Aerial Production Services

What Aerial Production Services does

Aerial Production Services (APS), founded in 2014 by Dave Sotiros and headquartered in Crofton, Maryland, is a privately held U.S. drone services company operating across three industrial verticals: oil and gas, telecommunications infrastructure, and construction. The company provides aerial inspection, monitoring, and documentation services using a fleet of drones equipped with DJI Matrice aircraft, Optical Gas Imaging (OGI) cameras, SeekOps emissions sensors, and ancillary tools from Leica Geosystems, MicaSense, ICI, and GeoCue. Its service portfolio includes leak detection and quantification, asset digitization, right-of-way monitoring, corrosion inspection, tower inspection with 3D modeling, and construction progress documentation, including 360-degree interior capture. The company is an approved vendor for American Tower, Crown Castle, and SBA Communications and serves enterprise customers including Dominion Energy, BGE, Gulfport, and Parnell Consultants.

APS has logged 40,000+ sites flown across 49 U.S. states, with 35,000 inspections performed specifically in oil and gas. In 2021, the company achieved a critical regulatory milestone by securing a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) waiver through a partnership with Iris Automation, enabling point-to-point pipeline inspections and a 350% improvement in inspection frequency for clients switching from satellite and airplane-based methods. The BVLOS capability reportedly reduced pipeline leak reporting timelines from four weeks to four days and increased per-crew coverage area by approximately 3x.

The company monetizes through professional services engagements structured as custom, project-based contracts with multi-year cadences. Sales are driven by direct enterprise field sales, where APS designs project plans, conducts proof-of-concept demonstrations, and deploys specialized pilots (each dedicated to a single vertical) to client sites nationwide. Pilots and ground crew operate as a vertically specialized workforce, with separate teams for oil and gas, telecommunications, and construction. Pricing is quote-based and not publicly disclosed. The company has no disclosed external funding, no parent company, and remains founder-owned.

Name

Aerial Production Services

Legal name

Aerial Production Services, Inc.

Website

https://flyaps.io

Company type

Private

Founded year

2014

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Aerial Production Services is a privately held U.S. drone services company founded in 2014 that provides aerial inspection, leak detection, and asset digitization for oil and gas, telecommunications infrastructure, and construction enterprises, holding FAA BVLOS waiver authority and approved-vendor status with major tower operators.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Aerial Drone Inspection Services

NAICS

Other Support Activities for Air Transportation (488190)

akta.pro primary industry

Drone/UAS Application Services (Spraying, Spreading, Seeding) (AFACAIAB)

akta.pro secondary industry

Aerial Surveying & Crop Scouting (Imaging, Mapping, Stand Counts) (AFACAIAJ)

Keywords

• Drone inspection services
• Aerial infrastructure inspection
• Pipeline leak detection
• Telecommunications tower inspection
• Construction progress documentation

Headquarters

HQ city

Crofton

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Drone Inspection Services: Professional drone-based inspection services for telecommunications, oil & gas, and construction industries. Revenue generated through project-based contracts with custom proposals, timelines, and estimates. Services include leak detection, asset digitization, right-of-way monitoring, corrosion inspection, and construction progress documentation.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Aerial Production Services provides drone-based aerial inspection services for industrial clients in three verticals: oil and gas (leak detection, asset digitization, right-of-way monitoring, corrosion inspection), telecommunications (cell tower inspections with HD imagery and 3D models), and construction (aerial site capture, progress documentation, and 360-degree interior photography). Services are delivered by industry-specialized certified pilots using FAA-approved BVLOS operations and advanced sensor technology, with projects scoped individually under multi-year enterprise contracts.

Product overview

Aerial Production Services (APS) provides drone-based inspection services across three primary industry verticals: Oil & Gas, Telecommunications, and Construction. The company offers a portfolio of inspection services including leak detection and quantification, asset digitization, right-of-way monitoring, and corrosion inspection for the oil and gas sector; tower inspections with real-time video, HD photography, and 3D modeling for telecommunications; and construction progress documentation with aerial photography, videography, and 360 interior capture. Key service modules include the BVLOS pipeline inspection capability (a partnership-enabled feature with Iris Automation for extended-range operations), the SeekOps sensor-based emissions monitoring system, and Huvr data visualization platform integration. The company operates a fleet of specialized drones equipped with advanced sensor technology from partners including DJI, MicaSense, ICI, Leica, and GeoCue, and processes data through cloud-based platforms for immediate sharing and decision-making.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Leak Detection and Quantification

Quantifiable outcome

• 350% improvement in inspection frequency compared to satellite/airplane-based inspections
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers7 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability7 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Iris AutomationcoreTechnology or Integration · 1 January 2021Iris Automation provided regulatory professional services to help Aerial Production Services obtain FAA BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight) waiver approval for pipeline inspections. Their Regulatory Resource Center (RRC) created a robust risk assessment, mitigation and CONOP package for BVLOS flights. This partnership cut BVLOS waiver approval time by an estimated six months, enabling APS to improve inspection frequency by 350% and dramatically reduce costs for clients switching from satellite and airplane inspections to drones.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Emerging players

• Verity: Verity provides autonomous drone systems for inventory and asset tracking in warehouses and industrial facilities. It is an emerging competitor in industrial drone-based data services, adjacent to APS's construction and asset-digitization offerings.
• Flyability: Flyability specializes in confined-space and indoor drone inspection for energy, power, and infrastructure assets. It overlaps with APS in oil & gas and utility inspection, with a stronger indoor/confined-space focus.
• Percepto: Percepto builds autonomous drone-in-a-box inspection systems for industrial sites including oil & gas and utilities. It competes with APS for the same end customers but focuses on persistent, automated site monitoring rather than project-based pilot deployments.
• American Robotics: American Robotics develops autonomous, FAA-approved drone-in-a-box systems for industrial inspection. It targets the same oil & gas and infrastructure customers as APS but with a fully automated model rather than pilot-deployable services.
• DroneDeploy: DroneDeploy is a drone data platform for mapping, progress tracking, and asset inspection across construction, energy, and agriculture. It competes with APS in construction progress documentation and asset digitization via a software-led model.

Direct peers

• PrecisionHawk: PrecisionHawk offers drone-based data collection and analytics for infrastructure, energy, and agriculture. It overlaps with APS in industrial inspection, asset digitization, and FAA waiver-driven BVLOS operations, and competes for similar enterprise inspection contracts.
• Measure (an UScellular company): Measure provides drone inspection and data services to telecom, energy, and infrastructure operators. It is a direct peer to APS in BVLOS-enabled industrial inspection and competes for similar enterprise inspection RFPs.
• Cyberhawk: Cyberhawk provides drone-based visual inspection and digital asset management for oil & gas, utilities, and renewables. It is a direct competitor to APS in industrial aerial inspection, with overlapping O&G and telecom-adjacent use cases and a similar professional-services model.

Others

• senseFly (Parrot): senseFly, a Parrot brand, provides fixed-wing mapping drones and software for surveying, mining, and construction. It is adjacent to APS in construction progress and asset-mapping workflows, though more focused on mapping than inspection.

Broad incumbents

• Skydio: Skydio is a leading US drone manufacturer with a growing inspection-services and software footprint. It competes with APS indirectly through its enterprise customers and autonomy platform, and directly as a vendor for tower and infrastructure inspection.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/aerialproductionservicesinc
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/aerial-production-services-inc
• Instagraminstagram.com/aerialproductionservices

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles7 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Aerial Production Services