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Oil rig inspection is a dangerous business. Traditionally roughnecks dangled from a wire, in gale-force winds if needed, to manually log wear and tear on the girders. Assessments include giant chimneys — called flare stacks — that belch fire during million-dollar-a-day shutdowns.
Increasingly the industry has found that swapping abseiling humans for small drones equipped with high-definition and thermal cameras can save time, cut costs and improve safety.
"These are large metal structures in a big pond of seawater. They will rust a lot, particularly in the North Sea where rigs designed to last 20 years are lasting more than 40. They are continually getting cracks and physical damage from the waves and need to be refurbished and fixed," says Chris Blackford, Sky Futures' chief operations officer.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 24 2015, @07:09PM
Hiking and camping, or just heading out into the wilderness on a motorcycle - I've mostly just followed my nose. If I plan to spend more than a day or two, then the planning gets a little more serious. In all honesty, most of my hiking and camping have been in areas with plenty of water. I'm not - uhhh - mentally adjusted to long term survival in the deserts. A guy can carry a lot of food with him, if he doesn't have to also carry combat gear. In well watered areas of the earth, food can always be scavenged.
Wandering into any wilderness without a map or a plan is worse than foolhardy, and you know that. But, the plan has always been a "rough plan" for me.
As for finding my bones - ehh - I don't much care about that. We all leave this world eventually. It's usually unplanned, but we all leave eventually. Leaving my bones for the wildlife to gnaw on seems as good as being tossed into a hole in the ground, don't you think?
In all seriousness, I'm not the Daniel Boone that I may have implied, but I have trekked fairly deep into the mountains in Alaska and much of the western US. You will note my chosen nickname, of course. I spent my entire summer after junior year of high school in the woods. All summer long, I only interacted with maybe a dozen people. Memorial Day weekend was my undoing - everyone came out of the city for picnics and barbeques, and they stumbled over me, LOL. Ehhh - I shared in the picnic, then rode back into town to see the police chief, then started my senior year of high school.