UAS News Podcast — 2012-09-11
Transcript
Hello and welcome everyone to another installment of the UAS News Podcast Series. Last week we were dark, this week we decided that Gene and I decided we would put something together to keep things fresh and new. It's been pretty busy around here. I'm your program host Patrick Egan and we have our co-host Gene Robinson.
Gene? Hello out there working hard and staying at it huh?
It's crazy around here man. I'm busier than the proverbial tick on a hound dog. Got a lot of things going on. I know you're busy over there.
That's what I figured we'd talk about today. Today's episode is called On the Road. And the reason that it is called On the Road is because Gene's going to be on the road and I'm going to be on the road. And I've been doing a lot of On the Road lately.
I have a lot of things going on. I did want to talk about a little bit of some news I guess first off the bat. As far as the current events are concerned there's just a lot of stuff going on. I don't know if anything caught your eye in particular Gene.
Anything off the site catch your eye? There are many things that have caught my eye. Of course North Dakota is developing their own TCAS. They are Sense and Avoid along with a couple of the folks that are partnered in with them.
There's been several Sense and Avoid systems that have been purported to be able to apply for a small UA. I'm very interested in that obviously. But it's amazing how this stuff can all start coming together once the market opens up. That's what we've needed for a long time is that market to open up.
It's been a long hard fight. Well we've got some good news on that. That's something I wanted to talk about. One of the things I wanted to talk about today.
More and more stories about, I guess we even got some people are calling it the drone age. Let's see here. I was reading, I got Chris Anderson. He fancies himself the Steve Jobs of drones.
And he's calling it the drone age. Okay. I'm going for that. Sure.
There's a lot going on with unmanned aircraft. There's tons of opportunity. I think we've already beat that one to death. But something relevant is that I did talk with Mr.
Jim Williams, who's the new head of the UASIO over at the FAA, which is the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Office. Nice gentleman. We had about a half an hour chat. I tried to impart, let's say, a non-DOD perspective on him.
And I think that went pretty good. We discussed a lot of things. We talked about, you know, I talked about the ARC thing. He doesn't agree with me.
He thinks that the DOD vendors are representing small business. Maybe I didn't make a good enough case. I think that's ridiculous. It's actually absurd.
But whatever. I expressed that. I also said I thought it was folly that the FAA didn't have some academic representation from a school or that was actually had an academic program. And I also thought it was folly that they didn't have someone representing just the general public at large, safety concerns, whatever else.
I can't say that we were blindsided with some of the pushback from the public because I told that one years ago. No. I'm sorry. Yeah.
So I think that, you know, I didn't express. I thought that was folly. We've got to be a little bit smarter. I didn't tell him I didn't feel like I was the Long Island psychic.
You know, let's be a little smarter. You know, I also still believe that small business needs representation. I mean, I express that too. I'm watching this industry go down the tubes and it just breaks my heart.
I told him about what was going on with the Chinese. You know, people think that the Chinese are over there playing with bamboo sticks and dirt or whatever. I don't know what the hell they think is going on. But we're talking about, you know, building systems that can fly off carrier decks, like we've got going.
Fully carbon fiber systems with fuel cells. You know, they're not over there horsing around. And then look at the Iranians too with that story we did on that student competition. Extremely robust competition.
So, you know, between the two, I think that the Chinese are a bigger threat commercially for us or people like you that manufacture. And I also expressed and said, hey, you know, it's not only the FAA. I think at the federal level, the regulatory part of this thing, this jump in line, we're going to regulate you. Ten years later, whatever it is, it's just not keeping up with the machine generation, this technology generation.
It's just, you know, by the time you get to ten years or 20 years to get regulation together, you know, the industry's bye-bye. It is. It's just, you know, and I also said, you know, I don't want it to follow the model of the man, you know, what you got Cessna running over there to China, Seris over there in China, Boeing's got 5,000 employees in China, that Beacher or Beech Hawker, you know, Beechcraft, whatever, they went over there. They're going over there.
So is that just going to be the norm, you know, you just start up a whole new industry and let's just run to China? I mean, it's just, I don't know, you might have some thoughts on that too, Gene. I know you're probably over there racking your hands. It's been that way for a while, unfortunately, for, it's been that way for more than a decade because China has been a very fertile environment for businesses to go to, cheap labor.
They've been able to do quite a bit with Chinese government, surprisingly enough, because you would think that with a communist regime it would be difficult to do work with. I'm sure that there are some restrictions, but you're right. There are so many people that are going to China that have a presence in China, and then of course we see what the Chinese have done with their reverse engineering, they've reverse engineered everything that they see on the web. If it's on the Internet, they are going to build it.
We've seen examples of UA unmanned aircraft from the very smallest to the very largest on Chinese websites that have been copied, and it's inescapable, but they're going to do it. They have no compunction about picking up a design that we've worked years on to perfect and improve and to do the R&D on and advertise and display on the Internet. The next thing you know, the Chinese are making a copy of your airplane that cost $160 US, shipped in. That is extremely frustrating to watch that occur, and that has been occurring for the last 10 years.
I'm not advocating protectionism by any stretch of the imagination, but we should at least be able to compete. We are not able to compete if we can't fly and we can't test. I brought that up too, and I did express my displeasure. I did say it's a real hijacker.
We've had examples from Europe. I did say that too. I said this notion that the FAA is leading the way is just absurd. You've got UKCAA, you've got Canada, you've got Australia, you've got some mainland European countries.
I just told them, I said flat out, that is not what's happening. When I hear that, and when I'm in Europe with my European counterparts, they look at me and they wonder what the hell is going on over there. It doesn't even make any sense. So I said I'm a little upset about that.
I'm also, here's another one, is that manufacturer that will probably make you day on being facetious, that the EU is giving these companies money. Hey, you want to develop a high-tech product?
Here's some money. Go out there and then what you do is you go to America and you start selling it. Or like, you know, Gateway did. You know, hey, thanks.
The government gave me a bunch of money to perfect my program and my product and the manuals and all the rest. Hey, let me go sell it to Trimble. Or there's some other examples, and I'm not singling them out. Get on them.
They made it work. But it's just like, you know, the domestic industry, we're sitting over here and they keep kicking us in the shins. He did ask me why I think that the DOD vendors weren't looking out for the small guy, which I was surprised that I haven't had to make that case. I mean, it's just...
Anyway, I think, you know, it's got to come up to speed. I offered again, I told them all the work we did with ARCAPA and the proposed guidelines and the testing and the insurance. You haven't heard of any of that. Which makes me think that, you know, it's unfortunate.
You'd think the guy'd get a debrief. Hey, here's the history of this process. And I'm a little concerned that we're starting over. I know we're going to be starting over with a lot of new people in the office who don't know anything about the technology.
And again, I'm going to put it out there to the community, you know. Call them up. Tell them that you're tired of this. I didn't even read the letter.
I finally got the letter back from my congressperson's office. She wrote the administrator on my behalf. I don't even really need to read it because I know, oh, you know, the EOD vendors are looking out for small business. You know, I don't know.
I think I'm in a different charter than the one that the guys at the FAA read. But anyway, I did offer for Mr. Williams to come on when they get their one voice. I know they're working on the one voice over there at FAA about unmanned aircraft.
And when he gets that, he can come on. I invited him to come on and talk about that and get the word out there. I also said if you're not going to have, if you're not going to change the arc to include the public and the public process, you know, we're still going to keep that private. Another way that we can make it public is maybe, you know, you could put out press releases or come on the podcast and talk about what you guys are doing.
So the public, you know, has a little bit more knowledge and we're not just out here guessing about this public rulemaking process. Well, you know, Patrick, I do have to disagree with you though. There are a lot of folks that are coming into the FAA. Of course, they're opening six new offices.
We know that. And there's going to be a lot of new people coming in. But they're getting training. They're getting some training that is right down the line for using UAS.
But it's coming from people like Aerial Environment and Boeing. Right. So they are getting the training on their product. And that's what they're designing the regulations around.
That's what I keep saying. They keep laughing at that. But it's like, you know, I know, you know, I ran that down. I go, you know, hey, let's look at the small UAS arc and how these bins were put out.
That's it. You know, I mean, it's shameful. It really is shameful. I know it's going to make my friends down there at GSA happy.
But, you know, I'm sorry. I told them that too. You know, people think I'm a flamethrower and I got horns and all the rest of that. And I told them, you know, they kind of insinuated that we can't have, you know, one small business view on the arc, even though we did before.
Even though I'm probably, I had told them too, I can't take anyone on the planet. Okay. That has put as much time and their own resources into the, you know, the effort here in the United States as me. And if they have, come on board, can tell us, you know, let's hear about it.
You know, I told them, I'm not telling anything. As far as I'm concerned, the FAA took my business away from me in 2007, a successful business by edict. You know, I do not believe that they followed Title V of the United States Code. I do not believe that the T's were crossing the I's for darted.
I believe they changed their policy. So I'm at a point now where I don't really have anything to sell. I have no products to sell. Only thing I'm interested in, and I try to impart this upon him, is a segment of this industry that is geared towards success of small business and the academic success of this technology that I feel is more transformative than the green technology.
Right now, because the technology exists to put this stuff into use, which will help feed the hungry world, will help mankind, will help find lost children, will count fish, erosion. I mean, it's just, we talk about that all the time. It makes me, you know, go on ad nauseam about what types of uses there are for it. But, you know, we're just sitting here.
This can be like fueling the economy, you know. I'm going to do, and that's going to lead into the next deal. You know, I'm going to the Southwest Economic Forum, and I'm going to talk about that. You know, what's his name?
He worked at the acting administrator. I got up there and was saying, oh, you know, GA contributes, you know, a trillion dollars, and, you know, there's all these jobs, and I'm looking for the quote right now. But, you know, how much of that is going to be unmanned in the future?
You know? How much is going to be unmanned?
Exactly. It will be if it's allowed. Exactly. And, you know what?
And it's like one other thing I heard, you know, about the UA going into the airplane and the industry being over. I was a little bit of a warning bell for me because I don't believe that anymore. I believed that back in 2005 and 2006. That's done.
There's going to be an accident. I'm telling you right now, anybody who thinks that there's not going to be an accident involving unmanned aircraft and a loss of life is naive. It's going to happen. It happens with certified aircraft, you know?
But the quote was here is, I'm sorry, you know, just talking about infrastructure, improvements that are vital, expanding the 10 million jobs that civil aviation creates, and the $1.3 trillion the sector contributes to the U.S. economy. Okay?
And his quote also says it's about laying the groundwork for an American bill to last and compete. And that all sounds good, but if we wait another 10 years, we will not be competing. I can guarantee that. So how many of these 10 million jobs are going to be unmanned?
How much of that $1.3 trillion is going to be unmanned? We know it's the future. I know. What's it going to be and when are we going to be able to get to it?
Or are we going to give $3 million of those jobs to the Chinese and half a trillion dollars to the Chinese? The potential, you know?
It's that simple. And the business owners that are out there, I'm telling you again, write the administrator. Call the administrator. Tell them, hey, you know, I don't want the Chinese to take my business, please, sir.
I'd like to hire a few people in my community. And I keep talking to people and they keep telling me, oh, you know, when's RCAP going to do this?
When are you going to do that? How come you're not, you know, and I'm like, what, you know, I'm doing what I can, brother, you know, not there working this issue or writing letters, making calls and doing all that. And then the rest of the time I'm trying to feed the family and work on some other projects. You know, there's only so much time in the day.
So when someone's ready to step up in the community and either start pitching in or somebody, you know, with a little bit of grit really wants to crack this open, I figured, you know, I figured I went to AUVSI a few years ago right after the ARC and said if I had about $250,000, I think we could really start making a difference, start cutting off the avenues of escape for the FAA. I was told they didn't have any money. I've talked to other investors about doing something. I've talked to other groups about doing something.
They all sat there and rung their hands. That was before where we're at now. Now I think we're probably at three mil, three and a half mil to get something rolling, maybe even more. You know, but I think we can start cutting off the avenues of escape.
But one other thing I do want to, there was a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel there, Gene. So it's not all maybe down there. I was, I did, I did talk about some of the vendors that are flying under COAs at airports in the NASDAQ. And I needed clarification on that because, you know, we were talking about doing the Omega Unmanned Systems, me and Gene here, going to hang out the shingles as soon as we can catch our breath.
But I'm emulating, I told Mr. Williams I'm emulating exactly what the vendors have and that's what I want to do. And I'm not talking about the restricted or warning. This isn't class G airspace from airports in the pattern, all nine yards.
That's what I want to do. And I want to be able to charge, even though I thought that that wasn't allowed, that you couldn't, one dollar exchange in hands was commercial, it's telling me that's not the case. If you have a public sponsor and you get a COA and you get paid for your services, it's all fine and dandy. So that's, there's some, you know, you heard it here first, right here on the UAS News Podcast.
An income stream has opened up in the NAS. So there you go. There's your good news for the day. What do you think about that?
Well, you know, there's a couple of different ways you can slice that too, Patrick. We've had some discussion offline about this and just exactly how you categorize that charge. Is it actually for flying or is it actually for training?
Because $35,000 a week or so, the numbers that we've heard bannered about, you know, for an individual to go fly a well-known unmanned aircraft, that could very easily be the salary of the trainer and an engineer on site just to maintain the aircraft before it even gets in the air. The flying could be all just kind of academic, if you will, and after the fact. So maybe that's the approach that they're taking. Much like we used to speak about aerial photography, that
you can go out and take some ground pictures and you can take some aerial pictures and you only charge for the ground pictures, but they get them all.
Well, you know, whatever the case. I just, you know, it's like I've said for years. I mean, I told him too, I'm probably one of the only people or a handful of people in the United States who's, let's say, flying within the confines of the law, because I'm not really flying except the military projects, but that's on military bases. You know, I'm not pointing fingers at anyone, but my thing with that is, and I've said all along, because people are like, well, screw it, they can enforce it, I'm all here flying.
You know, I don't want to, I don't really want to be in a business that's outside federal regulations or laws. Call me crazy, you know, just I'm one of those guys, you know. I like to follow the letter in the law. I try, you know, to do that.
That's me. I'm not saying anybody else, you do whatever you want to do. That's up to you and the ramifications and all the rest of that. Me, I like to kind of stay within the law and that's why I'm working on this advocacy effort.
So whatever, like you're saying, you know, well, if it's like I'm only getting paid for the classroom time and the flying spree, whatever it is, I don't even care. I just want to know how other people are doing it and I want the same treatment. You know what I'm saying?
I just want to be, I want to be legal. A level flying field would be nice. It does help. Well, I think the next chunk of money that the SUS News brings in, I want to do an investigative report, another one.
And I'm going to find, I'm going to go and I'm going to find who's got COAS and how it works, the mechanics of it, how they're charging and how the FAA has been blessing us. Now I know what happened with Skybus and SAIC. They went out there for DHS and they got hundreds of thousands paid, you know, but they did not get paid for flying. But that's okay too.
I can take hundreds of thousands of dollars and not be paid for the flying. I can put that in for free. Whatever the case, I want to find out exactly what they are and I'm sure that the FAA has to be, have it written down with the criteria. I mean, it can't be arbitrary and capricious.
We can't go, oh, okay, well, this vendor gets that, you know, and this vendor gets that, but, you know, Joe Bagadonis over here gets nothing. I mean, it can't be that way. I mean, that's arbitrary interpretation. You can't operate, that's not law, that's tyranny.
So whatever their formula is, so they can take, you know, the $40,000 a person for training or the hundreds of thousands of dollars for demos. I mean, I don't know, when you go to do demos, I mean, most people I talk to, it's like I can't do any more free demos. They're killing me. Well, you don't have to, you know, you can get paid for that.
We just got to figure out, you know, I mean, I already kind of know some of it, but I mean, you know, we got to, we got to really drill that down because I don't want to be operating outside the law, you know, that's just me. But the other thing I wanted to talk about, and it's a short show today, and we're down here at seven minutes, is I wanted to talk about what you're off to do in D.C. So please, Gene, could you enlighten the listening audience as to what you're doing next week, buddy?
Sure, yeah, we're going to be going up to the Sam Raeburn House in Washington, D.C., which is the House of Congress up there. We've been invited to attend the Science and Technology Caucus that Congressman Buck McKeon and Henry Cuellar put on. Henry Cuellar is a rep out of Texas, and Buck McKeon is a rep out of, our congressperson out of California. And those two gentlemen head up the UA Integration Committee into the NAS,
and that's how I ended up getting invited to this thing because I watched a couple of the proceedings and took exception to the fact that there had been some folks out there testifying before the committee, and none of them had really flown an unmanned aircraft in the NAS, nor could they really speak to it.
So with that, I was given the opportunity to come up and kind of show what we're doing out there in the NAS along with 15 other vendors. It is interesting to note that of the 15 vendors that are there that will be in the foyer of the Sam Raeburn House, 14 of them are DOD contractors. Are they on the... Is it the same suspects that are on the, that are on each other, the ARC there?
You got any of those same people on there, the ARC participants? I think there most likely are. It's Moe, Comic, AeroVironment, a few of those folks that show up on that list, sure. And that's one of the things that we think we have as an advantage.
We're going to be there as a civilian representative. We've been pushing civilian use of UA's forever, and eight years flying in the NAS, and Search and Rescue and stuff like that is going to make us stand out a little bit. We can actually say, you know, we know what it takes to get out there and do this. And hopefully we'll find someone who is interested enough to pick up the cause and continue on with it, because obviously we feel that this is a very important sector to be in, or we wouldn't have dedicated as much time as we have to do that.
So we're pretty excited about it. The logistics are nuts, of course. You're never getting anything done when you're wanting to get it done, and it's never timely. We're flying out tomorrow and we don't have material, and it's going to be a crazy night tonight for sure.
Yeah, well, you know, I wish I could have. I know you were wanting me to go out there with you. I had already made a commitment to go to the Southwest Economic Forum. I am so glad that you're going there.
Again, the knowledge that you impart or bring to the table in the podcast series and your book and all the rest of the things that you do, and even your involvement in the community and everything else applied in D.C. is going to be, I think it's going to be great, and it's good that you're doing that. I know it's expensive and all the rest of it, but these are the types of opportunities that the community really needs to take advantage of. And I know you're going to run on the deal because you're going to be giving them a perspective they don't see.
They see the DOD perspective. And not that that's a totally bad thing, but I don't want to get the 99 percenter over here, but they're going to see your thing and go, wow, and when you talk about price points and capabilities, the rest of the folks in the hall aren't going to like you. Well, we're hoping, and we're trying to set up as many meetings as we can. You mentioned that you spoke to Mr.
Williams of the FDA. I actually have a meeting with him on Thursday, so I'll be meeting with him face to face, looking forward to that. And there are other guys that we're going to try to meet with as well. We're going to be meeting with Congressman McKeon's liaison, Air Force liaison.
So, yeah, we hope to be able to impart that perspective and maybe make a difference on the civilian side. Right. I hope it was a... You know, Mr.
Williams is a very nice gentleman. He's very professional. I wish him the best of luck. He's in a very difficult position.
I think it's going to take... It's going to be very difficult for him to maneuver in that position. I wish him the best of luck. I think at least we've got somebody who cares, and I feel like we've got a doer.
So don't think that I was putting him down. There's some of the things I gleaned. I think you'll have a good conversation with him. I did, like I said, I offered, hey, you know, any help we can give.
If you're interested in seeing any information or data or empirical knowledge, we're here to help. And, you know, I hope that you reinforce that message. I'm sure you will at what you're meeting with him. Certainly plan on it.
Yeah, well, that's, you know, we have to. It is a two-way street. And I do think that, you know, we're out here and we offer to work with people. I mean, like I said, I mean, I'm willing to, you know, do extra work, work for free, whatever else.
I mean, I can't...I get a little, let's say, frustrated with busy work, you know, but what are you going to do? We'll have to see. The other thing I want to talk about, our last guest, Mr. DeFore, excellent guest.
Thanks again for bringing him on, Gene. That was an excellent conversation. I'd like to sit down and have a say in adult beverage with Mr. DeFore.
And I was wondering if that dog catcher position was sworn. If it could go on like this for much longer, I might take it, you know. But and then next week we got Ted Wiersmanowski on. Ted works for AV, AeroVironment, but he's going to come on and talk about...
He's chairperson, too, for ASTM F38. And he's going to talk about the progress that they've been making since the arc. And they came in and asked them to work on standards. There are other groups, but ASTM is really carrying the torch.
He's going to talk about the progress and the standards and everything that's going on and who's involved and how you can get involved. So that ought to be pretty interesting, you know. You've gotten a lot of perspective from me, but you'll get some from the chairman. But anyway, okay, Gene, good luck next week.
And we'll talk again on the 19th, buddy. Good luck in your presentation in Oklahoma as well. And we'll see you then. All right.
Have a good one. All right. Bye.