Abstract: Current unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) inspection methods for overhead transmission lines require ‌repeated manual adjustments‌ by operators to maintain distance between the drone and overhead ground wires during patrols. Task completion ‌is constrained by operator expertise‌, with persistent issues including ‌low photo definition‌ and ‌extended inspection duration‌. To address the challenge of ‌adaptive line-following patrol flight‌ for UAV inspection of overhead ground wires, this paper proposes a ‌yaw-lock-based lateral line-following technique‌ for drone patrols along conductors/ground wires of overhead transmission lines. Comparative analyses with ‌standard manual operation protocols‌ demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method in ‌operational efficiency‌ (task duration) and ‌image acquisition quality‌ (photo definition).