The wrong first question is "which drone is best". The useful one is what the site actually hides from the air.
Roofs, open yards and legal airspace belong to an aircraft. Recurring inspection on the same pad belongs to a dock. Plant rooms, stairs, loading docks under cover and the ground under canopy belong to a handheld walk. We quote the stack that closes those three, not a single airframe that looks complete in a brochure.
Name the job before you name the kit
Write down the capture, not the shopping list.
- What the client measures: volumes, as-built interiors, change on a corridor, thermal on a substation
- How often you will be back: once, weekly, or on a trigger
- What you cannot fly: steel sheds, live plant, dense trees, public-road facades
- What the file has to be: orthomosaic, colourised LiDAR, a MapShare link, CAD sheets
- The same grid for every sensor: we put AUSCORS NTRIP on most Australian kits
If interiors are most of the day, start on foot. If the mission is the same pad every Monday, start with a dock. If you need L3-class LiDAR or a heavy payload, start with Matrice 400.
Three paths, not four drone classes
| Path | Use it when | Kit we put on the quote |
|---|---|---|
| Crewed aircraft | Open ground, payload choice, one-off or irregular flights | Matrice 400 for LiDAR and heavy sensors. Matrice 4-class when the camera is already in the airframe |
| Docked repeat | Same site, same mission, no crew on the pad | Dock 3 with Matrice 4D or 4TD |
| Handheld walk | GPS-denied, under canopy, interiors, the join to the drone block | SHARE C1 indoors with control. C1 Pro when the walk has to sit on the same corrections as the flight |
Cargo VTOL and specialised spray aircraft are different jobs. They are not how we spec a survey or as-built site. Keep them off this chooser.
The ground gap the airframe will not close
A drone does not fail when it cannot see a plant room. The method fails if you pretend the flight was the whole site.
Walk those dead zones on purpose with C1 or C1 Pro. Relative under 1 cm on a clean walk. Absolute under 5 cm with RTK. C1 Pro is the mixed-site unit: built-in NTRIP RTK so the handheld cloud can join the aerial on the same AUSCORS mount. C1 is enough when the day never leaves cover and you already occupy control.
How we pair them: drone mapping plus handheld SLAM. Field merge: air and ground into one cloud. Model routing: C1 vs C1 Pro.
Live prices: C1 from $6,199, C1 Pro $7,999 AUD incl GST. In stock, available to buy now. Twelve months of MapShare Studio ships with both.
Ecosystem, compliance, cost: only after the path is right
Software, batteries, FlightHub, local spares and CASA-aware ops matter. They do not rescue the wrong class.
Dock programs need a qualified pad, connectivity and an owner for alerts. Heavy-lift programs need payload mass you actually fly, not a 6 kg envelope you never fill. Handheld programs need a walk plan and a join check, not a scanner left in the van.
Total cost follows utilisation. A dock that flies twice is expensive. A Matrice 400 that never carries L3 is expensive. A C1 Pro that never walks the drone's blind spots is a paperweight.
Plan as if a second site will appear. Standardise the grid, the handover and the delivery link first. Then add airframes.
Talk through the job if the brief mixes a flight, a repeat pad and rooms you cannot fly. We name the gap, then name the kit. Matrice 400 · Dock 3 · C1 Pro
Read next: Matrice 400 vs Matrice 4D · scope the lift and the dead zones · how SLAM works
FAQ
Can I skip the handheld if I already own a Matrice?
Only if the deliverable is roofs, open ground and anything you can legally fly. Interiors, under canopy and plant still need a walk.
Does Dock 3 replace a crewed Matrice 400?
No. Dock 3 with 4D or 4TD is repeat visual or thermal on a prepared pad. M400 is payload, LiDAR and irregular heavy jobs. Many programs run both.
Will C1 Pro data sit on the same grid as the drone?
When both use the same AUSCORS NTRIP mount (or an agreed project grid) and the handheld traverse is clean, yes. Overlay a known edge before you call it done.
