To get aerial photos of a Montana parcel, enter the county and the APN. Dirt Flight draws the boundary from the state cadastral layer and renders the pack in about ten minutes: an outlined top down, four cardinal 3D views, an 18 second orbit video and a contour map that shows the actual climb. No pilot drives out, so there is no travel charge, and all 56 counties render.
- Coverage
- Statewide, from county records
- Turnaround
- About 10 minutes
- Travel charge
- None, ever
- Imagery age
- One to three years
The ground is vertical and the road is a question.
A flat aerial photo of Montana ground is close to useless. Six hundred feet of relief between the county road and the back line reads as one flat tan rectangle, and the coulee that makes the tract unusable in April looks like a shadow. Sage bench, timbered draw and ridgeline all photograph the same from straight overhead.
Montana keeps a statewide cadastral layer, which is what the boundary is drawn from, so coverage here is complete rather than partial. The 3D views and the contour map are the part that matters: buyers want to see the climb, the drainage, and what the tract borders before they drive out.
Boundaries are approximate, from public parcel data, and are not a survey.
One APN. Everything below.
One parcel, one APN, everything below. Sage bench, a coulee off the northwest corner, and a gravel county road along the section line.
Everything in the pack
This is the whole Montana delivery.
Every view below came back from one parcel number, in about ten minutes, with no pilot and no site visit.
Where Montana land actually trades.
These are the ones land buyers ask for most, each with its own page.
Do not see your county? Every one of the 56 renders. Send the APN and it comes back the same ten minutes.
Asked by people selling Montana ground.
Which Montana counties can you do?
Send the county and the APN and we go straight to that county's own parcel records. Coverage varies: some states publish one statewide layer, others leave it county by county. If yours is one where the records are not public, you hear it from us before anything is charged.
How much does a drone photographer cost for a rural Montana listing?
Out here a pilot quotes the shoot plus the drive, and the drive to a section in Petroleum County can be five hours each way with no cell service at the end of it. Dirt Flight has no travel charge, because nobody drives. A tract outside Jordan costs the same as one outside Bozeman.
Does the imagery show how steep the tract is?
That is what the four 3D views and the contour map are for. Relief that a flat aerial flattens out reads as actual climb, so a buyer can see the bench, the coulee and the ridge instead of taking your word for it.
Can you show whether there is a road in, and what the tract borders?
Yes. Two track, gravel and the county road are visible where they exist, and the access view marks the frontage. The context map shows what sits on every side, which on Montana land is often public ground.
How recent is the imagery on a Montana parcel?
One to three years old, typically, with the render date printed on the pack. A new pivot circle or a fence rebuilt last summer will not appear until the next flight. We would rather say that plainly than let a buyer assume the image is from last week.
What exactly comes back for a Montana APN?
Everything in one download: outlined top down, four cardinal 3D views, an 18 second orbit video, contour map, context map and parcel info sheet. Paydirt adds road frontage views, infrared, a social kit and full resolution files. Montana buyers work from the 3D views and the context map.
Got a Montana parcel under contract?
Send the county and the APN. If your invite is not open yet we will still look at the first one by hand.