Wraith Aerial
Wraith Aerial is an aerial security and thermal drone inspection company for rural property in Sonoma County, California. It is pre-launch: FAA Part 107 certification and insurance have to be completed before it can fly commercially.
pre-launch wraithaerial.com
What it is
Aerial security and thermal drone inspection for rural property in Sonoma County — perimeter overwatch, thermal sweeps, and inspection flights over the acreage a person cannot easily walk.
What it does
- Thermal and visual sweeps of large rural parcels.
- Property, roof, and infrastructure inspection from the air.
- Currently pre-launch while FAA Part 107 certification and insurance are completed.
How it works
Rural Sonoma County parcels are the problem this exists for. Acreage that takes an hour to walk takes minutes to sweep from the air, and a thermal camera sees things at 2am that a person with a flashlight does not: a person in a treeline, a smouldering spot in dry grass, livestock in the wrong field.
The intended work is perimeter overwatch on large parcels, thermal sweeps, and inspection flights over roofs, outbuildings, and infrastructure that would otherwise need a ladder or a climb.
It is genuinely not open for business yet: FAA Part 107 certification and insurance have to be finished first. Until they are, the site takes waitlist addresses and nothing else. Flying commercially before either is in place is illegal, so the pre-launch label on this page is the literal status and not a soft launch.
The customers this is aimed at are landowners, ranchers, and vineyard operators with more ground than they can watch, plus the people who insure and maintain what sits on it. For them the alternative to a drone is a helicopter, a lift, or a long walk — all of which cost more than a flight and none of which can be repeated weekly.
Thermal is the part that does the real work. Visible-light photography from the air is easy and largely already solved by a phone on a stick; a thermal sensor is what turns a picture into information, because heat is what distinguishes an animal from a rock at night and a wet spot in a roof from a stain on it.