UAS News Podcast — 2013-11-13
Transcript
Music Okay, welcome to the next installment of the SQAS News Podcast Series where we interview newsmakers and discuss the news and applications relevant to the global unmanned technologies community. This is usually where, well I would say I'm the host Patrick Geoghan, but I would also say, you know, let's say hello to our co-host Gene Robinson. But Gene Robinson is in the middle of a flight for NIST right now doing the wildlife urban interface work that he's been doing for a while. And so he will not be on right now.
He may check in later. We'll have to see how that goes. He just texted me that he's literally in the air. Lots of stuff going on in the news.
One thing that I did want to talk about was the Lady Gaga little copter thing. Kind of interesting. That was none other than Gus Calderon who was the speaker at the Small Unmanned Systems Business Expo. Actually built that and then flew the Gaga across the stage.
It's a pretty cool video. But without further ado, I want to bring on this week's guest. This week's guest is Mr. Douglas Marshall.
I met Doug back in 2008. He was also on the Small UAS ARC. And we're going to talk about the roadmap and test site stuff. Hello, Doug.
Good morning, Patrick. How are you?
I'm doing good. Another beautiful day out here in sunny California. And I'm rubbing that in because I know that you are a native Californian. I am indeed.
Well, Doug. Go ahead. Sitting here enjoying the cold here in sunny North Dakota. Yes, it is.
I was in South Dakota last February and I think the high for the day was minus nine. And I will say that I was not, especially coming from California, I was like, wow, this is crazy. I wouldn't want to be in a drafty teepee. I don't know how they did it out there.
I just, it's crazy. But you learned to live in that type of weather, Doug. I have indeed. It's quite a good weather actually.
I don't miss the crowds and the chaos in California. I do miss the beaches and the warm weather, but I'm right here. All right. Well, that's good.
So maybe you could introduce yourself to the audience, a little bio, and how you became involved with Unmanned Aircraft. Well, as you just indicated, I'm originally from California. I was in the law business out there for a number of years and retired from that. And came up to North Dakota to Grand Forks where I obtained a position as a member of the faculty of the College of Aerospace Science at the University of North Dakota.
So I worked as a professor of aviation for approximately 12 years before moving on to my current assignment, which is at New Mexico State University, down in Los Cruces, New Mexico. I was involved in the law practice, so I was involved in both aviation law and maritime law. So I have many years of exposure to the legal regulatory side of aviation. I'm also a pilot and have represented a number of companies over the years involved in commercial aviation.
How I got involved in UAS stuff was basically, as things like this often happen, sticking my hand up in voluntary for something. A long time ago, UND was a member university at an FAA research effort called EGAR, which stands for the Center for General Aviation Research. There were five universities that were involved in that effort, and they performed a variety of research tasks for the FAA's tech center in Atlantic City. Most of them unrelated to unmanned systems, but all technically oriented.
So the EGAR people came to the group and asked for volunteers to do some research on regulations and basically a gap analysis focusing on state of the word technology and trying to determine what regulations might apply to or restrict the development of the technology that would drive unmanned systems. As one of my colleagues, Ben Trapple and I, the volunteer division, Patrick, I think you know Ben, Ben is a life member of the Academy of Monetary Aeronautics and RC guys, and way, way back, a former Navy pilot.
So we embarked on that jointly and did a long project for the FAA that morphed into two or three more follow-on studies that I did for regulation gap analysis. And just through the exposure to that and then starting to attend meetings and being involved in RTCA's SC203 committee and some really ASTM work with F38 and SAE, G10 committees and efforts through the DOD and some other efforts that were gone in Earth Dakota relating to the bed down of the Omaha mission for the Air Force, the Air Force Base, and a variety of other efforts.
It's one of those things where it just kind of evolved. None of it was planned. So here I am, full-time UAS, and it's really been an exciting ride. I left UND about three, in fact almost exactly three years ago to join the team into New Mexico State.
And they have a long history in unmanned aircraft research and development. So that's where I am. Well, you say that, it sounds like you just newcomer to this. I'm teasing.
I was going to say that I was down in Las Cruces. I was down there, I don't know if it was last year, since it all kind of blended together for the NIE, but I did notice your name on one of the office doors at NMSU. I got a tour of the whole facility from our mutual buddy Doug Davis. And really nice facility down there.
You guys are on the other side of the Oregon Mountains and tons of unobstructed airspace, which I think your airspace also joins up with White Sands, doesn't it? You guys are a huge, huge swath of airspace. Great hangar, you've got aircraft down there, great facility. And like I said, when I got the tour, I was like, hey, there's a worst act here today.
Yeah, I work out of my home for the most part here in North Dakota, do some traveling. I get down to Las Cruces periodically to interface with the team down there. Hopefully it's in the wintertime, it's kind of toasty down there. Yeah, yeah.
A guy from North Dakota, my little, little, little warm. But you know, the desert kind of grows on you after a while, not really. It does, I love it there, it's a great place. Do you like the desert climate?
I do, yeah, very much. I like Las Cruces, it's a lovely community and I wish I could spend more time there. But I understand there's such a lot here most of the time. And it's not a bad town, I will say it's a little bit better.
I usually stay in Alamogordo, which is a little rougher. I don't know if you've been over there, but huge. Passing through. Passing through, yes, that's what most people do.
And so it sounds like you've been pretty busy since the arc. I remember, you know, I've seen you a couple of times since then. And even when I like flashback on the arc, I mean, really we cut through a lot of material in a pretty short time back then. We needed more time, we needed another year.
You know, I thought the same thing. It seemed though that they wanted to, you know, I think at the time they were like, Oh, you know, we've got to get something together here, wrap it up, slap a bow on it, push this thing out. We've got people to meet and places to be. And, you know, that was what, 2009?
Right. And we're here now. Are you, you happen to be on the current arc?
I am as a subject matter expert on one aspect of it, the part 91 stuff. My boss, Steve Hoffman, is an official member of that arc. And I was asked to join the work group and see what the other efforts have gone on with specific focus on some of the aerospace regulations. So the answer is yes and no.
I'm not officially a member of the full arc, but I have a lot of two-way work groups. And then just maybe perspective question is any, what do you think compared to the small arc and this arc, are you that involved that you could make, getting an impression?
Well, it's, the impression is that they've got a huge task at hand, even I think even bigger than the small arc. And it's moving slowly. I think they have more time to do the work than we had on the small arc. But the small arc experience kind of informs the new arc or arc two because many of the same people are involved.
And I think the experience that we had on the small arc was good background to what's going on now. Of course, it's more comprehensive. It's a broader scope and a bigger mandate than what we had on the small arc. But they're moving along.
We've done some good work. We got a recommendation on one aspect of Part 91 here recently that I thought was pretty well done. It's always a challenge when you're talking about an consensus-based volunteer organization and trying to get everybody to come to the trough and agree on anything. So that's what it's all about is get as many points of view as possible.
I agree with you. And that's kind of funny as I ran across, you know, Bruce Tarbert on LinkedIn and I was just actually, this was yesterday and I was thinking about that. And I'm sure you remember the arc. There was a lot of varied interest on the small arc and, you know, poor Bruce was in the hot seat a lot of the time.
He was. He and Ted put up with a lot of nonsense. I'll tell you that especially. You know, there was just such a broad spectrum of points of view on this and it was good.
I learned a lot in that experience. It was really good. It was an amazing opportunity to hear the points of view of such a divergent community of people with different interests that all ultimately wanted the same thing, which is to try to come to an agreement on how we can advance this technology and the potential uses for it without endangering lives. And that's, you know, I thought it was important work.
I really do. I still do. I wish we could see the final outcome of that as soon as we can. You know, now they're talking about spring for the NPRM.
And that's been frustrating to know how much time we worked with Glenn on that and to have it drag out for three more years. But it was a great experience. It was a good experience. And, you know, I kind of miss the, it was kind of hard to explain to people because they go, you know, it's hard for them to wrap their heads around that arc type of thing.
And really for, I think it was like 10 months plus or something that we actually all worked together. I mean, we really worked together. And I didn't, I think at the beginning of that, I didn't realize the scope of work. And that's been turned into a full-time gig, you know.
Right. You know, 10 or 12 months. Right. And the scope expanded and changed as we went along.
I mean, the FAA and the co-chairs were flexible enough in the approach to allow us to make adjustments along the way. Yeah, you're right. It became much more intense than I think any of us anticipated, a lot more travel than we well anticipated. But it was all good.
And those face-to-face meetings were, you know, they were pretty wild at times. But in addition to the just the big ingredients of hedging out our different points of view, I made some good friends too. I met some people, yourself included, that I consider friends. And you know, that wasn't the best of that experience.
So I really thought that whole 10-month period has been great. I would agree with all of that. And I do think, you know, even in the day of, I do think you can do the cybercommuting and I do think you can do all of that and correspond and whatnot. But I really thought that the rubber met the road at the face-to-faces.
I mean, you know, passion came out of people. And I know that, you know, I was a little bit of a wallflower. I didn't say much during the whole process. I know.
But there were some, you know, really big two, you know, the other guy that really sticks out, you know, people sort of like Dave York, you know, Dave was like, you know, he was really passionate about his, you know, his constituency and how he felt. And you can really, you can't get that inflection on the Internet. And so you're right. The face-to-face thing really, I think it was very important.
Although on the other hand, I think, you know, there was a lot of that. I think Bruce took a lot of what I said as personal, which it wasn't personal. I mean, I like Bruce. I think he's a great guy.
Unfortunately, he was the masthead for the machine. And, you know, he had a separate fling there. But I think that was a little bit of a test and testament to his patience, you know, because I know I was towards the end there, I was getting under his skin a little bit. But it was on purpose.
I think probably the better description of his role became a lighting rod because everything reflected on him and that, to a lesser extent. But, you know, Bruce was the face of the FAA throughout this whole thing. And we know he had marching orders and he had certain agendas that he needed to pursue and that frustrated a lot of people. But, you know, I think he did a good job.
For the handing was dealt. He had the cards. He had to play. He had to do them.
You know, I think he did a pretty good job. I mean, you know, that was a little bit of an exercise and a little bit more than an exercise and just cat herding. Anyway, so, go ahead. Well, I was just going to say one of the kind of side benefits to me personally was at the time that I was involved in the ARC, where we were in all these meetings I was also teaching a graduate level course at UND on FAA regulations and policies.
And so I was able to use the experience, almost real time, to describe how the rulemaking process works at the FAA and, you know, laying out this whole 15-step process to change a rule, that sort of thing. And I come back and tell stories about, you know, some of our meetings and how this whole process was working. And it made it really real to the students to understand that this is how business gets done. It may not be the most efficient way of getting it done.
But I tried to explain to anybody, a lay person who's not really familiar with not only the FAA but just the government regulatory process of why and how it takes so long to change things, it gets hard unless you actually are involved at a grassroots level to actually see how it works and try to explain to people that they're shaking their heads and say it just can't possibly be that way. But it is. It's just, you know, a country of 230 million people that all have the potential for having a say-so in the outcome of a rule.
You know, it potentially is cast. Well, it's good to hear that they benefited from that too. That must have been a very interesting class as this progressed. Well, and I think it's good background for today's subject.
And we did talk about that for a while. It was very interesting that, you know, the roadmap and the documents that came out, the comprehensive plan, yada, yada. I'm going to say that I was reluctant to read the documentation. And Gene was like, fired me an email as soon as he got done.
Did you see this? Did you read through this?
And I'm like, no. And I kind of looked at all of this with a little bit of dread, and which we'll go into later. But mainly it was because I figured I'm going to go through this, I'm going to read through this, and I'm going to have to fire off letters to a bunch of people. And I've got a whole bunch of drafts already going.
One of my good friends, Peggy Gilligan, we talk all the time. Man Peggy, she's great. And some other people about what I saw in there. But, you know, let's talk about that.
You're the guest. What are some of the points that struck you?
Well, some of the bigger ones. Yeah, some of the bigger ones. I mean, there's a lot there. And I've read through it all too, but I can't say that I could pull chapter and verse and video because it's very late there.
And there's just a lot of content there. But one thing that kind of leaked out at me was they're repeatedly emphasizing that the time frames, the near-term, mid-term, and long-term, and some of the dates that they were discussing were targets, target dates for compliance with the mandates and not mandates themselves. And they're still holding that kind of as a front card saying we're going to do the best we can to meet these targets. But, you know, keep in mind that you may not be able to comply.
And what you read in between the lines on that is we need help. And you've got a mandate here without any funding to back it up. And I'm not sure how they can do all this or accomplish all this without additional support from Congress in the form of funding. I mean, that's one big thing that strikes me as targets versus mandates.
Right. And I saw a lot of that too. And I'm going to use that worthiness as an example. Develop or facilitate the development of.
I mean, these are, from the experience of the ARC and from the experience of being part of this effort, that just that constitutes a huge amount of work. And, you know, I will say that even back in the language that was in H.R. 658, that was one of the big things that I saw lacking in that bill was there's no money. There's no money at all here. And, you know, that's not how the government machine works.
And I'm not saying, you know, to be derogatory, that, I mean, you know, there's groups that you're going to have to hire out. And there's research that's going to need to be done. And then you're going to have to get the engineers in here to, you know, let's say, you know, qualify all that data. I mean, there's a lot there in that sentence.
So I can tell myself the same thing. Sure. And it's, you know, we have secrustration, which goes across the entire government with these huge budget cutbacks that everybody's got to deal with. But for Congress to mandate certain things that those on the inside know what the complexities are and not put any money behind it, that thing is insane.
It's almost a recipe for failure because, you know, I think the FAs are already overwhelmed and they're overburdened with responsibilities and mandates. And they've got, you know, their primary safety function. They've got a very complex and very vigorous airline industry to oversee, along with, you know, implementing next gen and just trying to bring the entire system up to speed and modernizing the air traffic control system.
I have great sympathy for the FAA at this point, understanding what their task is and how they're going to try to meet those mandates and comply with what's required of them without additional funding.
In fact, I don't know how they're going to do it. I just don't. I would agree with that. And the other thing that maybe I'll ask your opinion, because I hit on this topic a lot.
You know, I think coming into it, you know, there was some pressure from some of the different groups and you've got to do something in this unmanned aircraft thing, you know, you know, sky's falling, yada yada. But I think they kind of came into it. And as like the, and I've noticed this on several occasions during the arc, when it really came to light what was going on out in the Nass with even the RC stuff and the hobby guys and then what was coming online with small business and commercial stuff, I think they were totally blown away with the scope and size of it.
Your comments? Well, I think that's true. We know from just from other information that we've gotten along the way that until recently the FAA's priority, listed priorities of things they need to get better over the short term and the midterm had UAS way down at the bottom of the list, I mean like 15th or 16th, and weren't taking this seriously. And this is a wake up call when, you know, chronic harvest got you up and said, no more dithering, you know, you've got to get this done in response to the pressures and all that was coming from the constituents.
I think that they were blindsided to a certain extent, but on the other hand they should have seen it coming because those who have been working in this area have been telling the FAA for quite some time this isn't going to go away. You can't look at it as a problem, at least you have to look at it as an opportunity to help evolve an emerging technology and in a way that's actually parallel or consistent with their efforts on the next gen, which has been in place for longer than this.
So I agree with your statement, I think they are blowing away, but now the reality is it's going to have to get done.
That's what this roadmap is all about, is sort of a shocker approach to finally somebody taking a deep breath and saying, look, we can't do this any longer, we're going to have to deal with this and this is what we're seeing. Well, I would also say that in the early days, let's start with a way back machine and dial it back to say 2004 or something, there was a lot of people who thought this unmanned aircraft thing would probably be a military thing, the rest of it's kind of a joke
and never going anywhere and people were saying things like, oh, when there's a first accident this whole industry is going down the tubes and it will be forgotten about.
And I think that that carried on for a few years, but we are definitely way beyond that now. And I think that that realization was made a couple of years ago where people were like, well, it's not going away. Uh-oh. So I think the standing up of the small arc, excuse me, was maybe the first acknowledgement.
Well, in FD203, I know they put that committee together to try to deal with some of this way back in the day. The small arc was really the first aggressive effort to try to come up with something. But it's, you know, the FAA has been drugged into this kicking and screaming like, they really didn't want to have to deal with this, but the reality is what they do. And, you know, there's been a lot of reorganization and rethinking administratively and within the executive leadership of the organization to try to deal with this.
And with the acceptance of the growing realization that the evolution of this technology will also benefit the evolution of next-gen and some of the other bigger efforts. I think we're on the same side of this issue now as to the bandit in contention for the attention or the funding from the agency or from the outside, from the industry. Right. And I would concur with those points.
And I'd also say that, you know, I think that the unmanned thing even represents more to aviation in the sense that it's kind of like as we've seen in other sectors, it's a technological jump. You know, technology has kind of come along and offered us all of these new, let's say, opportunities and also, let's say, advantages for safety and whatever else. And aviation had kind of changed a little bit in the past
and it was involved. But then I think we hit this kind of technology milestone and things were really picking up with the different sensors and autopilots and other electronics and things.
And I think that both of them could be beneficial, mutually beneficial to aviation as a whole. Oh, I agree. It's...I'm sorry, go ahead and finish it. Oh, no, you're the guest.
Go for it. You know, people that have questioned the benefit of the space program, you know, the skeptics saying, what do we ever get out of the entire multi-billion dollar space program?
Well, we get, well, Velcro and some drink mix, you know, orange drink mix. That's the only thing we would call this stuff. And not much else other than just the fact of exploration and advancing technology. You know, what did the space program do for humanity?
What did it do for technology? What did we learn from the technology that was developed to send man out of space?
And that's, you know, obviously that's an unfair characterization. But when you talk about unmanned systems and the potential for life-saving technology to be developed out of the evolution of unmanned systems technology is huge. You know, something that comes to mind that just happened on a tragedy over the last couple of days was one of our college men lost his son in a general aviation accident a couple of days ago. I think it was a public-gated surgeon that died flying somewhere out of Tennessee or somewhere.
You know, we don't know what the circumstances were or what caused the accident. And somewhere in the United States, I think they still, like, two general aviation deaths per day on the average in this country, even though we have an incredibly safe system. It's over 600 a year, people that die in GA accidents. And more often than not, it's weather-related or flying into, you know, clouds or in the severe thunderstorms or by pilots who are not qualified to fly in that kind of weather or getting in trouble of some sort where they can't get out of it.
And one of the many technologies that's developed developing out of unmanned systems is Auto-Manned technology. You know, the Auto-Manned Predator or some of the smaller systems. And those kind of systems, I think, someday are going to be standard installations in GA aircraft where a pilot gets into trouble or loses control of an airplane that it will self-correct and it will be able to fly somebody out of a life-threatening situation like that. And that's an oversimplification of what the potential is.
But I think there's opportunities for tremendous technology growth within this industry that would apply to manned aviation that would come out of UAS. And it has to be looked at like that. It's not just a plaything or employee or a way for somebody to make a living over a short term. It really is some technologies that have been developed that will benefit everybody in the manned aviation world as well.
Well, I can compare with that. And I think there's a lot of promise with the AESB and some other systems that are coming online. And I agree. I think there's going to be a lot of cross-pollination.
You know, your space example is good. And again, it was kind of an oversimplification because I like the rocks. No, I'm teasing. There's so much stuff that came out of the space program.
And the other thing I think that really came out of the space program for the human race that, you know, and I wasn't alive then and that at all. And you know, when Kennedy was like, we're going to the moon, you know, people were like, he's crazy. You know, we'll never be able to do that. But there was some bravado there and people were like, yeah, you know what, we're going to do that.
And the human race was able to do that. You know, I mean, I think that when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon and booted it, people were like, wow. You know, humans can do anything they really put their mind to. So I, you know, and I think commercial space is totally exciting.
And that's another podcast for another time. I love commercial space. I think there's tons of potential there. That was another thing I was doing down at New Mexico State University.
Because isn't that the SAA Center for Excellence for Space at New Mexico State University, Jeff? Yep, sure is. And in fact, New Mexico State is the host program for that. New Mexico's got a long history, excuse me, in the space program, as you know, as well as the station in general.
And the range or the area that is part of our flight test area has been a proving ground or a testing range for space programs for decades. So it was a long history there. Yeah, no, I was all over, and I forget the launch, is it 34 where Von Braun was working with all the Cassie B2s?
Right, that's where you want to be. Yeah, the last time I was down there. The one-task desmosoil, right?
Yeah, the last time I was down there, I went over that whole thing with a fine-tooth comb. It was really exciting. This is kind of where the space thing started. But space is another show.
We had Pat Heughe on, and she was very interesting. She's a very nice lady. I'm trying to get her out. I want to try to get her out to the Small London Systems Business Expo.
Because we've got some space people out here, and she's a great speaker and a great person. I really like her. But I did want to talk about, since we're in the roadmap, and I also want to talk about the test center thing. And one thing, I know you were involved, and maybe you could give some background, we could talk about that.
But that was another big sticking point for me with the test centers was like, you know, no DeNiro here. How's this going to happen?
I mean, the infrastructure to set something like this up is one expensive to develop. And then also the overhead of running something like this is just crazy expensive. What do you think?
Well, I agree. And I think that the major challenge for the successful applicants or proponents for this thing will be putting in place a business plan that actually makes sense. I know that was part of the SIR or the screening information request requirement was to come up with sort of a pro-forma business plan as to how they were going to make each site financially feasible and successful. Without some kind of federal funding to back it up, I think it's going to be a head-on task really.
It's going to be difficult for anybody to break even off of this unless they can create technical parks. I think North Dakota is doing something like that. And I believe Kansas and perhaps Alaska are doing more than just pitching for the test site, but actually having a tech park that will get attached to it somehow to draw businesses and bring employment and high-tech jobs into the area. But one of the mysteries in this whole process, the flight test center process, is how the FAA intends to administer it.
And that's something I'm anxious to see once the six designees are identified and selected and they've accepted the task at that point is how is the FAA going to oversee the program? Do they have the staff and the resources and the bodies to actually comply with the oversight requirements to create something like this?
If they're going to delegate some sort of authority for every minute's certifications or pilot certifications or any of those different components of the flight test centers, that brings with it liability issues and requirements that the FAA is going to have to deal with. And if they're going to designate each of these successful proponents as a DER, DAR kind of designee, then there has to be some money behind that. Nobody's going to do it for free. And I suspect that it's not going to come from industry.
They're not going to pay for that. So I don't know. I'm curious. Yeah, me too.
It's kind of funny is when this, you know, I've been dealing with my congressperson's office, all this matter and then aircrafts matter to film up day one. And, you know, one of the guys called me up and it was when the test site thing was announced and they're like, how much is this thing worth?
And I go, well, you know, you talk to people, some people are going to say billions. All right, that's all I needed to know, but, you know, nobody's talking about funding any of this. And if there's no funding, you're going to have a hard time making things happen. Oh, hey, look at this.
Gene Robinson showed up. Gene. Hello, Patrick. Hello, Doug.
I've just heard a little bit of what you were saying. And, man, I've got to agree with you 100%. We've been kind of wondering those questions too. But, yeah, I'm sure that your insight is probably significantly more involved than mine is.
But, yeah, sorry I'm late. I just got done landing an aircraft. We're out at Arcoisite doing some training. And it's a beautiful chilly Texas morning and the flying is great.
And we won't be able to stay real long, but I wanted to stop in and say hi and see how you guys were doing. Well, you know, we're glad that you came in. We were just kind of talking about the test site thing. But, you know, I'd like to, because we're kind of jumping back and forth and we may run a little long, but that's okay with me.
What do you, I know, you know, you, I was telling Doug that as soon as the documentation came out, you were emailing me like, hey, you've got to read this. And I was reluctant. And so now I read the comprehensive plan. And, of course, I've got a whole, you know, stack of letters I need to write so they have for education.
You know, maybe you might want to share some of your thoughts on that documentation, Gene. Well, it has been lauded as a step forward. I don't know that I'd question that. But what really concerns me more than anything else, Patrick, and I'm sure Doug, too, if you think about it, you know, they've been supposedly working on this issue since February 13, 2007.
So that's, let's see, by my math, that's what, five years or so? And, you know, pushing on almost six years. And then in Roadmap, they try to convince us that this regulatory process is a very difficult thing and a normal process takes five years. And since this is so complex, it could take five to ten years.
I'm a little concerned with that statement and the fact that they've basically started, you know, first rattle out of the box or kind of make an excuse on the complexity of the issue, when I think all of us, if we sat down and kind of put together a common sense approach to this thing and looked at where it needed to be in this and the National Airspace, I don't know that it would take five years. I don't know that it should have taken the five years or six years that we've been on it. But here we are and we're supposedly moving forward.
But, man, it's at a glacial speed. Well, we did cover some of that. And I think, you know, there are certain aspects, and I would agree, I think there's definitely a certain class that could have already probably, you know, gone. And we did cover some of that.
When I see, you know, when I look through this, I agree, and me and Doug kind of talked about this, you know, develop or facilitate the development of standards for, you know, airworthiness and pilot certification. And I do show you something. I see something here, this routine access by 2020, you know, 14 CFR per night, you know. And I started putting the numbers together and I'm like, damn it, you know, I'm going to be, you know, there's not going to be too many years left for me to be in this industry before I'm going to be retired.
Doug, any comments? Well, I'm going to be long retired by then. I'll continue to follow it, you know, as an interested observer, but they're continuing to kick the can down the road to use, you know, put over use of the shade. But that's really what's going on.
And that's a concern. On the other hand, I understand it's almost predictable because what they're trying to do is to integrate or fit a new technology into an incredibly complex regulatory system that has evolved over the last 60 years. And it does take four to five years to change the rule. I mean, that's just the reality of why it takes so long.
And to try to merge all this into existing regulations or to come up with a new part that's going to deal with all this is an enormous task. But as you just pointed out, you know, they started this six years ago. We should have been further down the line than we are. Well, you're not getting any argument out of me.
But I do realize that it takes time to whittle the sides off of the square peg they're trying to, you know, hammer through the round hole. I don't think that the two models really – I think that was one of the problems early on. And the two models don't really work together, you know. You've got, I think, a different, you know, set of things that you need to deal with than what we're dealing with over here, and especially on the real small side.
I think it's a real mistake. There was not some sort of exemption for the under four pounds, which I wrote another one. I think you would have people really gravitating towards that. And the sensors and the systems are just getting smaller and lighter.
And if you made something that was really easy, and I know I'm probably preaching to the choir, but easy to use, and even small and low kinetic energy and all the rest of that, people would just gravitate right to that. And you would contain a big part of that right here. And you'd have less of a problem. And, you know, it just wasn't done.
I think that flashes back into the not really understanding the scope of what they were dealing with when they jumped into this. You know, that's pretty perfect. No, I think you're right. And we had an opportunity, you know, a window that closed, unfortunately, to do what you're suggesting or something along those lines until the privacy issue popped up.
And that kind of took everything along the wrong fork down the road. People don't understand the technology and don't understand the implications suddenly getting on board with the privacy thing. And that's sidetracked everything. Now the FAA is getting into the privacy and security business.
Yeah. Well, Doug, do you really think that that wasn't a red herring of sorts to kind of buy some time?
It seemed to be very opportune. And, you know, it allowed for... Now, I agree, the FAA should not be involved in privacy issues, especially ones that already exist. But it seems to me to be a very convenient inconvenience, if you know what I mean.
Right. Well, yeah, I'm not sure if it was truly coincidental or planned, but they had warnings. You know, I'm pretty much the creditor of this. I gave a speech about six years ago at a conference that the University of Colorado Boulder put on, on civil UAS.
It was a well attended conference. There's not a surefire of people there at Boulder. And at the last minute, that wasn't even on the original agenda, the steering committee thought we ought to talk about privacy implications for these small systems. And so literally over night I threw the general presentation and got up and did a 30 minute piece on, you know, the technology that's out there like facial recognition software and other things that could be used to identify somebody and put it all on the Internet.
It actually could kind of cause an eruption in the room of people that were really upset about it and thinking, you know, we haven't even thought about this. We're talking about privacy, you know, this can't happen. And okay, here we are, it did happen. And you know, that was, I think, the first wake up call that every athlete and people in the room that should have been thinking about this, and it elicited a lot of comment after that.
But no, it shouldn't have been a surprise. But you know, they're acting like it has been and it's taking us in a different direction now. It's unfortunate. It has.
Now let me just say to the listeners, we're going to run along on this show and I hope that you have time, Doug, because I think we're in some real, we're down here in the grass and I think it's good conversation. So you know, do you mind going a little bit longer?
No, that's fine. Yes, Gene. We are about to start another pre-flight, so I'm going to have to end the stage left. So I appreciate your being on, Doug, and your insight is great.
I've heard some of you coming in and you're right on target. And I'm going to go out and see if we can have another successful flight. Okay, Gene, we'll see you next week. Okay, it's time.
Now, you know, even delving a little further into the privacy thing, now I do believe that, you know, people may have concerns, but I think that, you know, and I kind of brought this up to the community before. I mean, it really kind of heated up with the military use of this technology. And as I tell a lot of people, I say, well, you know, some people think that military technology is really cool until it's driving down your street, like a tank or something else.
And I think people don't understand this technology, and I think as a community we've done a poor job of, I'd say, portraying ourselves as a technology that does more than just military jobs.
Agree or disagree with that? I agree. I think we've done a terrible job of educating the public on the peaceful and humanitarian uses of these systems. We've tried to separate ourselves from, you know, what's going on in Afghanistan and Iraq and other parts of the world where these systems are used offensively.
It's just the use of the word drone to describe these things, you know, it's become a majority term that the media uses, number one, because it's easier to say than on those systems, but I think it's both a physical response from people that it's kind of unfair to folks like yourself that are wanting to use this technology for commercial or peaceful uses. There are two different things. There really are mixing apples and oranges when they talk about a four-pound quadcopter just being a drone. It's not.
Well, the community is complicit in it, too. You know, it's kind of funny, I was talking to a gentleman yesterday, and he was like, wow, you know, really, he was a commercial space guy, but he was saying, you know, I'm getting into this unmanned aircraft thing, and it really seems like the different facets of this community are compartmentalized. And I said, yeah, they are. And it actually grew because it was kind of a, you know, back in the early days, we had, yeah, you had your commercial guys, you know, and I'm not discounting the RC guys, but they were always there and they're still here.
And you had your military guys, and people were kind of doing their different things. And now you have, you know, this amateur crowd, which is almost a placeholder between RC and small business. And amateur to me is really a euphemism for if an opportunity comes along for me to make some money, I'll do it. You know, I'm not really doing that.
I'm kind of out tinkering and doing stuff. But if it comes along, I will do that. And some of those people have really gone nuts with the hype. You know, this is, I'm working on military technology in my basement and blah, blah, blah.
And some of, let's say, the detractors have kind of latched onto that. And they're like, oh, my God, you know, there's people tinkering with military technology in their basement. And, you know, I don't know what scary thoughts that conjures up. But I did know that even before, you know, this thing really heated up with the drones and the military thing, people were afraid of the Terminator type of issues, you know, that people would ask me, oh, you know, is this thing going to turn on us and kill us or, you know, whatever else?
And I'm like, no, not really. You know, if that technology really existed like that, you know, the military would love it. But it's not here today. You know, but that's always something.
And it's kind of like, you know, there's a Mary Shelley quote from Frankenstein that, you know, you are my creator, but I am your master, obey. And I think that in the American psyche, there's always in the back of their heads that we're going to have some technology that we put out there and it's going to come back and bite us in the rear. Do you think that's a fair assessment?
Well, there's always a potential for technology getting out of hand. I mean, the social media is the best example of that right now, where, you know, people are concerned about their privacy, but then they'll put all kinds of nonsense on Facebook and on YouTube and all the rest of that. So, you know, any technology could be misused. You can put a shotgun on an RC helicopter and go, you know, and there's always going to be double-headers who want to get to the extreme and abuse the technology or pretend to do something that isn't realistic.
And that makes it look bad for everybody else. And that's why you have a regulatory environment to try to stop that kind of behavior. But the potential for abuse is always there. I mean, you can take any piece of technology and figure out some way to abuse it or misuse it.
And somebody can get hurt with it. And that's the reality of the world we live in. Yes, and trying to regulate knuckleheads as existed has proven too difficult to do. It's too difficult.
There's too many of them, actually. I've got to erase the knucklehead. Exactly. Here you can write a book and, you know, it's way too many knuckleheads.
And, you know, I think there's some good points. And, you know, I think I'm going to say, as we come to a close here, that on some, and we touch on these points, on some of these points I'm surprised that, you know, we have more Frankensteins at the village here, are not at the gates, you know, at the pitchforks and the torches going, you know. There's a lack of action here. And it's putting us behind the curve with the rest of the world.
And I will also say that I think it would be, you know, I've had talks with people who are, let's say, new to this, but they're the regulatory people for certain big companies. And it's almost scary how uninformed they are, how hands-off they are, and just think that all of this stuff is just going to work itself out, and we're all going to, you know, skip down the path here happily. Kind of scary. I'm going to suggest that everyone read and understand the material that was just put out because it's very telling.
Doug? Yeah, I agree. There's a lot to be sore of there, but it tells you, I think it gives a pretty good picture of the FAA's thinking and what we can expect over the next five to ten years on how we're going to try to deal with these issues. Well, and you just hit on a good point there, because a lot of people that I talk to, there's a lot of people out there in the community who are, I don't even know where they got this.
Maybe it was, you know, we've turned into a headline information society. But, you know, September 2015, full-life system announced, you're going to be able to do whatever you want to do and be able to build nets. Absolutely. No, not anytime soon.
So, you know, it's an interesting conversation. I think you brought a lot to the table today, a lot of good insights, Doug, and I want to thank you for coming on. I look forward to seeing you in the future, and maybe you can make it out to the Expo in San Francisco. I don't know if you ever make it out here to California anymore.
Oh, yeah, I'm out there several times a year. It's a little hard, a race to try to get out to your event. Well, that would be interesting. You know, and also, you know, hopefully, like I said, we cross paths here as soon in the future.
Thanks again for being on, and, you know, we'll see everyone next week. Okay, thanks for inviting me, Patrick, and enjoy the conversation. Me too, sir. Have a good week.
All right, take care. Bye-bye.