Aligned EngineeringCivil engineering and drafting, Aloha, Oregon
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C-109 · Agencies, primes, and property owners

Drone mapping and inspection, flown by the engineer

FAA Part 107 aerial photos, progress records, and measurements from a DJI Air 3S, flown by the engineer on the project and used directly in the design and the inspection record.

Flown by the engineer, not a subcontractor. The aerial data goes straight into Civil 3D and into the daily report, which is the point: one visit, one flight, and the roof frame, the trench, or the site overview is on record the same day. No handoff to an outside operator and no waiting on someone else's deliverable.

What we use it for

  • Progress records

    The same waypoints flown on every visit, so photos compare frame to frame and disputes settle from the record.

  • Inspection angles a ground camera cannot reach

    Trench depth and bedding from above, roofs, facades, the far side of a stockpile. The 70 mm medium telephoto camera does the close work without a ladder or scaffold.

  • Measurements for design

    A square-on elevation at eave height, a roof plane for a tie-in, a site overview to lay out a utility corridor.

  • Mapping

    Orthomosaics and photogrammetric surfaces for planning and design use. Where boundary or control-grade topographic survey is required, we coordinate with a licensed land surveyor.

  • Volumes

    Stockpile measurement and cut and fill estimates from photogrammetric models.

  • Stills and video for the record

    50 megapixel stills and 4K HDR video for project files, reports, and presentations.

From real projects

Every frame below was captured on an Aligned Engineering job and used in the engineering that followed.

Straight-down aerial view of two apartment buildings under construction with a site road and parked vehicles
Grant Street Apartments, Sheridan. September 9, 2026. Site overview and progress record. One frame captures the buildings, the staging, and the utility corridor. This is the raw material for an orthomosaic.
Straight-down drone view of a dump truck being loaded by an excavator at a utility trench in a city street
Grant Street utility trench, Sheridan. September 9, 2026. Construction progress documentation. Straight-down capture of excavation and haul-off, repeatable from the same waypoint on every visit.
Oblique drone view looking down into an open utility trench with the crew working inside it
Grant Street utility trench, Sheridan. September 9, 2026. Inspection angles a ground camera cannot reach. Trench depth, bedding, and crew position in one shot, without anyone standing at the edge of the excavation.
Straight-down drone view of a street intersection with a fresh utility trench cut through the pavement
Grant Street at the intersection, Sheridan. September 2026. Utility corridor and limits of work. Alignment, pavement cut, and traffic control layout in a single plan-view image that drops straight onto the drawings.
Straight-on photograph of a row of new two-story apartment units with blue siding, taken from the street side
Grant Street Apartments, Sheridan. October 2, 2026. A square-on elevation of the finished siding, from the same height and distance as the earlier frames.
Square-on drone photograph of the front of a yellow one and a half story house with two dormers, taken at eave height
Porch addition, Aloha. September 10, 2026. Front elevation for the drawing set. A level, square-on elevation from a stable hover at a height no tripod reaches.
Overhead drone view of a residential roof with dormers, surrounded by mature trees
Porch addition, Aloha. September 10, 2026. Roof plane and tie-in from above, photographed for the porch design and checked against tape measurements.
Drone photograph of the engineer in a safety vest flying the drone beside the homeowner in front of the house, with ladders set against the eave
Porch addition, Aloha. September 10, 2026. Engineer and owner on site. The tie-in gets photographed from the air while the ladder work happens below. One visit, one flight.

Equipment and certification

PilotFAA Part 107 remote pilot certificate. LAANC authorization where controlled airspace requires it.
AircraftDJI Air 3S
Cameras1-inch CMOS Hasselblad wide camera and 70 mm medium telephoto
Photo50 megapixel stills, 10-bit D-Log M
Video4K at 60 frames per second HDR, 4K at 100 frames per second slow motion
Flight timeUp to about 45 minutes per battery
SensingOmnidirectional obstacle sensing with forward LiDAR, DJI AirSense ADS-B receiver