sUAS News Podcast — 2015-11-20
Audio not available on SoundCloud — full transcript below.
Transcript
All right. Hello and welcome everyone to the next installment of the SUS News Podcast Series where we interview newsmakers and discuss the news and applications that are relevant to the global unmanned technologies community. I'm your host, Patrick Egan, and now as always let's say hello and welcome to our co-host, Mr. Gene Robinson.
Hello, Mr. Egan. I certainly hope you enjoyed your little vacation there while I was holding down the fort. Well, yeah.
You know, I like to sneak something in once every three or four years. You know, drink a little L'Orinard, you know, makes things better and it kind of goes along. I took Mrs. Drone dealer on vacation and I have this little Max and then you've probably heard of before, but too much drone and your marriage can become unmanned.
So you know, remember that. Love it. I love it. Okay.
Yeah, it's happened to a lot of guys. So, you know, and I've got skin in my teeth did a couple of times, but you know, you got to know what to play catch up. So it was good. Had a good time, you know, and but I'm back and better than ever.
And we got a great show today, you know, some more experts. And as far as I'm concerned, you can never have too many experts. But, you know, any as we always say here, you know, are start to show off any new stories catch your attention this week, Gene. Well, there's been while you were gone, I've been doing what I usually do.
I've been in Pascagoula, Mississippi, working with some folks down there in the Jackson County Sheriff's Office looking for a downed airplane. And you know, it just never stops. There always seems to be that that need for, you know, the aerial imagery and the drone support that we can provide. And I'm happy to say I did it legally.
It was just, you know, it was such a joy to be able to say I've got a three thirty three and I'm going to go do this under RP search services. And nobody said a word, even talk to Trey Khan and those folks up there. And they were like, yeah, hey, knock your lights out. And it just made it a little easier on the sticks, you know.
Well, it's probably you know, it's been a few years, right? I mean, you know, I got to remind people all the time that now, you know, this drone thing was legal prior to 2007. We were, you know. So remember, remember the good old, good old days when you were doing it, OG styling and you were you were all legal and you were flying around.
You remember that? God, you just, you know, whip it out and and go for it. So, yeah, I remember that. And it just seems like a distant memory.
But yeah, and it's still probably going to be a distant memory, too, huh? Probably. But it used to be in the good old days when you used to be able to fly unfettered. And we working with the FAA together, stakeholders arm in arm with like the sound of music singing on the mountain.
OK, anyway, another story wasn't quite that good, but it was nice. No, it wasn't. We're coming back around to that. Today's show is going to be great, though.
We've got, you know, more subject matter experts on here. We're going to talk about the registration thing with Terry Miller from Unmanned Risk. We're going to talk about some scientific studies with Mr. Halsey Smith from AeroKinetics.
It's going to be great. But I want to talk about registration first. We got Terry Miller on here. And like I said, from Unmanned Risk, Terry, could you please give the audience short bio on how you got here and how you got mixed up with these drones?
Hi, Patrick, you bet. Thank you for having me, first of all. We transport risk management, Unmanned Risk started started writing drones about five years ago. My background is about 25 years as an aviation insurance and risk management specialist.
And we were an insurance broker that is heavily involved in the aerial film production industry. But five years ago, a lot of our film production companies wanted to start using drones. We thought it was a great idea because it makes a lot more sense to have a small unmanned aircraft over Central Park or flying down Water Street in New York than it does a manned helicopter. And so we we had to find a way to to get that done.
So we went to our underwriters who have supported us, given us a tremendous amount of support. Started off with one underwriter five years ago today. We have we have more than 10. We're ensuring more than 3000 drones worldwide for every imaginable use.
And we continue to continue to ensure them at the rate of about six and new ones a day here at Transport Risk Management. So we see a bright future in the industry. You're killing it. You're killing it.
And then when I had you on hold, you told me you were out there in the Walmart parking lot and you just bought your first drone. We're we we happened to ensure the warehouse where where where where a lot of those drones are sitting right now waiting for distributed sales over the holidays. And I can confirm there's a lot of them. And it is very close by.
To the North Pole. Close by. Yes. All right.
Well, you know, we wanted to we wanted to have you on here because one of the big topics today, we're going to talk about drone registration. And we've made some comments about this and back and forth and all the rest of that. You and I seem to be on the same page. The only thing is, is, you know, and you did bring this to my attention because I was on vacation, but it looks like deadline.
They're going to be going to roll this out tomorrow, which in my mind, I was kind of like, hey, this is shit. You know, they were rolling up the sleeves. They got some private sector kind of, you know, initiative going here. And I'm all kind of excited.
Anybody else have any thoughts on Saturday? OK, so you guys, everybody else wants a Christmas card from the FAA besides me. That's right. I was speechless there for a minute.
I didn't know what you were alluding to there, Patrick. Well, we were, you know, the whole industry really, you know, we've been we've been we've been dealing with registration here in the insurance industry for four or five years. That didn't exist when it first started. And today, a big problem still is that aircraft don't just don't are either home built, amateur built as per the FAA's definition.
So we had to invent our own registration system years and years ago. So we're we're we're you know, we're excited. We were waiting for today when the announcement was supposed to we're supposed to disclose the recommendations of the task force. And then we saw Secretary Huerta's post on the FAA's website.
And there's not just one sentence in there that says that it's actually not going to be delivered today, but they expect it to be delivered tomorrow. So it seems unusual to have it delivered on a Saturday. But, you know, missing the deadline by one day isn't that bad, all things considered. No, it's not.
You know what I would do if I were you. Oh, go ahead, Gene. Sorry. Well, they've made a couple of announcements on Sunday, if you'll recall.
They, you know, pull some things out that, you know, we were like scratching our heads. They did it Sunday before the holiday. I think one time they were made an announcement. It was really odd.
So, you know, odd timing out of those guys is nothing new. Keeps it, you know, keeps it interesting. Now, if I were you, Terry, what I would do since they didn't, you know, announce it today, I just take the rest of the day off and go skiing. Well, you know, it's snowing pretty hard here in the mountains of Colorado.
And I'm heading that direction to watch to watch the French women ski team train this weekend and possibly even film them with the drone. Wow, that sounds interesting. A little bit more interesting than waiting for the registration. It's game and insured.
Yeah, it's true. Yes. So the here I am, you know, I made comments for the R Kappa or on behalf of the membership of the R Kappa. And I contended to the FAA that I didn't understand what the urgency was.
Because in my mind, a registration scheme already exists. And we did talk about that a little bit. You did. You gave me a link.
You fired off a link. But maybe you could talk about that, because I mean, you have to have some sort of way of tracking, let's say, insured aircraft, correct?
The insurance industry asked that we have to meet a couple of different standards. Number one, we have to we have to be able to identify the aircraft we're actually insuring. So we had to come up with a system that that could do that. And that's a label.
And it's a numbering system that that can also if it if use the extreme, if one comes through your window, if we insure it, it's going to have it's going to have a data plate affixed to it with a number and our phone number and our name says, call us. We'll be able to identify who the owner is. We'll be able to tell exactly what that aircraft is. So we have to because the aircraft are scheduled to the policy, we have to be able to determine specifically which aircraft we're insuring.
And that was that that that's that's difficult. A lot easier said than done a lot of times, because most amateur built don't have serial numbers. And how we do that is is they have to verify, you know, what it's what it's what the composition of the aircraft. And they do that through sending us all of the invoices or a bill of sale.
Exactly what's required of every other aircraft that's registered, exactly what the FAA requires the second criteria. So we have to verify insurable interest, which is ownership. You have to prove to us that you own it, that even if you built it, you have to show us that the components are in your name. You have a bill of sale, something like that.
Third is that we have to somehow figure out whether there's a lien holder or a third party with it, with interest in the asset as well, just like you have a loan on your car. So we can't it's very difficult for us to pay a claim unless we can verify that. So here at Transport Risk Management, we had to develop a system years ago to do that. If our aircraft are out there, you can verify coverage.
We can verify whether it's coverage covered every aircraft that we ensure. We know exactly what that aircraft is, who's operating it, where it's being operated and what the uses are. We can also tell you every component that should be on that aircraft. And when a claim happens, when we show up, we scan the barcode.
It goes to our system. It prints off a list of components or an inventory or a bill of sale. We can verify to the adjuster that that's in fact the aircraft. And that's not magic.
That is the aircraft registry. There the FAA has a page posted. I'm looking at it right now. Says aircraft registration, unmanned aircraft.
Registration is required for all unmanned aircraft operated for non-hobby hobby or recreational uses. And then it lists. There's a whole list of criteria. And that's almost exactly except for the citizenship requirement, everything that we follow.
So, yes, there is there's already a procedure in place for for not only unmanned, but also amateur built unmanned. And it's very easy to read. It's on a single page. And then you just follow, follow the directions and you can go out and register your aircraft.
There are thousands registered already within numbers flying. So it's possible. And if you have a three thirty three exemption, actually, I think you have to have an end number. So if we have twenty five hundred or twenty eight exemptions out there, then we have thousands of aircraft that already have end numbers or at least required to.
So, yes, the system, the system's there. It's been there for a long time. And there's even one there for unmanned aircraft. Well, let me just I wanted to get Jean to pipe in here because I know Jean's a three thirty three holder.
Yes, Jean, do your aircraft have end numbers? Right. Yes, they do. I went and I I reserved six in numbers and it was a very easy process.
And, you know, I think it's kind of interesting that the FAA made a comment, you know, right off the bat that, oh, you don't need to hire anyone to get an end number for you, which is true. It's a really easy process. You can reserve it. And then, you know, once you do the paperwork and get the die, not in the cross, you can get it applied to just about any aircraft you own, including the drone.
OK, I'm sorry. I was just kind of going to say I was just going to say that, you know, that the same thing really applied to the three thirty three as well. And there there were a lot of folks that jumped on three thirty three manwagon and started offering it as a service when in actuality it was not that difficult to do. I mean, heck, we wrote an exemption to two, three years ago that floated around in the air 160 for a while.
And we had to cancel that one because it was too far ahead of our time before we got our three thirty three. But I mean, we still did it and we didn't contact a single lawyer. And it was just, you know, following the forms. Well, interesting.
But OK, so, you know, I wanted to kind of wrap this up. And we're on our second guess. But let's just OK. So, you know, we're looking at the FAA page here and I got this pulled up.
But the registration for aircraft and home build already exists. And, you know, I think there's like a carbon copy thing and there's a notary public and and things like that. And there are other stipulations. You got to be a citizen.
And so I mean, there's a lot of problems there. But do you think this is going to overland on the Wal-Mart and the Best Buy and, you know, Brookstone at the airport and all the rest of this, this the aircraft registration deal?
And I'll ask Terry first your thoughts on that. What what is the question?
I'm sorry. Well, how does aircraft registration that already exists would work at Best Buy and Wal-Mart and Brookstone at the airport?
You know, I'm going to go in there and buy my drone and I get a register. My aircraft. Do you think that's going to go smoothly or clunky?
I think I think it's going to be necessarily clunky. One is is, you know, Huerda versus versus Trappi. Be careful where our Parker be careful what you wish for it, because you might get it. That that defined unmanned aircraft as aircraft.
And there's a there's a great big book that I'm an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University graduate in aviation business administration action investigation. We had to read it the first year I was in Embry-Riddle. It's the rules exist for aircraft. And second, an aircraft, you know, I don't I don't know how you define if you buy one at Wal-Mart, for example, is it is it an aircraft because it can fly or is it an aircraft once it enters the Nass?
What if it never enters the Nass? Should it be registered?
Second, how do you deregister it? We've seen some some ideas that it's just going to be applied to to an operator and not to each aircraft. But then how how does how does that work?
How do you define how many aircraft are out there? As far as we're concerned, we still have to follow the same registration procedure internally, if that's the case, because we have to identify each and every aircraft that we ensure. So I think defining whether it's going to fly or if it's an aircraft because it can fly or if it's an aircraft because it is flying are two big distinctions. Number one, number two,
I think that because there already are rules that exist that they're going to have compliance issues and I think they stand a tremendous amount of pushback, you know, from a number of different areas, namely those that have already gone through this process.
Well, that sounds good, but that sounds great. I could appreciate all that. But I want to just know, so there's my home closet in my house now, you know, magically, is that is that really an aircraft hangar?
That's going to happen. That's precisely the question. At what point, at what point do they become an aircraft when they're in the NAS or or when they're when they roll off the production line?
Exactly. All right. Well, that's I mean, those are some good things to think about. Gene, did you have any closing thoughts on that subject?
No, that was pretty funny. I like that, though. Yeah, the question is, is what is is at this point?
An area. I think that's a slippery slope. So we're going to move on to our next topic and our next guest. I mean, Terry, you're welcome to stay on because I think that this will all.
I will watch the snowfall and listen in. This is this is obviously very interesting to us because we we ensure well over 5000 manned aircraft here as well. All right. So this is right in your right in your neck of the wood.
So our next guest is W. Holy Smith from AeroKinetics. And Mr. Smith, could you please come on and tell us a little about your background and how you became involved with this this drone study?
Sure. Appreciate you having me on today, Patrick. We we have been in the aerospace and defense industry since 2003, mostly in the manned aircraft space. We have maintenance operations, aircraft operations, special missions operations and various engineering certification groups that we we operate.
About three years ago, we were approached by Fortune 100 clients to develop an unmanned aircraft that could be deployed anywhere in the NASP. And we went down that process to work with the FAA in the certification process to figure out the best strategy to ensure we got safe operations for the public. And as we move through that process with the FAA and with the public, we watched the proliferation of the toy drones, which are not unmanned aircraft. I mean, technically, by the definition, they are.
And I think from your last segment, you were just discussing that is that sometimes your hall closet can become a hanger relative to the definition. And from our perspective, we don't really see that as a fundamental issue. What we see is the fundamental issue and the reason for our study is that until we recognize the dangers that toy drones pose to manned aircraft and innocence on the ground, we can't have an honest conversation about how we're going to go about solving that challenge.
And so that is really the reason why we've got this study and why we what it's been the last six months working on it and developing it to produce the first scientific study that demonstrates the danger that toy drones really do pose in the national airspace system.
All right. Well, we're on the same page. You know, I mean, there's been a little bit of stir about your study, but we're on the same page. I've been saying for years, I mean, if you can't.
And I've been asking the FAA this question since, I don't know, probably 2006 is where's the data? You know, if we don't have any data, then basically what we're talking about are feelings. And we don't know what the risk is to the Nass or the people on the ground. And we may be over regulating or under regulating, you know, staying objective.
We may be under regulating, you know, maybe a big problem here. Well, I've asked the FAA, I said, you know, where's the hazard?
Where's the data? They've had none. I really, you know, I've been at this this this whole drone thing has actually been going on for 23, 25 years. I don't know if you're aware of that or not, but anyway, this has been going on.
And we've been, you know, kind of trudging through this one up here with no data whatsoever that talks about any risks to the Nass or people on the ground. And so I've said from the drone side, hey, we got to do some science here. There is an apprehension from the drone community, you know, and rightfully so. People are a little afraid that their product may cause a risk or whatever.
But there's different ways that you have to go about mitigating those risks. But first, we got to determine the risk. So I agree with you. So that was the impetus for your study was to say, hey, let's establish a baseline for the risk.
Or was it something where you were you were looking for maybe a cutoff with the different sizes? What was it?
So really, the focus of our study is to demonstrate that the risk is substantial and then enter into an honest debate about how best to regulate, you know, all various types of unmanned vehicles, you know, airborne vehicles. OK. And from that approach, I want to give a lot of credit to the FAA in this respect. You know, we're working with the Pathfinder program.
And so many times I see the FAA getting thumbed in the eye for not embracing this technology. And I can say from our experience, we have some of the best and brightest of the FAA working in conjunction with us and others to really tackle this issue. And they're technologists. They're embracing the speed of technology and they're working as quickly as they can to put in place a set of regulations that are effective for providing for public safety.
If you look at, you know, really specifically the challenges that we all face in the industry and probably to answer your question, you know, what is the purpose of the study? How did how do what do we hope to come from this study?
Is that the FAA needs additional data points. They need people such as aerokinetics and others, you know, even on this call. To be able to put this challenge into perspective, provide them with data sets relative to potential issues so that they can better draft regulation to pinpoint exactly where it needs to be under a balanced approach. And so that's been our approach with this.
That's what the study is about. If you look at our solution section in the end of the study, we suggest conducting additional research, working in conjunction with the manned aircraft manufacturers and working together with industry at large to really evaluate how great these dangers are in a live testing scenario. We believe that you need to have significant public education. You know, fly responsibly, you know, is very important.
And we believe that you have to still provide for recreational and hobbyist flights of of toy drones. You can't. And this is America. We can't say that you cannot fly a hobbyist toy drone.
We just need to establish a means with which people can do that safely and effectively inside the national airspace system. And then the real issue here, Patrick, and something that I think all too often is glossed over and it's been pushed upon by the toy manufacturers that are out there is that Section Triple Three and proposed part one of seven both exclude any sort of airworthiness certification underneath Section Triple Three and part one of seven is originally drafted. The operator of the unmanned system is self certifying that that aircraft is airworthy.
And I don't know about you guys, but I'm not certain that I know very many people who have the expertise level that maybe we have on in this in this interview to be able to make determinations as to whether an aircraft is airworthy when they're buying these systems, these toys at places like Sam's Club and Walmart and Brookstone. So when you evaluate that from an insurance perspective, there's a huge economic authority gap that exists that doesn't provide for the public safety. So that's a whole other part of this study that we wanted to highlight.
OK, and one of the things that I'm going to let Gene go ahead, Gene jump in there. Yeah, one of the things that I have, I'm still trying to wrap my head around. You keep saying toy drone. That adjective there was the same adjective, essentially, that was in front of aircraft for the longest time.
It had model aircraft. Right. And we we've now gone away. That that definition has been changed to just be aircraft.
And sounds like somebody's mixing a martini back there. But, you know, you that's me. Terry's going to get a martini. You keep saying toy drone.
And I think that's a conundrum that that we need to kind of move away from, because how do you qualify a toy drone versus professional drone? There there are manufacturers that could go either way on this one. So if you evaluate our study, sure, if you evaluate our study, we specifically define toy drone versus an unmanned aircraft system or UAS. And and this is a debate that needs to occur.
So from from our perspective, a toy drone is an aerial vehicle that is not designed with any of the generally accepted aerospace grade engineering and design principles. OK, and a toy drone is not fitted with aerospace grade avionics systems, even at the most minimal level. OK, so that is how we classify a toy drone relative to an unmanned aircraft system. So when you look at that definition of a toy drone, if
you can't communicate with other aircraft, you don't have radio communications package and you don't have any sort of transponder ADS be in and out or capability and you don't have any other basic avionics packages that would be acceptable by an aerospace grade standard, even at the most nominal level to us.
That is considered a toy drone. And that is really where the largest area of risk is inside of the national airspace system. And I think it's very important to draw that definition. OK, and I'm just going to try to round the definition out a little bit.
Right now, what about, you know, weight on that? I mean, you're talking I mean, in my mind, what you just described is it's going to be like a huge portion of the people that are already out there flying drones. Is there a weight cut off?
And then I want to get Terry in here. But is there have you thought about weight and the kinetic energy thing?
Sure. So as we evaluated the risk structure with weight, there's two factors, obviously, in kinetic energy and these impact studies, velocity and mass. And so weight is definitely a contributing factor. From our perspective, you know, we didn't consider a cut off weight as a study that was wasn't really the purpose of it.
But certainly, if you evaluate, you know, sub 55 pounds, I think that that would be effective. But again, I'd have to consider that further before I give you definitive answer, Patrick. Oh, that's good. And then Terry, I mean, so, you know, Terry here is, you know, if you were in on the first part of the conversation, Terry's ensuring about 3000 UAS here.
So, Terry, from your perspective and the definition, did you what would you say about that? What are you ensuring?
Today, we're ensuring everything from phantoms to pilot optional turbines. And, you know, we're you know, we we're so so that's that's and we we just consider all of those to fit the definition of of of a UAS. And we ensure them all on similar policy forms and and provide extend the same same coverage, same as we do from a, you know, from a home built amateur built air manned aircraft up to seven. You know, forty seven essentially the same policy forms.
We underwrite them the same way and and, you know, treat them the same way, the same same breadth of coverage. Yeah, but the percentage of that stuff that, you know, is a larger percentage of the stuff that you're ensuring not having like this in the ABA and the grade that he was talking about. The avionics and when they're there, yeah, the vast majority, not as 90 percent plus and 91, 92 percent are are the small UAS ready to fly or home built. And, you know, airworthiness was a was a concern for us as well.
There's no way to determine airworthiness or not. So we based it on loss ratios and what we're comfortable ensuring today. And five years worth and thousands of drones. We've we're not uncomfortable with with what we've been able to determine.
We work with robotic skies and areas where we have questions and and other partners like Skyward and and, you know, we we're you know, learning as we go. All right. So I have a question for you real quick. If you don't mind, I'd like to jump in here.
What what limit of liability are you offering? And are you doing that underneath the CGL policy form or a true aircraft?
Well, it's an aviation one is an aircraft policy form that covers aircraft operations. Manufacturers are under a CGL. Ours are under aviation aircraft policy forms with 15 carriers worldwide. We go up to 500 million liability.
We ensure drones right now. Small S DJI, S 1000 with 100 million on them. Impressive. And and one of the things that, you know, I've read through your report with great interest when it came out.
And the from what I read, you took the bird impact study and you just did a mathematical extrapolation into the energy transference, is this correct? Generally, that's correct. So there's that that's a very baseline summary. Yes, sir.
OK, well, I'm just trying to understand that, because we also looked into years ago the frangibility of the aircraft as well, because I can, you know, I know from the bird strike study, they were surprised at how that that soft sack of goo could stay together and go as far as it could go. Well, there's a lot of elasticity there. I'm getting kind of geeky on you here. But, you know, with with a lot of plastic and composites and stuff like that, rather than staying together, they come apart.
And I think that's probably going to change maybe the way some of this stuff works, because when you do, when you actually get down to actually, you know, firing that that DJI at a windshield, you know, you're going to get maybe see a little different results as that thing comes apart on impact at that speed. Absolutely. We've done modeling on that. The reason why we didn't include that in the study is that as a a toy drone comes apart to take, for example, the motor attached to a DJI, as it separates from the the airframe, from the arm.
OK, it turns into a projectile and maintains a very high velocity, which is exponential in the overall calculation of the kinetic energy. So effectively, as it breaks apart, you could imagine it being more of a shrapnel hitting an aircraft component as opposed to a bird, which would, you know, it's kind of morbid to think about, but it would spread out and increase the overall surface area. So the modulus of elasticity is what you're mentioning. And that specific factor is something that we addressed in the report.
But we we did not include it because it actually served to increase the overall dangers of the report. And we didn't feel that it was appropriate to include that without significant additional research and calculations to do that. And we wanted to make sure we had a conservative and defensible position. Yes, sir.
That's understood. Yeah, well, one of the other questions that I had is, you know, is we did we actually do real world kinetic energy tests and you have to excuse me. I'm a little bit of a late to the party. I was on vacation, but I did see the story.
And as you know, we tried to put something together quick. So there were there were there were actually no real world tests. Are were there some real world tests?
Oh, we would have loved to have done real world testing, but I couldn't get my board of directors to approve a multimillion dollar budget to launch to a drone to demand aircraft. Damn it. Well, I guess it's better than firing frozen chickens. Yeah.
So we we hope to do that. We're working with several, you know, aircraft manufacturers to to evaluate that potential possibility. And we'd love to develop a consortium to do real world live testing with high speed cameras to better understand the overall effects. And we think that would be phase two of this type of a study.
So there are there are plans to to follow up on the work that's already been completed. Absolutely. I mean, as an aircraft manufacturer, we need to continue to better understand these challenges and risks going forward so that we can make in as much safety as possible into our overall design structure. And that's part of our R&D efforts on a go forward basis.
So and in the beginning of the of this segment, segment two, you were talking about how you were approached by Fortune 100 company and they wanted you to come up with something or develop something that could be flown in the net. So that did I get that correctly?
Yes, that is correct. And so have you developed this this unicorn?
We have. We've developed the unicorn. We actually deployed some of them in early last year and then continuing this process, going through the type certification efforts. Today, we're we're slated to achieve type certification for our three variant systems.
The Little Bear, Big Bear and Apollo variants, which are on our website, www dot aerokinetics dot com. And with those three different variants, we can fly in urban environments, which is specifically where Little Bear is designed to perform the best. And we also have Big Bear, which is a medium lifter using ducted propulsors that provides greater opportunity to meet more industrial challenges and flight mission profiles. And then Apollo is an open rotor system designed to be flown in remote and industrial sites as a true heavy lift, long endurance, multi rotor aircraft.
And that's the approach that we have as a business. Ironically, we are sensor and cargo agnostic. So as we look at our design schema, we don't care what type of a sensor a customer wants to operate or what type of cargo they need to transport. We want to make sure that our system is adaptable for all of them.
So we use a lot of hard point design systems to be able to make those flexible. And we have a very robust communication links and data transmission links that allow us to move data in real time, effectively anywhere in the world, you know, with a reasonable delay so that, you know, business leaders have the actual business intelligence they need to make real world decisions. And I like I'm looking at the little bear now. And I like the, you know, you got your prop guards on there.
Looks like we're thinking about some safety and this Fortune 100 company that you were talking about, you don't have to name any names, but would they move freight on rails? No, sir. That that particular customer is not one of on our current roster. We know what they're doing.
We follow them very closely and had some interaction there, but they have a definite need. And we're looking at, you know, potentially working with them in the future and hope we can can do so. Let me ask you another question. You know, this is another thing, you know, you guys talk about toy drones, and I think this is another, let's say, you know, separates the men from the boys.
And it sounds like you guys are going for, you know, like aviation grade system. Can you give us a ballpark of what the little bear retailed for?
Sure. So that goes to our business model. We don't believe so. Our customers are not the ones you choose.
The, you know, unmanned system operators, our customers are large, you know, Fortune 500, Fortune 1000, you know, multinational corporations who are looking for a total solution to deploying unmanned aircraft inside their day to day business operations. So as we look at that approach, our customers are not looking for one or two systems. You know, one of them was looking for forty three hundred units across the United States over the next two years, and they need maintenance support. They need connectivity, integration, training, the entire solution structure.
So when you start looking at the sales process, we have some published pricing on our website for one and two off customers who want to acquire these systems. But typically most all of our clients choose to lease them as a full service solution and at least a start as low as four thousand dollars a month turnkey, including maintenance and service contracts and as well as a rodable spare. So, for example, we all know that if you're flying in an area
and you're working with a customer or a client or you have a critical mission and you do have a unmanned aircraft that needs maintenance or service or somehow needs to be repaired, it often can take time.
So we provide rodable spare systems to our clients for those type situations so they can maintain dispatcher liability. Two is one and one is done. And you guys are down there in Fort Worth, Texas. Gene's also in Texas.
I mean, have you met Gene? We didn't really get to meet Gene Robinson, but Gene's been doing search and rescue now for what, 10 years, Gene, with these things?
Yeah, 11 years, something like that. A little while. All right. Well, I mean, it's interesting.
Like the I like the design looks like things are kind of safe there. I like where you guys are kind of going on that. And you're going to follow up with the studies. I haven't I really haven't heard of you guys.
And like I say, in the ecosystem, have you been going to any of the the unmanned, let's say, symposiums or you kind of that's not really your crowd? It sounds like you're trying to market to kind of more like fleet sales. Yes, yes. So we do go to the shows.
We were at a VSI this year. We typically don't exhibit at, you know, industry trade shows, such as for the unmanned systems industry. We exhibit at customer shows. And that's been better for us going forward.
We love going to the industry shows. They're great. And there's a lot of great people there. Speaking, I just wrapped up giving a keynote presentation at the third Add to Aerospace Conference in Los Angeles back in late October, and then doing also another conference, the Unmanned Systems Institute Conference in in San Diego, the I think 13th through the 16th of December.
Looking forward to being there as well and doing those. The next year, we do have quite an aggressive show schedule. And I look forward to meeting all of you in person, face to face and continue these conversations. Well, that sounds good.
So let me just hand it over to Gene. Anything in the in closing, Gene, anything you'd like to add?
No, I've got to tell you, since I was a NIST pilot and did all the fire research and all that flying unmanned aircraft, I got to tell you, I really like the science part of it. And that's why I kind of went geeky on you there. Sorry about that. But I really looking forward to see what happens when, you know, you really start that research in earnest.
And I think that's going to be pivotal. I think it's going to be very key to collect that data and put it into something that's tangible and we can rely on. Oh, yeah, I'd like to thank you for that. I'd like to, you know, I think it's a good thing.
Like I said, you know, I've been really for the last couple of years, really pushing the unmanned aircraft industry to do some science, put up the money, say, here's here's the here's the risk. This is objective. Please come in and disprove our findings. I think we need to do that.
I mean, I don't I go to these these shows and you get people from the big, you know, the Google, the Amazons and the Facebook saying it's safe because we said so. I don't I don't think anyone's buying that. Got to come up with some real science that we can go in and sell this to Congress and the regulator and everything else. Terry, would you like did you have anything you'd like to add in closing?
No, I just appreciate being here. I thought this was very interesting. As a matter of fact, the the business model that I was just described, the most successful manufacturer business model that we insure today is almost exactly that. That we put together a leasing program and it's almost an aviation version, an unmanned version of ACMI, except that it just goes out leasing, includes training, maintenance, and it's worked extremely well.
A couple hundred aircraft in that fleet, I believe. So and and the research here is important, too. I mean, turbine engines have incredibly tight tolerances and an uncontained loss is disastrous. And and, you know, it's it's certainly possible that that could occur with with with one of these small U.A.S.
And that's obviously of interest to us because we could be insured both of them at the same time. We'd like to avoid that at all costs. And did you give your website address, Mr. Miller?
It's unmanned risk dot com, just just like it's spelled or transport risk dot com is our manned, it's our manned site. All right. And we look forward to hearing your presentation at this year's Small Unmanned Systems Business Exposition, San Francisco in April. With that, I'm going to say goodbye to everyone.
Thanks for being on. And until next time, you know, keep it safe. Thank you very much. Have a good holiday.
Thanks, Patrick. Good holiday. They no problem. Cheers.
Hi.