Long-time miner Leon Mackrell has found a new way to be a miner without getting his hands dirty.
The Devonport-based grandfather saw an opportunity to send drones in and around mines instead of exposing men to danger and dirt.
“I went and bought a drone,” he said, adding that he’d always been interested in models since he was a lad.
“I wanted one with a decent camera and started filming sunsets around Devonport.”
Because he’d been in mining for 12 to 15 years, he realised his drone could go safely where men in the past risked their lives, and where expensive machinery was even now being lost and buried for good.
“I was underground one day. They rehabilitate the ground all the time by putting mesh to stop the ground falling in.
“I thought it was an ideal opportunity to put a drone in, take a look around, analyse the film and see what was going on.”
The mine where he works now has lost a couple of remote-controlled loaders in the stopes (underground holes where material has been extracted). The company sends the $1.5 million machines into stopes because it’s too dangerous for men. The loaders have been buried under cave-ins and are lost for good.
“If you could look first, you have a good idea of what’s going on in a stope.”
Mr Mackrell is investing in a more expensive drone with software which does three-dimensional mapping. He aims to film mining stockpiles, which are currently inspected by machines and a team of men crawling up the piles.
His new drone will be able to download film for the software to analyse.
“I’ve been speaking lately with surveyors at different mine sites and they think it’s a good idea.”
He took one mining manager to the Spray Tunnel in Zeehan, which is now a tourist attraction.
“I put the spotlights on the drone and showed him what it could do. He was impressed.
“I want to set the business up so my grandchildren can get into it.”
He graduated from last year’s first North-West Coast drone operators course with a certificate, and decided to set up a business, named by his five-year-old grandson Lachlan as Drone Network Tasmania.
“I was thinking about a window of opportunity when the course was coming up and the more I thought about it, the bigger the window got.
“I’m hoping to do work with dams. You can get up to six hours of battery life under water. I’d like to do bridge pylons, boat mooring and stuff like that.”
With his wife and grandson backing him, he’ll never find his drones being bores.
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