UAS News Podcast — 2013-08-14
Transcript
Hello everyone, that's the UAS News Podcast. And actually we wanted to add some special music today. We are at AUVSI Unmanned Systems 2014. And we have a few revelations from the show.
And I don't even know if I want to go through the special music because that might even be more of a problem. But anyway, we are live at AUVSI Unmanned Systems 2014. Last year this was a pretty popular show. We had over 17,000 downloads on that one.
So I figured we'll do it again this week. We are in Washington, D.C. We have our co-host today, Gene Robinson. Are you out there, Gene Robinson?
I am, Patrick. And this is a little bit of a switch for us. You're in the field this time and you're doing the reporting. Good job, man.
I think it's going to be a great show. It has been a good show. It has been a good show. You know, I was going to play the special music.
I don't even know if this will work. But it's in kind of commemorate some of the news that we heard here. Let's see. That'll work.
It does not seem like it's not going. All right. Well, anyway, Frank Zappa, Man Hook of the North. And that was to commemorate the commercial type certifications for AeroVirabit Puma and it's it to ScanEagle for work on the shelf.
I personally am updating my resume and dusting off my Mucklux. Because there's work on the shelf. If you can get it, it's limited work, but there is some upturn. Anyway, OK, well, jumping right in here, I want to introduce today's guest, which I usually like to do is do like a little roundtable and get some insight from people that are at the show.
And we have Jay Wilmot. Jay, are you out there?
Good morning, Patrick. Gene, how are you all this morning?
Great. Doing good. We also have Jeff Blant. Jeff, are you out there?
Hey, good morning, Patrick. Jeff here. All right, that's good. Both of these guys have been on the show before, but, you know, it was customary.
Maybe you didn't listen to those shows. So what I'd like you to do is, Jay, could you possibly give people a little bio about yourself?
And I know you're kind of a, you've been at this for a little while. So maybe you could give the folks a little brief bio of yourself, what you're doing now. Patrick, this is my 27th consecutive AUVSI show. I've been in the industry for a lot, for half my life, okay, do the math.
And I'm mostly a manufacturer. I've worked on a number of different programs, DragonEye, X-Throne, What Became, Tiger Shark. I've had the privilege of working with Jeff Blant at NASA Wallace on testing in electric flight. And I'm thrilled to be here.
I think it's a great show. I'll agree with Gene on that. It looks like it's going to be a good show. Jeff and I had an opportunity to help organize a session for tethered and live-in-air systems, which are new this year.
So I'm real excited about this year. Yeah, we're going to delve into that on this show because that was pretty exciting. But Jeff Blant, could you do the same, please?
Sure. I'm Jeff Blant. I've been at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center for about 30 years at Wallace Flight Facility and have been working on manned aircraft for the earth science side of the house for about 20 of those. We're trying to use UAS to fill in the gaps for our satellite measurements and complement our airborne science program.
So of course working with industry and folks like Jay on a number of platforms. And part of the challenge is also the sensor side, getting the sensors on the airplanes and getting the data back to the scientists and the researchers and the decision makers. So learning a lot at the show. It's pretty exciting.
It is pretty exciting, and there's a lot of stuff going on. And maybe we can even start off right there with the tethered, let's say, emerging opportunities for tethered systems that we actually everyone on this call, except for Gene, spoke at and was a joint effort between AIAA and AUVSI. And maybe we could talk about that because that was a little bit of a groundbreaking thing. Let's say associations come together and work together, which is kind of groundbreaking.
Jeff, you want to go first on that one? Well, sure. Yeah, I really want to say thanks to the leadership of both organizations, AIAA and AUVSI, for agreeing to work together. And one of the things that has kind of emerged over the last several years is in conjunction with the UAS work.
We've done a lot of atmospheric work with tethered balloons recently. I've done several years of work with TITE. And again, it goes back to the miniaturized instrumentation that is suitable for UAS. And so as we develop these instruments, one of the quick ways to do that is to use the one of the quick ways to TASCM has been on tethered balloons at Wallop and TITE in the field.
And it's translated to several research opportunities and activities, as well as some work in the education community. So talking with several people, yourself and Jay, it became pretty clear that there's a wide, wide variety of things you can do if you have a string on something flying. And that includes making it easy or carrying large payloads or looking at some pretty new capabilities. So this is just the beginning of what we hope to be a dialogue and really kind of focus on some of the technical challenges.
Right, right. And I want to circle back to that, but I want to give Jay a chance too to say something about that session, which he was also a speaker. Well, I think Jeff hit it on the head. It's good to use a string.
That's maybe the only way to get some things up in the air because of the hurdles that we still face with the NAS access. And I've encouraged a number of the quad manufacturers, just put a string on it. I think sometimes we get hung up on the need for GPS navigation when for many applications, we simply need to get up in the air, just straight up, and look down on a roof or an accident scene or whatever it may be. And so the tethered systems are absolutely viable as are towers.
And these are viable alternatives that are available today and can go up in the air immediately. So I also agree that this was something of a groundbreaking event and that these two associations found a way to work together to enhance the experience of both of their member groups. And I see this as a template for future cooperation with other associations. AVSI is chock-a-block with all kinds of marketing and advocacy efforts.
And we don't always have time because we're split over so many different domains of ground and underwater. We don't always have time to give each of them the attention that they deserve and certainly not in the technical depth for things like propulsion or communications or any of the digital. So I see that opportunities exist to scale both organizations' events up and have additional shows perhaps. We could bring in SAE for ground robotics or IEEE for communications and electronics.
So I think it's a foreboding of where we're going to go. I think it's a good thing, the quality of our experience is going up as a result. And I know from our experience in our sessions, the quality of the presentations was exceptional. I'll second that.
I thought the presentations were pretty good. Interesting to see what people are doing. Sometimes people discount the tethered systems, but Jeff, you used the kite for work on the volcano project, correct?
That's correct. One of the elements for our research and looking into in-situ measurements for volcano plumes are kites. We also use tethered balloons and we use UAS. So we use all three platforms combined with ground observations.
And again, we're taking in-situ measurements inside the plume and looking at the gases and the particles. And these are measurements that we can't get from space, but by using these relatively lower altitude tools, we're able to get the measurements and correlate them with our space observations. Right. Oh, I do want to make one, sorry Patrick, but one advantage of the kite particularly is we go to rather remote sites.
And the Torre Alba volcano that we are using as a laboratory is rather remote and getting the equipment in there is quite a challenge. So the kites have really helped that as well. It's pretty easy to pack them in. Right.
The other one I wanted to talk about too is the gentleman's name, Kurt, that's flying here in the D.C. freeze. Yes, Kurt Westergaard. Yeah, so some people say, oh, these are balloons or old technology or whatever, but Kurt's flying several blocks from the White House.
So there's not a lot of opportunities here in the freeze to fly so that this guy's found a way to work within the system and actually use this technology in a highly regulated place. So I don't think I would discount the tethered systems. There's definitely viability there. Yeah, I agree.
Yeah, so there are tools in the toolbox, but that was a great session. Oh, go ahead. Oh, yeah, just a comment on Kurt's work. Part again is the sensors that he's using are kind of uniquely adapted to a tethered system and he's able to get some unique imagery, particularly for architecture that otherwise would be not possible at the level of precision that he's getting for these structures.
The stationary and the low movement is a very key feature for obtaining the precision that he's after. Right, yeah, and he's doing some work with heat leaks and then also I guess water infiltration with that. But that was a good one. I think the other session yesterday, and I didn't see you in there, Jay, but it was pretty full.
And it was the session on some of the progress for U.S. integration into the NAS. And that room was pretty full. I know Jeff was there.
Jeff, some of your impressions from Mr. Jim Williams' speech or presentation?
Well, I thought it was pretty encouraging, at least the NASA-sponsored MISOPAC mission that we just completed in the Gulf of Alaska. Jim Atlantic from University of Colorado was the principal investigator. And Jim specifically called out that that exercise, that experiment was key for helping them formulate future plans for similar operations. So that was encouraging to hear that that was an example.
There was a ton of work into those preparations, and it seemed to pay off. Yeah, it definitely is kind of an interesting after perspective. But also, you talk about that effort or that use, and then also the use, the ConocoPhillips use of the ScanEagle for kind of a survey for oil exploration. And I don't want to be critical, but that was going on for a while, and I think that's been legitimized.
And they are both, it is encouraging, but Gene, as a small manufacturer, I mean, I know that you've probably done a little research on the commercial type certification. What's your view of that from the outside?
Well, again, from what I've discovered so far is that type certification is still a quite lengthy process, and it is quite expensive. And one of the very difficult things is having the amount of flight time that is available or that is required to satisfy some of the requirements to get in that type certification. And really, the only place that you have to do that is somewhere outside CONUS. And so if you haven't made those sorts of connections and you're not out in Valladolop, in Mexico, flying, you're kind of at a disadvantage there.
So until we get to, you know, I know they've started with the training COAs and stuff like that, and there haven't been a whole lot of agencies that have grabbed onto the training COA concept and worked with it because even that tends to be a bit intimidating. So it's very difficult, and we're starting to see that bottleneck where the few that do make it are going to be the ones that do the most flying. So,
you know, we've still got a ways to go, and, you know, the small guy out there like me and some of the other folks out there that are trying to head toward that type cert will be probably very late in the game, unfortunately.
Yes, well, it has been, depending upon who you ask, some say, oh, it wasn't so bad, and others, well, it was kind of arduous. It's been a long time coming. Both of those companies have spent a lot of money with this effort, and, you know, it's a little bit of a victory. I definitely wasn't in the back tiering on that one.
I mean, you know, it's okay. I just don't see it very, let's say, level playing field. Anybody want to add to that?
Sure, I'll add to that. I think that what it shows us is that FAA is going to have a very high bar for what's acceptable under the NAS. I guess I'm okay with that. The field isn't level because the systems that have been certified have been the beneficiary of DOD programs, whereas everyone else has been shut out of those programs.
So the amount of time that's been logged, and I certainly respect the effort and the investment that these companies have made, but they have been the direct beneficiary of programs of record and have logged most of the flight hours that were required to achieve the certification as a result of thoroughly funded programs. So the little guy doesn't have much of a shot at being able to do that, and that's going to be unfortunate.
I think the little guy and the group of smaller systems' best hope is that we will see a small rule that will perhaps waive some of the requirements for these types of certifications as soon as we go forward.
And then thank you, Jay, because I didn't want to be the guy beating that one. I get a little feedback about the podcast that people are like, well, you're kind of like an EOR, you know, the FAA. So thanks for backing me up on that one. Jeff, any comments on the last subject, sir?
Yeah, sure. I agree. I think everybody's really, really anxiously awaiting, especially the SUAS regulations. And so as you noted, the comment period hopefully will open on the plan later this year.
And so I would imagine that they'll be looking at all the responses. And so I would encourage everybody to comment as they see fit, because I think they need the feedback. I sometimes wonder if the full scope and capabilities are really, really clearly in the minds of those that are making these regulations. Yeah, well, that was another thing that was announced, that the NPRN would be out by the end of this calendar year.
That was one of the big news announcements, so it's coming. You know, there were a few other things I think that were relevant. Another comment that was made, and it was surprising to me, is a reporter from Reuters asked, you know, Hey, if you're a farmer, can you buy a drone and use it for yourself?
And, you know, the answer to that question was yes. If you're a farmer and you're not, you know, no money is exchanging hands, you can use an unmanned aircraft. However, you should follow the 400-foot and 1500-foot lateral AC-9157 rules. But yeah, you can go ahead.
And I mean, to me, that kind of runs counter to, you know, the commerce thing where I've heard, you know, it's like if you're either making money or you're a hobbyist. I don't know many hobby farmers, but, you know, business plans right now, everyone's talking about ag. I'd be at every agricultural show with, you know, the overalls on and the wheat stock out of my mouth and the hat on, and I'd be selling these things. I'd be marketing them to farmers because I mean, as far as I'm concerned, that was the green light to sell to farmers.
Jeff, what did you hear? Did you hear something different or is that what you heard?
Well, I heard that too. And I think some clarification may be in order here because, you know, clearly the model airplane guides are being focused on hobby and recreation. And as you noted, the recreational farms are generally kind of thin. So I think some clarification is, you know, where's the transition?
If it improves revenue, well, then, you know, we need to at least, that's a very good, an extremely good role for these systems and it would be, or if that indeed was the case, but that was kind of surprising to hear that answer. Well, I mean, it came right back down to if it's not, you know, no money is changing hands, but that's not what we're seeing. Is that what you're seeing, Gene?
I know, you know, a lot of the stuff used to be volunteer, but that's not what you're, is that what you're seeing? That it's not commerce and you can do whatever you want?
Negative. That's what we've been told in the past. And again, this is something that I'm going to have to look into as well because as a 501C3, a nonprofit, or a recognized air organization down here providing unmanned aircraft services, we've been told that if you are doing it on an official basis, then it is not allowed. It's disapproved.
And that's been given to us several times. We never get paid for it. We don't ask for pay. So that comment kind of raised my eyebrows too.
And I fully intend to look into it a little bit closer and find out how that works because most of the farmers that I know, you know, they do a lot of neat things while they're waiting for their crops to grow, but most of them don't fly RC or model airplanes. But their friend down, you know, over in the next section, he might have a kid that's pretty good at it. So, you know, hey, why don't we bring little Johnny over and have him fly my crop and just take some pictures and see what it looks like and, you know, we'll give him five bucks so he can go down to the mall shop and get him a mall.
Well, that's a commercial operation, you know, in that scenario. So I'm going to have to look into that one a little bit further. Yeah, well, I mean, that's not like something that was, you know, uttered in confidence. Again, that was an answer to a question that came up by a Reuters reporter.
So, I mean, technically, you know, I don't know. None of this stuff really makes any sense. But I'm going to say, you know, that's the party line, man. Go with it.
But I can see if you own a farm, 5000 acres, I mean, it's an advisory circular. I'm buying a, you know, I could buy a ScanEagle and go nuts. You know, maybe it might be a steep learning curve for Farmer Brown to buy and learn. But, you know, I don't know.
I, you know, I'm not a lawyer. I didn't stay at a La Quinta or Holiday Inn. But if I was selling them, I'd be at the ag shows going bananas, selling these puppies to farmers. Yeah, again, it's kind of a strange deal.
I did ask another question about autopilots and, you know, how those would factor into the hobby regs for certification, because that's another one. I mean, if you're going to say some hobby guy, or if we're talking about safety, some hobby guy can just do whatever he wants with an autopilot. And then there's certification for the commercial guy. I mean, the whole safety thing seems to, there's a little skew there.
Anybody care to comment on that? Yeah, I'll be happy to comment on that one. I mean, yeah, you've got a guidance system. You've got all the components that they've been talking about that they want to keep out of the nest.
But we see more and more people are coming up with some really competent and capable autopilots. Call them wing levelers, call them whatever you want. But they have more than three waypoints to navigate to. Then they can be used in a lot of different scenarios.
And I really don't understand how you can get out there. That was a good question. I'm kind of up in the air about that one and see how that's going to come down into the mass. That's just kind of crazy.
Go ahead. Well, there's a little bit of a dance around on that one. But I will say that it was tossed over to ASTM, and they are working on certification for autopilots. And I'm going to say that you just, you know, from my limited experience, that that's going to probably mimic certain systems, you know, certain programs of record systems.
Anybody care to comment on that? I think that's reasonable. And when you look at the qualifications that systems like autopilots have to undergo to be put on a man platform, I think that capable is in the eye of the beholder. I think if we're going to operate in the NAS, then we want to make sure that the hardware is safe and proven.
I think that's prudent. I do think it's prudent. However, I'm, you know, and I don't know, here's Eeyore coming out. We're going to try them out.
But, you know, I haven't been, I haven't worked with the standards groups for a while. And I would, I had actually, I think it would behoove the community for some of the people that have worked on the standards to revisit the standards groups here. They say that they're almost completed. Their standards are almost completed and ready to be published.
And I think now it's the time to put people to the floor about this. This community really has to fund their next stage. They think they're going to get anywhere. And I think it's the time for people that were part of this to do this because I have a feeling that we would at least not be happy.
Even like you hear them. It comes up and it's, what's the Patrick?
Patrick, the arrest of Raymond Bleemurder. That's my feeling. You know, same feelings. Well, I think Jay was correct in saying that sure, that would be the next logical progression for autopilot certification is to take the PORs that have come back from the theater that have worked and use them as a standard.
However, the catch-22 in that is that you will essentially remove that from the hobbyist realm. And they will not be able to go out and try to fly their aircraft and innovate as many hobbyists have done in the past. It's just an unfortunate circumstance. Yes, I'm in there, Patrick.
I think one thing that everybody's got to be cautioned, or cautioned, or exercised caution with is the technology is wrapping, evolving so rapidly that we don't want to preclude these capabilities. The advances in autopilots in just the last handful of years is amazing. And what you can do for 50 grams of mass is quite impressive these days. And so we don't want to miss the capabilities that these things will bring.
And again, I'm not sure that's being captured. You said suggested perhaps a review of the ASPTS standards reflecting the latest technologies is in order. I believe it's in order, and I believe that it's something that people should invest in right now because this stuff's going to hit the street. The FAA is going to take it internally, and they're going to review it.
It will have to be, let's say, vetted by them. But my thing is it's been this for years, and it is coming true. And we did kind of talk about that where you have these systems that are programs of record. They've spent millions of dollars and all the rest of that, and they were taxpayer-funded dollars because they were contracts.
These programs had to be built. And I did kind of have issues with, I mean, I called the deal, were you going to take all of your military program that you built and you're going to bring that to the FAA and go, here you go?
And then they're going to go, okay, and rubber stamp it. And that's exactly what happened. Totally, totally unfair as far as I'm concerned. I mean, people like Gene here, if total economic disadvantage, Gene, and I'm sure that's quite obvious, but where were the hundreds of millions of dollars of contracts that facilitated all of that program for you?
Did you get the check? Well, one thing that I would like to throw out there is, as Jeff mentioned, this area is evolving and developing so rapidly. Is a standard that is published today going to be valid six months down the road?
Are we going to have the space shuttle flying with three 386 computers on it because that's the standard? That's a good analogy. Anyone else care to comment on that?
You don't want to be, if nobody else wants to be EOR, what's going on here? I'm cornering the market. You know, one of the things that can happen, again, the size of the system gets dramatically smaller and smaller and smaller with the miniaturization of the autopilot. The size of the aircraft and spouse are getting smaller and smaller.
And with the sensor miniaturization, it does point to safety, where it's a direct contributor to the total kinetic energy, which is part of the hazard. So if autopilots no longer have to be packaged in shielded metal boxes and instead are at the board level, we'll then picture the translation to what that does to the total vehicle mass. So for every 10 grams of autopilot that you save, you're probably saving 40 or 50 of total airframe weight because you don't have to carry the thing. Right, right.
That goes right back to capabilities. Right, right. Well, okay. And then we're going to march into the next segment.
But we've got to, I got to pay the bills here. I'm going to just play this advert has been a sponsor for today's podcast. Today's podcast is sponsored by Hood Technology, experts in advanced EO, IR, gyro-stabilized, four-axis imaging systems for small UAS. The company offers low swap payloads integrating EO, MWIR, and lasers to provide unparalleled, long-range imaging from moving platforms.
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Thanks, Hood Tech. Well, now, and the other thing, and there's, you know, I want to march into the second segment. And I think that now we talk about kind of the business climbing down there on the floor. And I will say that I am present, or very pleasantly surprised that a lot of people read the SUS news.
And I just have to say thank you for that. You know, there's a lot of good feedback about what we're trying to do at SUS news. And people appreciate that we are trying to disseminate information for the whole community and also trying to put the information out there about, you know, safety and some of the concerns that the small business community has. And, you know, that feedback is very, very, it's welcomed.
And also, you know, a lot of people have talked about SUS news and wanting to advertise and support what we're doing. And I'm happy about that. So we'll probably get a few more sponsors, which is great. It'll allow us to be at more of the shows and attend more of these gatherings and whatnot.
And so we can bring the information that's relevant to light. But I do want to talk about the business climate down on the floor. I will say everyone is abuzz about agriculture. Jay, what say you?
Should we lose Jay? Go ahead. My take on agriculture, Patrick, is that we have a robust agricultural aviation industry in this country today. And it's mostly engaged in delivering chemicals to the ground.
And those require some very large systems that I don't see here. I see a lot of small systems. I see a lot of remote sensing capability. And good on the farmer, if he's willing to take the FAA up on their invitation to acquire remote use systems under the current model rules.
I think that's going to launch a lot of explorations into the viability and the benefits of remote sensing for ag aviation that for some reason, inexplicably, we really haven't seen the ag aviation community embrace the sensing piece of it, despite the fact that we've had sensor technology for many years and the ability to fly on manned platforms. I'm mystified by the lack of use of that, whether they don't see the benefits and business as usual. But I think the tremendous opportunities exist. Again, we can barely get small systems in the air.
Getting large chemical-laden air platforms operating in the Nassus is probably years away. But the fact is that the requirement to dispense enormous quantities of chemicals, and even more precisely will be good, is going to require some very large systems, not the small systems that we see here, in great number. And we as an industry, I think, need to turn our attention to roboticization of larger platforms. We're seeing a little bit of that when you look at the OPVs that are here and that have been developed historically over the years.
That's where I think that it needs to go. I know there are platforms that are being used in other countries for a small scale to do crop dusting, for instance, that probably don't scale well in our kind of breadbasket of America farm machine. We need it to scale up, and that will come with time. But that's kind of what I see.
That's my perspective on it. And yeah, it's good to hear that buzz, and it's good that the ag community is welcoming this. And it's just tremendous that FAA is going to sort of start grandfathering in. In effect, what I see FAA saying with respect to Mr.
Farmer is you're now grandfathered, and you have the ability to create your own AMA-type field and operate under those kinds of constraints. I don't think you're going to see or the FAA is going to allow a farmer to acquire a scan eagle system and be able to do the kind of long-range flights that are needed to cover the vast tracts of farmland that we have. But on a smaller scale, sure, they should do that. And I think that the systems are becoming more viable and more affordable.
And probably most important is the farm community is beginning to understand the benefits of how this works, whether they'll be able to have more precision. So I'm excited about this application. Yeah, and I want to give Jeff a chance to jump in here, because Jeff has... We've had conversations about this, and Jeff has done a lot of work in the ag field with Smalls and Kites.
And please, Jeff, give us your perspective on ag use for this, because I know people are all over the place for this. We've talked to a lot of people during the show, and then they're like, oh, you know, I'm going to provide this service. Jeff, please. Okay, well, I think first, Jay's comment about the larger systems coming online in the near future, hopefully, or the medium future, that is, I think, a very interesting and important area.
And so especially some of the larger vertical lift capabilities kind of caught my attention in that regard. As far as the precision ag piece, the use of these platforms by the farmers themselves, one thing that's going to have to be added is the value of interpretation. Just simply having a picture may or may not provide the answer on what to do. And oftentimes, simply getting a picture that may be in one or two additional bands, whether it's the thermal or the near infrared, may also not point to the answer exactly what to do.
And so there has to be a lot of work that needs to be done on the research, the kind of frequencies needed to overfly the field. Do you need to do it daily?
Do you need to do it weekly? Can you take corrective action this year?
Do you have to wait until next year to take that kind of corrective action that's affordable? And so the interpretation and the resulting need to do something, whether it's irrigation or pesticides or nutrients or change your crop or those kind of decisions, still those tools are just not available at the touch of a button. And we need to find out how to get them to that state. So it's a rich research opportunity,
I think, especially for our university partners, to look at those applications, taking the data, taking the imagery and processing it and coming up with algorithms and procedures to follow if you see certain conditions.
I think, Patrick, you alluded to your Malady book years ago, which was a picture book of problems. It was awesome, awesome idea, straightforward, but those kind of products are not yet available for people to fully take advantage of these systems. Patrick, let me jump in and say something about that too. I think Jeff's absolutely right that perhaps that's going to be one of the keys to getting greater acceptance and understanding of our technologies.
But simply a platform, simply a sensor just doesn't do it. And we see it even in our DOD and every time we heard Mike Luttrey say, we're swimming in sensors and drowning in data. What we need is the analytics and we need the spectrologists and the agricultural engineering to be able to interpret this information. It's not about the platform.
Ultimately, whether you're talking about imagery or spectral information about crops, it's the data. So we've got to be able to deliver the data to the consumer and whether they have to make their own conclusions about that. But I think if I were to counsel somebody on investing in the community, sure, there's plenty of sensor technology, plenty of platform technology, but somebody needs to boil the information down so that it means something, so that it's actionable intelligence for the farm community.
Right. I kind of equate it to it's kind of the cutting the corners on the let's say flying technology, same thing that people do. It's the same thing with the data. People are cutting corners because that's the hard part.
I mean, yeah, the information, it does deliver information, cheap raw information, but here's part of the gold for the show is really what do you do with that data? How do you interpret that data?
How do you make that data actionable? And like you just said, Jay, you can deliver all the pretty pictures in the world, but what does that mean?
And Gene, you do the same thing when you go out on a search. You get the pictures. I mean, you don't just hand over raw pictures to people, do you?
Oh, no. We learned our lesson a long time ago not to do that and developed our own methods for handling the data and disseminating the data because as everyone understands, there's a lot of it, how do you disseminate it?
It's especially important in a critical situation. But one of the things that I wanted to point out, getting back to the agribusiness end of it, is that we talk about this like it's Farmer Brown out there standing next to his wheat field. But back in 2006, one of the ventures that we went into was with a company called Simplot. And Simplot is a very large agribusiness.
They handled millions and millions of acres from Washington to the Ohio Valley. And we built a prototype system for them. They were excited about it. They were going to do the imagery.
They were going to develop those sorts of data things. And it was going to be a big deal. Those are the kind of companies that would go out and buy a ScanEagle. Those are the kind of companies that would put out a squadron of unmanned aircraft over their millions of acres.
And they would develop those sorts of data because it actually helped them produce more crops. So there is huge money there. There is interest there. And unfortunately, we lost out because Legal, their Legal happened to get ahold of it and said, oh my God, you can't fly these things over people.
Are you kidding? And the TFA backed them up on that. And that project went away. But there are very large agribusiness concerns that would love to have this technology.
Yeah, I agree. But I mean, you know, the other part of that I think people need to kind of take into consideration is if you look at the envelope, the envelope of what's coming down the pike here, what's been discussed for the VLOS envelope, you know, you're going to get your money out of a ScanEagle. You know, it might be a little tough. No, no.
I think that's why they approached us on that deal because we could do it. I mean, an eight-foot aircraft is pretty easy to fly, line of sight, and you can cover a lot of area. Right, right. Well, you know, that was one thing.
The other thing I want to talk about, and we're going to run a little long here, but that's okay because this is, you know, you can always turn it off at your leisure, whatever you want to do or if you want to listen to some more. I did want to talk about some of the stuff that's down on the floor, innovations and some of the things that we haven't really seen before. And, you know, Jeff, did you want to talk about some of the new technology that you saw?
Any you'd like to talk about? Well, I must highlight the work by Vanilla Aircraft for their ultra-long-range airplane. That was developed under SBIR, Small Business Innovation Research Program, for NASA in conjunction with Navy interest. And we're really looking forward to deploying this airplane for our Arctic research specifically, but it has a lot of other potential applications.
And so I think that was really exciting to see the progress that they have made and really looking forward to the flight tests that are coming soon. Yeah, it's a nice aircraft. They are working with the Navy. You know, that was a group that I used to be, worked for, and I'm glad to see that's really, you know, the technology's pretty cool.
I wish them the best of luck on that, and I'm glad that they were actually able to get the two groups together to do that. I think that that's, that was really cool. And I know that, I know it'll be successful. The plane looks really good.
I'm waiting to hear. We'll definitely want to cover that when that happens. Jay, what have you seen?
Oh, go ahead, go ahead, Jeff. I just wanted to also point out that in the AG area, both Field of View and TetraCAM folks were on the floor, and those are some instruments that the AG community may want to take a look at for sure. Yep. We have one of those in our aircraft, and we've done a lot with them.
And yeah, they're really good, nice little cameras. Yeah, I want to, I talked to them about maybe doing a shed segment on the SUAS news. I'd really like to get that out there. You know, that's what, I mean, I tried to tell them too.
We had talked about that in the past, and we want to do all this stuff. Again, it's hard to nail it all down. We would like, I guess our eyes are bigger than our bellies on the technology side of this stuff. I'd like to, you know, do exposés on all this stuff, and eventually we'll get around to it.
But that stuff was worth mentioning. But Jay, what did you see on the floor that interested you?
Well, I think one of the things that's apparent is the presence of the states that are working for FAA test sites. I know North Dakota has a large presence here, and the Dayton Development Group has a big presence here. So there's clearly effort there to try to land one of those sites. I was absolutely amazed at the number of quadcopter type systems that are there.
It shows you the relatively low barrier to entry for getting into that market, and then relative maturity of those kinds of systems and supporting technology make it look so very promising for those applications. Yeah, I agree. Now, I got to fly one of the DJI offerings. I finally hooked up with them and Colin, and we've been kind of playing communication tag for a while.
But I don't know. They seem pretty interested in what we're doing. And I had asked about getting one of their, I forget what that's called, the big ship with the gimbal and all the goodies and everything else. I had asked about getting one of those to kind of check out and review.
But I will say that their technology is pretty impressive. I actually got to fly one of their offerings. To be honest, I haven't flown a quadcopter before yesterday, but I did like what I saw. Their stuff looks pretty polished.
I'm interested in doing more with them. And they seem to be interested in doing more on also advocacy and the regulatory side of things and supporting that effort, which I applaud them on that. I really think the business community has to get real and put some money into advocacy. I mean, again, with the EOR thing, I really think that that small business community needs to come together and advocate for themselves because I think there's a gaping hole there.
Anybody care to comment on that? Absolutely, Patrick. I think the small community really, really has an opportunity here. One of the things that came out, for example, the privacy discussion, the panel session, was the need for some standards on what to do with the imagery as far as dissemination.
How do we protect people's privacy? And it was suggested by, I think it was Greg McNeil of Pepperdine, that the industry could take that on and develop standards so that people would be assured that their systems are not just acquiring imagery that's going to go willy-nilly all over the place because there's a kind of a, beyond just a code of conduct, an actual standard that people adhere to. So that's one area that I think the folks could rally around. Well, and I think that might be something, too, like the RCAP had best practices.
I think that's something that we could do. I mean, most professional people are not wasting their time out just flying. I mean, usually if you're doing something on a business thing, time is money. I mean, that's the way I looked at it.
I want to get the shots that I need to get paid. I'm not really worried about other stuff. That was one thing I did. I mean, I've been doing a lot of, let's say, speaking.
I did the American Bar Association Symposium on Friday in San Francisco. Steve Morris was there. We did kind of talk about this. There's a lot of fear from, let's say, the other side with broad, broad brushstrokes.
The first slide of the EFF Foundation or the Electronic Freedom Foundation's presentation was a predator with Hellfire missiles on it. And I don't think that that's...I see that picture. I'm not really...I don't know anyone who's really advocating for that in the, let's say, CONUS in the United States from within the community. I'm not advocating for that.
I don't want that flying here. And really, when you start talking about commercial or even police use, I mean, I've tried to tell these people these systems are like global hot guests. It's very robust. It's got tons of capabilities, $250 million.
I live in a municipality where they're talking about closing schools and cutting services. And I don't see where those systems are going to be in use. They come back and they say, oh, well, the price of this stuff is coming down. Well, is it going to come down from $250 million a copy to $500?
I doubt it. It's not. They're not really viable systems. But we need to work on that more.
I was also at the Capitol, California, last week. And we're talking about...they're asking, I mean, wild questions. They had a guy from UC Merced who was talking about ag use. And they're asking them questions like, can it see through walls?
Can it track me? Can it do this?
Can it do that? And that totally wasn't what he was there to speak about. They didn't have the right people. I don't think...I mean, I could have answered all the questions, but I was not invited to speak on that deal.
I did make a public comment. And I did say that we talk about STEM technology or STEM schoolwork. If you don't have the jobs on the other end, you can have all the STEM curriculum you want. But what are people going to do for jobs?
And this technology represents, I think, real jobs for real people. But I heard somebody else talk about these economic development groups within different towns. Oh, it's going to create 10 jobs, $150,000, blah, blah, blah. Great.
Let's get them in here and we can crow about it. But this, I think, represents more than that. Anybody care to comment on those comments?
I'll drop that. I think that, yeah, we've got to have more than industry pushing saying this is a great technology. It's going to cure cancer. What we need is a ground slow.
We need the small user community to be more vocal, to explain what they can do. You know, it's up to this point. It has been mostly about the high visibility and highly controversial defense applications. And I don't know of anybody that wants to militarize aircraft, drones, unmanned aircraft in national airspace.
We also need the potential user community. We need to hear some clamoring from the public safety sector. We hear a little bit of that. I know Chief Bowman in our audience in Texas has said, we'll use a warrant.
We'll act responsibly. We'll act responsibly. We'll paint it bright green and put flash and lights on it. We're okay with that.
We need the farming community to say, hey, we want that. We need to have a louder voice as an industry and try to drown out some of these far-fetched, fanciful connotations of drones in the national airspace spying on and shooting missiles on American people. That's not what we're about. That's not the future.
And we've just got to kind of bring it back to center. That's totally two-thirds of Americans think that we should have unmanned aircraft for search rescue. Wouldn't it have been great that the young lady who was found up in the mountains last week, wouldn't it have been great if we'd had the ability to use an unmanned aircraft for that kind of an application to be able to point to the positive attributes of what we're trying to do for the world?
Well, you know, I have to say that we as an industry rode the military side of it too hard for too long, and I think that was a mistake that the industry made. Yeah, I mean, you know, and I'm not deriding the military or DOD use. Yeah, it has a place, but I think in all of that got lost, you know, and then also the change of policy of the FAA had. That all got lost because, you know, people, oh, it's this military technology is coming back to, coming back, you know, we're going to beat the swords into plowshares.
But, you know, we have enough experience on this call right now where people could say we were using this technology for, let's say, civilian uses for between us all here. What, you know, what do we got? 50 years, 70 years of experience of non-military use. I know, Jay, you've been developing systems for a long time, and we talked about some of these systems, but Jeff's been out here. Jeff, I mean, how long, when was the first, wasn't your first project a UAS that was launched off of a hot air balloon because of battery technology or something?
Maybe just to give us like a, you know, nutshell view of that use and when. Well, the absolutely, the first time I did a UAS was I had a roof leak on my house and I hate ladders. So I had my friend build me an electric airplane with a camera on it, and that was back in the late 80s. And it did, I found the leak and it got a repair, but it confirmed where it was and that, yeah, sure enough, my roof was leaking.
Well, then I started thinking about how to translate that technology into carrying atmospheric sensors because one of the things we really are trying to get a handle on is understanding our planet. It's a very complex set of systems and the sensors, understanding the energy, understanding the energy cycle and the water cycle, you know, it gives a lot of opportunities. So I first started in, formally in 93 within NASA, 1993, launching from Tethered Helium Advertising Blimps because, yeah, even though we had 77 batteries on the airplane, it weighed 20 pounds, but it didn't climb very well.
So we were able to carry two full suites of research instrumentation to look at water vapor and temperature profiles specifically and compare water vapor sensors. That's a real challenge is sensor development, and that's where we started. Right, right. And, you know, Gene, I know you've been at this for a while.
Oh, yeah, I think probably between us we got closer to 100 years. I didn't mean to, you know, tell anybody's age on that, but, yeah, you know, we did our first mission in 2003 for search and rescue and some other photographic stuff. And then, of course, we've been flying or doing some flying since the early 80s. So, yeah, there's a lot of experience here just on this panel.
Jay, you want to give us your start in this? I'm embarrassed. In 1985, I was part of the team for Brandeberg Aerostructures that flew on and off a Coast Guard cutter, US Cutter Alert. 30 miles off the coast of New Jersey, we launched an RPV with a Viticon camera and a ham transmitter and took off and landed with a parafoil. It was the first ever parafoil recovery of sea.
Flew my first ag mission from Monsanto on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in 1993 and in 1995. Flew for Hurricane Opal immediately after the hurricane went up to the Pensacola Gulf Shore and then subsequently did a series of newscasting flights off the coast of New Jersey, different shore town, every Friday during the summer of 95, called Down the Shore, and we replaced the manned helicopter. The thing we had to look out for was goals and kite strings and the occasional banner plane that would dive down over 1,000 feet and get into our airspace.
I've seen a lot of civil and commercial opportunity, and we've yet to realize it. One of the key factors is going to be we've got to be cost effective, and I don't see how these expensive, complicated DOD systems are going to contribute in an environment where you've got to contribute to the bottom line of the farmer or the newscaster or whoever it is. I think that's where the real promise for our industry lies, is that we see innovation, we see a lot of pent-up capability that once it gets some traction
and access, we're going to see a lot of changes in the way we perform these kinds of business opportunities.
I like the pent-up capability. That's a good one. Yeah, I agree with all of that. You guys are making good points.
I think it started in 2003 with the Cracker Barrel taking photos with that. It's been a while. I agree with everything. I've been saying for years that the regulation is too onerous.
I think we're going to damage this industry. That was something that even Jay said earlier in the show, is why the farmers haven't embraced the sensors that are out there. Well, I think it's the cost to use the sensors. If you're flying these sensors around in a manned aircraft, it costs a lot of money.
That is kind of the promise. Also, there's the translating. If you're not in the plane and you're translating to somebody the information you want or whatever, that's another promise I think of the unmanned aircraft thing, because it's more of a self-guided or self-directed data collection. I'm getting what I want because I'm putting the sensor where I want it.
A little bit easier to control. Anyway, we have gone over an hour, and I think we're going to cut it there because we could probably have this conversation all day with the experience that we have on this call. I want to thank everyone for participating in this call. I think that your views and input were great, and the show has been great.
Maybe next year people should come out and check out the show. You've got to come and check this one out at least once in your lifetime. On that, we'll say goodbye for everyone. Thank you, Jay and Jeff, for being on.
Bye. Thank you, Patrick. Thanks, Patrick. Hey, no problem.
Great to go. We'll see you next week. We'll see you everyone next week, and have a good week. Keep your head down, Pat.
See you.