Indoor and confined space drone maker Flyability’s annual user conference will have an African flavour this year, with Darryl Epstein, managing director drone-based civil engineering start-up Delta Scan, set to present a paper.

Held in Lausanne, Switzerland, the Flyability User Conference brings together a community of inspections and surveying professionals from the ecosystem of industries served by the company’s products – which include power generation, oil & gas, maritime, sewers, cement, and mining – to exchange best practices and to steer the future development of the commercial indoor drone industry.

It is a remarkable way to keep tabs with its client bas by Flyability; and – judging by the way tickets have flown off the market this year – it is very popular with users and prospective clients.

According to the organiser, this year’s event; which is set for March 6 and 7; is already sold out.

Darryl’s presentation will be titles In the Deep: the Elios at Work in Mining; where he will share experiences of how his start-up use Flaybility’s flagship drone, the Elios 3, for mining applications – from challenging ventilation system inspections to moving through ore passes.

He will also touch on how he and his team have adapted to the complex variety of projects they take on – including an emergency call out for an urban gas explosion.

“We are focusing on the segment in the mining industry where we have had the experience of using the Elios 3 to map mine processing infrastructure, storage infrastructure as well as our extensive work in the underground; like shafts and ore passes,” said Darryl.

“We will also be showcasing the work we do, the use cases we have unlocked, the benefits, time savings, cost savings and how we are transforming the mining industry through the work we do.”

One of those use cases might be how Delta Scan used drone technology to establish what happened on the morning of September 11 in 2022 at Jaggersfontein Mine in South Africa’s Free State province, where the mine’s tailings dam burst and flooded 300 homes, displacing people and destroying property and utilities infrastructure in its wake.

The more recent case might not have happened at a mine, but the start-up’s drones did go underground into the Johannesburg tunnels when a whole section of Lillian Ngoyi Street suddenly exploded on the evening of July 19 last year and sent cars flying into the air, and people scurrying for cover.

Delta Scan offers drone-based solutions to clients mostly in the engineering space, which include inspection technology and digital analysis.

This will not be Darryl’s first rodeo on the international scene; he was also in Italy in May last year, speaking at the prestigious World Conference on the Management of Industrial Structures, Stacks, and Chimneys, hosted by the International Committee for Industrial Construction (CICIND).

We’re all rooting for you, Darryl.

Go break a leg.