conical stockpiles and dustA crushing and screening plant falls under ICPE heading 2515, classified by installed machine power, with a separate regime for temporary mobile units. What the drone inspects on the plant, how it measures each conical stockpile, and what it does not measure on the dust side. 2026 method and prices (excl. VAT).
• Drones at a brick and tile works: tunnel kiln, dryers, chimney and clay quarryClay-product manufacturing falls under ICPE heading 2523 and moves into the IED regime under heading 3350 above 75 t/day. What a drone documents at a working brick and tile works — roofs, chimney, tunnel-kiln casing, dryers, clay quarry — and what it does not replace. 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Drone and oilseed crushing plant: silos, hexane extraction, ATEX and roofsAn oilseed crushing plant combines grain silos, flammable-solvent extraction and lagged oil tanks. What a drone survey documents from outside the ATEX zones — roofs, columns, pipe racks, meal stockpiles — and what it does not measure. 2026 method and prices (excl. VAT).
• Drone and rice farming in Camargue: vigour, red rice and flying near a nature reserveCamargue grows 98% of France's rice, rotated with durum wheat to desalinate the soil. What a multispectral survey spots on a paddy field — vigour, red rice, plot flatness — and the delta's own constraint: the nature reserve. 2026 method and prices (excl. VAT).
• Drone and Adour kiwifruit: detecting Psa before symptoms, managing frost, pricesThe South-West grows 75% of France's kiwifruit, under Psa surveillance since 2010. What a multispectral survey spots before bacterial canker symptoms and on orchard vigour, and why spring frost is especially feared here. 2026 method and prices (excl. VAT).
• Lavender and lavandin by drone: phytoplasma decline, vigour, bloom mapping, price27,558 ha of lavender and lavandin in France in 2024, down since the 2021 peak. Stolbur phytoplasma decline (no curative treatment) and what a drone survey adds to spot it early, map vigour and document bloom extent for a partner beekeeper. Method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• AOP chestnut orchards by drone: gall wasp, multispectral mapping and Cévennes terraces, priceThe Châtaigne d'Ardèche AOP (6,000 ha, 5,000 t/year, 197 municipalities) went through the chestnut gall wasp crisis, now receding thanks to biological control. What a multispectral drone survey documents on the canopy, and why it suits dry-stone terraced orchards better than any ground method. Method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Botrytis and noble rot by drone: mapping the risk, timing the successive picksThe same fungus, Botrytis cinerea, ruins an ordinary harvest or elevates a Sauternes, an Alsace late harvest or a sweet Jurançon. What a multispectral drone survey reveals about its spread, plot by plot, to target sorting or time the successive picks, plus 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Truffle orchard by drone: spotting the brûlé, mapping host tree vigour, priceThe brûlé — the bare circular patch around a productive truffle oak or hazel — shows up from above. What an RGB, multispectral or night-thermal drone flight adds for a professional truffle orchard: method, limits and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Horse stud farms and equestrian centres by drone: pastures, laminitis risk, flight altitude, real estate valueA horse stud farm, equestrian centre or livery yard has its own drone needs: spotting grass flushes that raise laminitis risk, flying without stressing the horses, and showcasing an equestrian property for sale. Method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Wolf, bear, lynx and livestock: what a thermal drone brings after an attack, and what it does not replaceAfter a predator attack, finding scattered animals and carcasses on mountain pasture before the official damage report: what a thermal drone brings, and why drone hazing remains a regulated practice. Method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Nursing homes: drone thermal imaging to prepare for heatwaves and winterMandatory cool room, heatwave plan, tertiary energy obligations: how an aerial thermal survey finds a nursing home's weak roof spots before summer and prioritises renovation work. Method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Drone spraying in banana plantations against black Sigatoka: 2026 legal framework, method, price (French Antilles)Black Sigatoka in Guadeloupe and Martinique: up to 12 to 13 fungicide treatments a year, manual leaf-stripping since aerial spraying was banned in 2012. What the 29 May 2026 order now allows by drone, its technical and product limits, and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• SPANC and onsite wastewater systems: what a drone survey prepares — and what it never concludesSpotting a direct discharge into a ditch, locating outfalls, framing a drainfield with thermal imaging: what a drone flight adds to a French SPANC inspection campaign, its legal limits and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Level crossing safety diagnostic: what a drone survey adds (sight distance, longitudinal profile, traffic) and what it costsRoad safety diagnostics of level crossings have been mandatory for French road authorities since 2021 and are valid five years. Sight distances under the 1991 order, longitudinal profile, traffic moment: what a drone survey measures, its limits, and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• Detect and avoid (DAA): how a drone operator proves it controls the mid-air collision riskObservers, ADS-B in, FLARM, ground radar, traffic information service, geo-awareness: what each building block actually sees, what it misses, and the thresholds SORA Annex D sets for each air risk class. The real bottleneck of a BVLOS corridor mission.
• French farmland consolidation (AFAFE): what a drone survey brings to the file, priceAFAFE, France's rural land consolidation: run by the département since the law of 23 February 2005, systematic environmental assessment, connected works decided by the local land commission. What a drone survey evidences — hedge and ditch lengths, farm tracks, before/after condition — its limits, and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).
• CAP satellite checks (area monitoring system): what a drone survey adds on an amber or red-flagged parcel, 2026 pricesSince the 2023 CAP, French farm parcels are monitored by Sentinel imagery and flagged green, amber or red in Telepac. What a dated drone survey actually documents, what it does not replace (geotagged photo, dialogue with the paying agency), and 2026 price ranges.
• Restoring river continuity at a weir or mill dam: what a drone survey brings to the project, priceFrench list 1 and list 2 watercourse classification, the national barrier register, weir removal or fish pass: what a drone photogrammetric survey documents at a barrier, its impoundment and its sediment — and what it cannot measure. Method and 2026 prices (excl. VAT).