Stringing, trenching and backfill reconciled against KP chainage. Four hundred and eighty kilometres of right-of-way on one map, with every spread's day measured at the kilometre post it actually happened at.
Capture · Mission 07
The sheet above is a drawing of this. 13 capture waypoints, and every finding called as the aircraft reaches it — scroll sets the target, the mission keeps its own pace, and the page waits for it.
Sector · Pipelines
One pass up a live spread, in the order the work happens: the sidebooms paying a string into the ditch, the joints strung on their skids, the arc burning under the welding habitat, the radiography exclusion the whole spread stops for, and the river the ROW had to drill under — then the unit tracks the trench lip and reads the cap pass, the depth and the coating. Every metre of it landed on the kilometre post it happened at.
The spread reports 3.1 km of ditch. The inspector reports 2.7. Both are describing a right-of-way 480 km long that nobody has seen end to end since the alignment sheet was drawn.
The corridor is flown in blocks and stitched into one georeferenced map with the KP posts on it at 2.2 cm detail, so ditch, string and backfill are read at chainage instead of counted through a truck window.
Trench spoil is paid by volume and estimated by eye. Padding and backfill are the same argument twice, and the ditch is closed before either one gets settled.
Surfaces flown before and after the pass give the trench volume, the spoil windrow and the backfill by KP band — ±1.8 % on the windrow, posted the same day, with the pre-lay surface kept as the record.
Two hundred and fourteen tie-ins, each with a weld map, an NDT result, a coating check and a lowering-in photograph. One missing radiograph found at commissioning means re-excavating a kilometre post.
Each tie-in is a hold point on the KP. The checkpoint will not close without its weld number, its NDT report and its coating holiday test, and the ditch cannot be signed for backfill until it does.
480 km
Right-of-way reconciled to KP chainage every working day
214
Tie-ins gated on weld, NDT and coating evidence
±1.8 %
Trench and backfill volumes against survey control
The program runs on the kilometre post. Every front of the spread — string, ditch, lower-in, backfill — is a chainage on the same map, read daily, before the ground closes over the argument.
Daily, ahead of the spread and behind it
The strip is flown along the right-of-way every working day, so ditch, string and backfill are read at the KP post instead of counted through a truck window. Each front is a chainage on the record by breakfast.
AGL 60M · 1.4CM · ROW 30.0MBlock by block, stitched onto one map
Blocks stitch into one georeferenced map of the whole 480 km with the KP posts on it. The corridor is seen end to end — something nobody has managed since the alignment sheets were drawn.
KP 210–222 · LINES 13 · 2.2CMBefore and after every pass of the ditcher
Surfaces flown either side of the pass give the trench, the spoil windrow and the backfill by KP band, with the pre-lay surface kept as the record. The windrow that was called 1,600 m³ posts at 1,840 m³ the same morning.
VOLUME ±1.8% · POSTED SAME DAYJoint by joint, while the ditch is still open
Pipe position and cover are surveyed in the open ditch, so the as-built alignment sheet is measured rather than redrawn from memory — and the 1.20 m minimum cover is proven before anything hides it.
AS-BUILT ±40MM · COVER 1.20M MINEvery tie-in, before the ditch closes over it
The checkpoint at the bell hole holds the weld number, the NDT report, the coating holiday test and the lowering-in photograph. The ditch cannot be signed for backfill until all of them are in.
TIE-INS 214 · WELDS NDT 100%Neither. The flight does. Open ditch is a chainage band on the daily map — the face reads KP 214+245 off the morning strip — so progress is read at the post, not negotiated at the end of the week.
DITCH FACE · KP 214+245 · READ DAILYTie-in 118, with its evidence attached: the weld number, the radiograph, the coating holiday test and the lowering-in photograph — closed at 11:30, and the ditch could not be signed for backfill a minute earlier.
TIE-IN 118 · CLOSED 11:30 · WITH RTMeasured. The windrow at KP 214 posts at 1,840 m³ against the spread's 1,600 call — 240 m³ of survey at ±1.8 %, on the record the same day, with the pre-lay surface kept so the argument never reopens.
WINDROW 1,840M³ · ±1.8%It gets caught while the ditch is still open. The 06:20 flight reads the ditch 300 mm short of padding at KP 214+300 by 07:40 — padded, lowered in and closed with its RT by 11:30 instead of found at commissioning.
CAUGHT 07:40 · LOWERED 11:30Yes — blocks are flown thirteen lines at a time and stitched into one georeferenced map at 2.2 cm detail with the KP posts on it, while the daily strip covers the working fronts at 1.4 cm. One corridor, one record.
ROW MAP · KP 0–480 · 2.2CM DETAILMeasurements, not reconstructions. The pipe surveyed in the open ditch to ±40 mm, cover proven at 1.20 m minimum, all 214 tie-ins carrying their weld, NDT and coating evidence — the alignment sheets are as-builts in fact.
AS-BUILT ±40MM · NDT 100%Read overnight on a right-of-way like this one: the daily strip, the block map, the trench differences and the tie-in ledger. Three of the 27 profiles wake up to it.
05:50 · SPREAD · KP 214+245
SEQUENCE
Fronts off the morning strip: ditch face at KP 214+245, the road bore holding its own clock at 214+294, tie-in 118 gated at 214+300 — the lower-in crew works to the checkpoint, not the calendar.
CITES: ROW STRIP · KP LEDGER · TIE-IN 118
07:45 · KP 214+300 · BELL HOLE
EVIDENCE
Tie-in 118 does not close on a promise: the ditch reads 300 mm short of padding as of 07:40, and backfill stays locked until the weld number, the RT and the holiday test are in the checkpoint.
CITES: TRENCH DIFF 07:40 · CHECKPOINT 118 · NDT REGISTER
06:55 · ROW · KP 0–480
EXPOSURE
Spoil is paid by volume and this month it is measured: the windrow at KP 214 reads 1,840 m³ against a 1,600 call — the 240 m³ difference is survey at ±1.8 %, and the claim cites the flight it came from.
CITES: WINDROW DIFF · ±1.8% · CLAIM REGISTER
Survey-grade 2D maps from any drone flight
1.8CM DETAIL · 214 HA/FLIGHTEarthworks quantities and stockpile volumes reconciled against design
VOLUME ±1.8% · NIGHTLYStructured gates that catch it while it's fixable
GATES/PHASE 12Every measurement states the accuracy it was made to
FIX ±1.2CM · SATS 28Maps processed on the controller, in the field, offline
40MIN CAPTURE→MAP · OFFLINEFigures are a specimen record, drawn to the platform's own conventions.
Send us a KP range and the alignment sheets — we will fly the block, difference the trench, and hand you the windrow volumes and the tie-in ledger.