Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to another episode of weekly wings dronelife.com podcast, hosted by Paul Rossi, myself and Terry Neff. Both of us are located in the wonderful state of North Carolina. Bringing you the most current information conversation, not investment advice pertaining to the drone industry.
Terry, welcome. How are you doing?
[00:00:33] Speaker B: I'm doing pretty good, Paul. I would like to give a big apology to everybody that listens to the show that we've been. Had a little hiatus. Life problems hit everybody at different times.
[00:00:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know, though. It just kind of. It is what it is. You know, we got hit with a.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Big bunch of busyness. I got sick for like two weeks straight after going to. On my vacation. I don't know exactly what's been happening with you, but it's not been great over here.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: Oh, just staying super productive. Staying super productive. I think most people know, looking at, you know, what's hanging on. On my wall and what you're doing and the fact that, like, we're not. This isn't about money and we're not. We're not generating tons and tons of income. We're trying to get information out. We're trying to maybe be somewhat, I don't know, partial entertainment, if not anything else. And. And so we're doing our best to keep. To keep crunching out that content. I also think it's that time of year, Terry, where, you know, it gets warmer and so everybody's just. Everything just starts happening. And like I said, people, I think folks know here with the weekly Wings podcast, we're doing our best to just put out that information. If anybody does want to provide any monetary sponsorship contributions, we can make sure that this is happening all the time.
But with that being said, we've got some great stuff to talk about. Things are happening so quickly, not just in the industry as a whole, because a year ago or two, you'd be like, wow, things are happening so quick. But it was like something would happen in this market, something would happen in this market, and they were all part of the drone industry.
Now it feels like there's something happening in every single market of the drone industry at the same time, once a week. So public safety. It's not a monthly announcement. There's like weekly announcements about some new product, some new partnership, acquisition, drone delivery space. There's like a weekly announcement. It's. It's not these, you know, sporadic. And so the industry is thriving. And the markets, you know, there's. There's not just one or two markets. I'd say it's the. A dozen if not more markets. And so I did want to say we've had some comments in the on the videos over the past few that we've put out so did want to make sure we recognize that pancake flux.
So everybody loves some good flux, right? If you solder you you at least know flux in that capacity. And then also there's flux capacitors speaking of capacity.
I digress but pancake flux commented like a month ago on two videos that I say access to the frontline real combat environments with real counter drone weapons is worth quite a bit to our own drone slap slash weapons manufacturers folks like andurl test things there and iterate and so that comment, you know after that comment I think over the past month we've seen just massive announcements in regards to like defense in UAS and then some more recent combat comments.
Vast CNC a little less than two weeks ago on our most recent video had said love to get your takes on tariffs in the industry this week.
Terry, like you said that you were like super up to date on tariffs and you like had a great answer for this question. Hold on, hold on.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: Listen guys. Now Paul might be able to answer these questions a little better than me, but I am 21 years old and I don't know too much about how politics works. Yeah, I don't know much about tariffs.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: I'll tell you this, the you really don't right when being in the resale of drone space, it's very clear that these tariffs are having an impact. So when we're talking, you know folks, the 100%, 120, 145% tariffs on products coming from China, that's real and that stuff went into effect like the initial tariffs went into effect you know a couple a month or so ago. But within the last two weeks we have seen a 100% tariff applied not to consumer drones. So a lot of folks that are looking at it on the on the Mavic 3 Pro side, a DJI mini drone, a Nevada 2 those products are somehow still at a an established price point. But but your, your I heard, I don't even know if I heard a beep or something. I'm trying to bring this up. DJI Lake Matrice 30 will share the screen here. These prices have gone from a Mavic 3 thermal.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: So I know there was the original tariffs before we started adding tariffs to every single country on earth.
But is it so is there extra tariffs added now or is is it just the same tariff as before that they added and is it it's not a blanket tariff. No, like where it just. Everything's 100%, I'm sure. Other stuff's more, some stuff's less.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: So let's see DJI here.
So this is DJI's website, right? This is a drone that they're saying on their own, not available in your country or region.
So like two, like a month ago, you could have gone on this website and saw the price. But when we look at any, like, enterprise, there's no hardware. Like, like you can't. They're not even. All you can do is buy software. So DJI isn't selling it and posting prices, which is, you know, wild. But for the folks that are getting it in this drone, you know, Matrice 30 went from being maybe $12,000 two weeks ago. A month ago $13,000.
Now it's $24,000.
And then the smaller version of this, the, the Babic 3, see, you guys are seeing the subscribe screen, this tab, right. Not available in your region.
And so they're only advertising their software.
DJI Mavic 3 thermal.
Hit the caps lock button there.
We can go to DJI's website.
Not available in your area, country or region. Or here. I keep doing that.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: Boom.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: So that's the Mavic 3 Enterprise.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: And so this, you can't buy any of these. So, so this is these two.
[00:08:22] Speaker A: No, it's every enterprise product on their, on their whole line. And, and so this drone was six grand last month, and now in May, that drone is $11,000.
So 6,000 to 11,000. So a $5,000 price jump.
And so it's interesting because the tariffs, the tariff is on the cost of the product to get it into the country. The tariff I don't think is necessarily on the sales price.
And that's where when the tariff goes in place, the manufacturer. So it's not necessarily like a 100% increase in price of the product. The tariff. The caught the tariff on getting it in. So it's not always like the price is necessarily going to double, but the price will damn near double if you apply a 100% tariff. Does that make sense?
[00:09:27] Speaker B: Yeah, it's the cost to bring it into the country. Yes, it's the gas fee.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: So that's going up and then the margin kind of stays the same.
And, and so yeah, the, the, the. It's. This is the thing like straight out for most folks that look into this for that listen that know Paul Rossi is familiar with 910Drones and understands like we resell products to end users in North Carolina. A lot of them are like public safety, schools, education, construction, small businesses who can get great gains from a drone like a Mavic 3 or a Matrice 30 and they can afford them. The cost in increasing the tariff, it has drove the prices closer to the American products but the quality is still superior.
So there still is, you know, even with an increased cost.
But folks don't realize this tariff, traditionally a tariff is like a, I'm not even like, like a tariff. When you think of it as maybe like a temporary tariff. We're going to apply a temporary tariff where now when you hear this could be a long term approach to even the, the playing field. And so it will upset a lot of folks who are, have businesses that are tied around the products that are coming in from the other countries.
But you know, there's always going to be two sides. And so we've talked about, it's, it's nice to see American jobs.
Right. American companies, American businesses. But how we get there, you know, there's, there's many ways to get there and, and so we're well on our way.
And it does sound like this could be more of a reset as, as opposed to well, you know, maybe this isn't really open for negotiation and even, even a zero, zero tariff China to the United States like that still probably isn't advantageous for the US Right. Like no tariffs. No tariffs. It seems like that still benefits China because they're still putting more here and less is going there.
Whereas we want less of their stuff to get dumped into here because when it does it eliminates opportunity for a local manufacturer to make it the, it dilutes the business pool and it eliminates job, local job opportunities. It just. Yeah.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: So this tariff approach is for sure just like the, the most blunt brute force approach to getting jobs in America though.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Yeah. I think I drive an American made car. I don't know.
Not entirely. You know, but it's not. There's people in America that are, have take part in you know, putting it together in some part of the componentry manufacturing process versus it being entirely made overseas.
And so yeah, I wonder where my electric lawnmower was made.
[00:13:09] Speaker B: Oh for sure. China maybe India. India's been popping off making stuff recently.
[00:13:15] Speaker A: Yeah, well that if you, it's interesting like you watch the news or you read about history and like India is not just the poor country or they're.
I'm not saying India is the poor country, but growing up. Yeah, I totally did say that growing up. I'm trying to think like this is, I was trying to verbalize what I thought growing up and you got like Slumdog Millionaire, like, like that concep. India is this poor country and now what they've become. And then also the conflicts that are going on on both, like pretty much both sides of India. Their border I believe with China and Pakistan, definitely Pakistan, I'm pretty sure they got China on the other side. I'm not a geographer.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: So what they do with China is they have this little border and it's split by a river. I think there's one bridge that goes across. And they just, they signed an agreement a long time ago not to use any weapons at the border. So basically like every once in a while you'll hear a news story about it. But like the Indians and the Chinese will fist fight each other to death at the border. The soldiers will, and they just kind of sit there and look at each other all day.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: Is that right? I haven't heard that, but I did, I did know because I saw this with my own eyes on the news.
Is like Pakistan, there's disputes, it's border disputes between where the border actually is. And a lot of these areas are just, these borders are. No one lives on them. They're like in the middle of nowhere. So some people say it's here. They say it's here. And unless you're fist fighting for what you say it is right on this side over here. But India is the. Pakistan's claiming that India is like stopping the water and not allowing water to go and pass down a river into Pakistan.
Like India is holding up water from Pakistan, which is not like, I mean it's. What did you say?
[00:15:21] Speaker B: That's not cool, right?
[00:15:23] Speaker A: And well, it's nuts because you don't really think like, what if a state did that? Like, you just don't think in the US like one state is going to, you know, we're all the United States, but over there it's like you literally have a country right next to the other country. Russia, Ukraine, Pakistan, India.
And so I mean that, man, that's wild. And then we're just like Canada, Mexico, and here we are like, you know, at least we still got the water flowing through, right? That's the positive.
But it did anyway. That's tariffs. That's the take on tariffs. One last comment that had come up on the most recent video where we were watching the SpaceX capsule landing. Chad McCollister says unusual machines is probably well positioned as a U.S. drone parts supplier. Once the Chinese drone ban Kicks in. An unusual machine should not be much affected from tariffs either.
Also heard they are beginning to build motors soon as well. Not sure if this is through their affiliation with redcat or will be separate in house production. All of this bodes well for unusual machines with the pending restrictions on Chinese drones and components. So you do. I know, Terry, I know you might not be the tariff king or ex.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: No, that would be Donald Trump.
[00:17:10] Speaker A: Yeah, right, right. But you are familiar with unusual machines, right?
[00:17:17] Speaker B: Yes, sir.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: And so what do you think about that kind of comment? Just leading into the fact that these tariffs and not just the tariffs, but all these, you know, the potential for drone bans, you think unusual machines is positioned?
[00:17:34] Speaker B: Well, I don't know. It just depends on like where are they sourcing their chips from? And like it all comes down to electrical components. I'm not too worried about like the, the housing of the drones and like the, just like the mechanical stuff. I'm focused on the electrical stuff for drones, more or less. And I don't know of any places in the US that really make semiconductors just yet.
And so they're all making them in house and then that's crazy good for them.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, what's interesting here is, I mean this just comes out. It's kind of funny like this.
The relevance of the comment three weeks ago.
Was it Chad. Yeah, shouting out Chad McColister, butchering your name.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: That comment kind of sounded like it was wrote from Unusual Machines headquarters.
Just the CEO typing up.
[00:18:45] Speaker A: Yeah, it was like very well positioned. This is not investment advice. Check out Unusual machine.
And so here this comes out in stock Titan yesterday, US Drone parts manufacturer has announced the pricing of its confidentially marketed public offering of 8,000 shares of common stock at $5 per share, aiming to raise 40 million in gross proceeds.
The offer is expected to close around May 6. The company plans to use net proceeds to accelerate the completion of its Orlando Flo to drone motor facility and for general corporate purposes, including working capital.
See, so that's like that motor facility. But something in here mentioned red cap. But what are they offering more? They're selling more stock?
[00:19:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I think they're just adding to their stock pool because they're already listed.
[00:19:51] Speaker A: They're selling 8,000 shares of common stock at $5 per share, but they're trading higher than $5 a share.
So how does that.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Maybe they're offering a discount to like you buy it through them. They're offering a discount so they can raise the money faster.
[00:20:14] Speaker A: That's, that's interesting. And then so the other thing is the red cap. Yeah, I think you're right where it's like there you have to be an approved like, like a exchange. Not an exchange, but you have to be like an investor of a certain size in order to add that. And you're, you're purchasing like a super high amount.
Mentioned Red Cat. Their affiliation with Red Cat, or will it be separate in house production? And so what I think here and what Chad mentioned, because I was like, oh, redcat, those are two totally different publicly traded companies, right. Umac and redcat. But it sounds like.
Why is this saying Red Cat?
Oh, so a customer. This is not even new News. This is February 26th. So you unusual Machines is. Red Cat is purchasing their motors from Unusual Machines. Yeah. Okay, so that comment's good. I mean it's. So their own production, Unusual Machines will be making the motors in Orlando.
Unusual Machines just put out 8 million in shares for sale to raise $40 million in order to complete the build of their factory that they will build these motors in.
So see how business works nowadays, it's like they secured February, they had the announcement that they, you know, secured rcap. Here we are in May, and they kind of got their hands out trying to get the rest of the money they need to finish the factory to build the motors in.
[00:22:17] Speaker B: I mean, Unusual Machines, it's for sure gonna be a force. It's kind of weird that they can't just get $40 million of funding from.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: Somebody and then where was it the Tesla something. I didn't know if this article mentioned it, but they, they had hired. One thing we did discuss on the, on the podcast was how they had hired the ex Tesla engineer.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: In order.
[00:22:45] Speaker B: No, he wasn't. He was the.
I think he was the head engineer.
A head engineer? Maybe. I don't know. I could be wrong. He also liked mechanical keyboards.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: And so.
And so who do you like when you're.
Brad Mellow, VP of Manufacturing?
[00:23:15] Speaker B: Nah, that's.
[00:23:16] Speaker A: Wait, he was.
He led automation projects for the Model 3.
[00:23:25] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: And the mechanical keyboard stuff, gotta throw.
[00:23:30] Speaker B: Something interesting in there. Remember, he likes mechanical keyboard.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: Brad Mello. Well, who do you think then they're making the motor. See, that's. This is where I still go. And I read that comment and I think, although when you look at just stock price on das. Right. Ondas, this is. We're not, I'm not telling you to invest in Ondas, but I just. I don't know why. We'll see. I don't know anything about markets so, yeah, thanks for those, those comments there, folks.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: It's great to get feedback. Thank you guys. Keep them coming. It gave us a good amount of stuff to talk about. We do appreciate it.
[00:24:14] Speaker A: And Enduro came up. So I did want to say I saw this about chilling effects. What one army unit learned about cold weather drone warfare. Frozen propellers and short lived batteries are just some of the challenges these grunts faced during training in Europe. So now they're. Now they call them grunts.
You're calling the drones grunts?
That's interesting. Unless they're talking about the soldiers people.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: I think they're talking about soldiers, yeah.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: Oh, that's a great thing. Yeah, just call them grunts. That's awesome.
[00:24:46] Speaker B: I've heard that before.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that's like a term for a ground grunt. Stands for ground something, something. It's not like I got you, I got you.
There was like some. You find it. I can't.
[00:25:13] Speaker B: A low ranking or unskilled soldier.
I mean, if they're placing it in the hands of grunts, maybe.
I feel like we probably shouldn't be trusting the unskilled soldiers with the drones.
[00:25:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, no. And then grunt, like if you break it down like G stands for something. R stands for something. U stands for I. I feel stupid for not like clear. You know, what do I know? I worked on helicopter.
[00:25:39] Speaker B: Synonym. I got you. One second.
[00:25:41] Speaker A: Yeah, see, you know what a synonym is? I didn't. Is that what grunt acronym?
[00:25:46] Speaker B: I think it might be acronym.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: I think that's an acronym. Terry General Replacement Unit not trained. Like, like boom.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: Well, if they're not, if they, they didn't have the IQ to figure out that flying in the cold weather is going to be a problem.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: All right, we're learning today.
We're learning today. Grunt General Replacement Unit. Not trained. That means like you're like, you're like a battery. You know, as soon as you die, we just take you out and put a new one in and throw you in the trash. You're a grunt. That's terrible. Somebody.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: Send them an email. Get on them about that.
[00:26:37] Speaker A: I'm gonna get on. Lauren C. Williams, senior editor with Defense one here. Frozen propellers and short lived batteries are just some of the challenges these grunts face during training in Europe. And so I feel like he's talking about the drones because like, no, maybe not. Well, let's just dive into this here. So the 10th Mountain Division, 3rd Brigade Combat Team. If you know anything about Army 10th Mountain Division, that's like you go to sleep in the mountains and you wake up with like 2ft of snow on top of you. Like these, these guys, these guys do stuff, right? Not the little stuff. Badass. Badass. 10th Mountain training with some drones want to extend battery life, looking for ways to, to increase that. And so they're testing these aircraft in some pretty, pretty cold, heavy cloud cover, freezing rain, sleet, snow, propellers, iced over drones. Some drones broke and needed repairs.
Others crashed.
And the freezing flight temperatures would cut flight times in half.
[00:27:58] Speaker B: What drones are they using?
[00:28:00] Speaker A: It looked like. And I bring this up because one of the comments was about Enduro. And when you look close, this is the Ghost drone. And so I believe that's the Enduro ghost.
You see that there, right?
[00:28:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I do see that.
[00:28:19] Speaker A: You remember that we talked about the ghost. It looks like it's got like a picatinny rail on it.
Yeah, I think we talked about these, the contracts that they've gotten.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: We've talked about them a lot.
[00:28:36] Speaker A: Yeah. And we were saying how they like build stuff for the contract. The contract comes out and then they're like oh, we make one of those.
They came out with that underwater and then the, the Fury. We were talking about them most recent with this, that Fury drone.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: But in rocket motors.
[00:29:00] Speaker A: The army took this thing and.
God that's. Yeah, it'd be interesting to see how much ice they got built up on that road. Or to cry. They said we crashed some of them.
But that's just a picture of Anduro. So it said they had more than 150 drones.
From small drones to medium range reconnaissance drones, all the way up to £50.
That's kind of cool. Don't you wish you could do that?
[00:29:43] Speaker B: What? Sleep in snow? What are you talking about?
[00:29:47] Speaker A: No, not sleep in the snow. Crack. Fly a bunch of drones until failure.
And then we also, we also tested for the first time a prototype of the infantry squad vehicle heavy. A hybrid diesel powered truck that contained enough onboard battery power to run our brigade command post for 24 hours without having to run external generators. This vehicle, this vehicle ran the command post for 24 hours.
[00:30:20] Speaker B: Who makes it? Who makes it?
Of course it's gm.
[00:30:27] Speaker A: Yeah, of course. It's like oh. Made by dji, the infantry squad.
Made by hunting. Hunting.
It's like, where is that made? In Shenzhen. Like. Yeah. No, where is that made by GM in America.
[00:30:47] Speaker B: Oh yeah.
Always pulls through with the vehicles though.
[00:30:51] Speaker A: Dude, they have so many bags packed up here. Yeah, it kind of looks cool.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: And it's diesel and it's a hybrid. Hold on.
[00:31:02] Speaker A: And two. And back like, I think it's like a 1, 3, 1, 2, 3, and then maybe like two and back. It looks like that thing could hold.
Oh, it's a squad. Well, I mean, hell, it's a whole squad vehicle. You could. I'm imagining you fit 9 to 11 on that vehicle. That's wild.
[00:31:23] Speaker B: How much does it cost? I need it.
[00:31:25] Speaker A: It's based off the Colorado Chevy Colorado ZR2 platform. So it's basically like an open.
Open Colorado.
90% cots parts. So 90% of this thing is just parts that they're already producing for. That looks like bullshit 90% COTS commercial off the shelf parts. Yeah, maybe. I mean, probably because you know how they make those?
[00:31:56] Speaker B: Like GM makes everything they own. Don't they own Chevy?
[00:31:59] Speaker A: But you know now how they make those every all you got these people that want to drive trucks that look like they're like, oh, I'm gonna run you over. I got the next Walking Dead. You know, like Zombie Apocalypse Grill.
[00:32:13] Speaker B: You're telling me you wouldn't buy that right there if they offered it to you?
[00:32:17] Speaker A: If they. I would buy land if I had the land first.
[00:32:21] Speaker B: No, that's street legal. Get that bad boy on the road. So I run people over.
[00:32:25] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, 90% commercial off the. You're just running a Dana M220.
That's wild.
[00:32:34] Speaker B: I'm just gonna part out a Chevy Colorado at a scrap yard and make my own.
[00:32:37] Speaker A: Throw your M240 on there.
[00:32:40] Speaker B: Throw my 400 AR on the back.
[00:32:45] Speaker A: And you got side mounts for two more for your 249s. You know, side swivel mounts. You got your infrared light attachment.
[00:32:55] Speaker B: Does it say how much horsepower?
[00:32:57] Speaker A: Rollover protection.
[00:33:02] Speaker B: Oh, it's got a Duramax in it. Geez.
[00:33:05] Speaker A: I don't. Doesn't it say it's electric?
[00:33:07] Speaker B: It's. I said it was a hybrid.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Hybrid. Yeah.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: But what that might mean is that it just has a big battery on it and it just. The diesel charges.
[00:33:16] Speaker A: Look at this. Yeah. Ultra light tactical vehicle can be inserted on the battlefield through a C17, C130 and a 400m low velocity airdrop as an internal load in a CH47.
Wow. And you can sling load this thing under the uh, 60 blackhawk.
Awesome.
And so.
Yeah. And so anyway, I guess they took that thing out. That's cool. Wouldn't that be cool to be with 10th Mountain riding around in that, testing drones, crashing them for. For the past.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: You gotta feel like you're in the future. That's like, here's my hybrid electric diesel GM that is off the market.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: It's so cool.
Oh, man.
So multiple pilot. Let's see. I wanted to see Joby Aviation emergency testing.
There is first full transition flights with pilot on board.
But Joby Aviation. I gosh, I wish I had this video. I was just voting videos flying.
No.
Joby Aviation has been doing a bunch of tests. They did a transition from like vertical takeoff to forward flight with James Buddy Denham test pilot on board. And so that's pretty epic.
[00:35:17] Speaker B: That's pretty cool.
[00:35:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:20] Speaker B: The first full transition flights would probably. Number one. I wonder how much he is sweating doing that.
[00:35:26] Speaker A: They've done the flight without a pilot on board. And so it's. It's not like it's the. It's just the first time you take the human. And so if you do that.
[00:35:36] Speaker B: But you're still gonna. It's still gonna be a little hesitant, you know?
[00:35:44] Speaker A: Yeah. If I can get this video.
[00:35:50] Speaker B: You know, like, we know it works, but what if it doesn't.
[00:35:54] Speaker A: Of this.
This for. There's not a dash for space.
Terrible. I hate YouTube. Does anybody hate.
[00:36:05] Speaker B: No. YouTube was my childhood.
[00:36:09] Speaker C: The.
[00:36:09] Speaker A: The way that they set things up now. Like, if you try to search just for like basic. Like, if you just tried to search like SpaceX, you wouldn't even be able to get to SpaceX. You're just gonna get like a bunch of fake SpaceX videos. You're like, no, no. Where's the SpaceX account? Like, the YouTube app sucks anyway.
[00:36:23] Speaker B: You do the little filter, you hit.
[00:36:25] Speaker A: Channel, just so you know.
But here is this video. And let's bring the volume down a little bit.
And so this was on April 14, 2025. And this was failure injection testing. So this is them failing the aircraft.
[00:36:51] Speaker C: Just give me a second.
How did I feel about it?
Feel pretty good.
I've been at Joby for six years, and just untold hours have been spent with some of the smartest people I've ever met in my life talking about what could possibly go wrong in a lot of cases because the airplane's so different. They're problems that general aviation hasn't encountered and maybe no one's encountered. All of these problems are fielded, solutions are found, and we move forward.
The whole concept of the airplane from the beginning has been not just a safe airplane, but an airplane with layers of resilience. So no matter what gets thrown at it, it's going to bring the pilot and the passengers home safe. That means that a lot of redundancy gets built into the Architecture of the plane. What we're testing here is the most significant level failures that include features that we can't model in a lab. The big milestone that we're building up towards is the inhabited transition flight from. From vertical takeoff to a wingborn flight to a landing.
[00:37:59] Speaker D: The most visually obvious failure case we have is the one engine inoperative or dual channel propulsion failure where we intentionally shut down one station on the aircraft. The flight controller is amazing. It automatically reallocates control amongst the remaining effectors.
[00:38:13] Speaker C: So we can lose a wingtip and we have to throttle back the other wingtip, or we can lose one of the tail station boards and then we have to throttle back the diagonal to keep the airplane balanced. The tilt system is actually two actuators that work in parallel. We are going to turn one side.
[00:38:27] Speaker D: Off and forcing the other half of the tilt actuator to take the entire.
[00:38:31] Speaker C: Burden and make sure that the remaining side can perform a safe recovery to land.
[00:38:36] Speaker D: We have four batteries on the aircraft. We want to make sure that if we lose one pack for some unforeseen reason, the remaining three packs are sufficient to handle the current that's required to continue safe flight. And we still maintain six spinning stations.
[00:38:49] Speaker C: Success is. It's super boring. The test that went to landing, the motor out, the tilt out, and the battery out to landing, and they're just completely non events. No change in the pilot procedure. The pilot just comes in and lands. Handles the exact same way it does when everything's nominal, just as clean and tight as it could possibly be. And it's like, I feel like it just validates a lot of that work. And aside from making sure that we keep ourselves and our friends safe, making sure that none of that time was wasted is an incredibly special feeling.
[00:39:22] Speaker B: Oh, emotional.
[00:39:30] Speaker A: That's because that's like epic. Like, safety, when it works is just.
It's uneventful. And so as I saw that kind of pop up there, the.
I'm like, oh, they're doing this emergency testing. And. And I'm like. Immediately, for some reason I'm thinking like, failure. I'm like, oh, we're gonna see a joby. Like the hype, you know, and they start with the music and everything. And I'm like, oh, this sucks. Like, like to re. Like something's gonna happen. And then as the video goes along, because it says, you know, like, this is actual failure footage, you're like, oh, it's gonna get wild here. And then nothing happens. And as he continues to explain what they're doing and all the graphics in that where they're showing the failures, you know, things that you're used to being involved in drone operations and autonomous drone operations. It was amazing. And then at the end, as he communicates, all of this happens. And the aircraft just flies the same. The pilot just continues to. To do what they would normally do. And as long as the autonomous features that are built into this system work, you wouldn't know the difference. So if one battery fails, all six motors keep running. If this outboard motor fails, this outboard motor will just shut off. And then you're. You're.
You're compensating for this loss and that loss. And I just thought that was the coolest thing.
And then you're laughing at the guy, right? Because he's getting him.
[00:41:17] Speaker B: Laughing at him.
[00:41:17] Speaker A: Oh, you know, okay, everyone.
[00:41:20] Speaker B: I was happy for him.
[00:41:21] Speaker A: We'll just let.
[00:41:22] Speaker B: He spent six years on this ball. That's happy for him.
[00:41:24] Speaker A: That's what I'm saying. And so, as he mentioned in the beginning, he's been with the company for six years running these simulations, and you finally get to this point where it all happens. But. But it does what it's supposed to. And. And so you could see the emotion in him. And. And I think they must have recorded him, like, right after it happened. And that, to me, was really, really cool, especially as I've been watching and kind of following Joby for, you know, I don't know, three, maybe four years now. So what are your thoughts? Are you ready? You ready to get into one of them taxis?
[00:42:03] Speaker B: That dude crying almost convinced me. I don't know. We'll let Abu Dhabi figure that out first.
[00:42:09] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:42:11] Speaker B: Or not Abu Dhabi. It's Dubai. Sorry. Dubai can figure it out. First, I will watch from a distance, and then once it comes to me, it's got to come to me. It needs to be in Fayetteville before I can confidently get on one.
Once the technology releases. Releases in Fayetteville, I know that it's safe releases.
[00:42:30] Speaker A: Like it's a movie. Like, it's gonna. Like, then, like when they have one like Harry Potter 8 is gonna come. Come out, and then, like, two weeks later, they'll have Joby, like, releasing. I'm sorry, Terry. That was. It was funny.
[00:42:46] Speaker B: Listen, pal.
[00:42:49] Speaker A: Oh, man.
Dude. D Rod, man, just before we wrap. Wrap up here.
Almost forgot that that guy was even a fighter, but was super. That was.
[00:43:03] Speaker B: That was judging the book by its cover.
[00:43:06] Speaker A: What do you mean? I.
[00:43:07] Speaker B: Well, I'm saying you almost forgot he was a fighter.
[00:43:09] Speaker A: I. I hadn't seen him in forever. Feels like he hadn't been fighting. I think he tore his acl and.
And to see him come back and.
And the power. Right. That's the one thing.
[00:43:25] Speaker B: So hard. He hits so hard off of, like, nothing. Like, the way he strikes is he. He, like, straightens. He, like, almost throws punches like Connor and.
And Ian does. It's weird.
[00:43:40] Speaker A: Yeah. And then, dude, Ponzanibo, or however you say it, like, the guy's not, like.
[00:43:46] Speaker B: Said it perfect.
[00:43:47] Speaker A: He's not like. Like the guy, but he's definitely a beast of a. Of a. Of a person to get in a. In a cage with, so that was pretty epic. Pretty epic.
[00:43:59] Speaker B: That was pretty. You know what was not pretty epic?
Bo Nickel. Not wrestling.
What were you thinking?
You're gonna wrestle your whole life, and then you're gonna go in that cage at night and just refused to wrestle the dude? What are you doing?
Somebody. He needs to fire his coaches and go back to what made him special.
[00:44:20] Speaker A: Yeah, Well, I think he was just trying to show power, you know?
[00:44:23] Speaker B: Trying what? Power?
[00:44:25] Speaker A: I don't know. That. That Mason fight, though, I went back and turned it on again because you're like, that was my favorite. And then I remembered I had seen it. I can remember watching that one because they were hyping up how it was. That guy's, like, home, hometown. And he'd been fighting for so long, didn't win. But, I mean, that was a hell of a. Hell of a fight.
[00:44:49] Speaker B: This is not betting advice, Jack. Della Mandalena is going to whoop below Muhammad's ass.
[00:44:56] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:44:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:59] Speaker A: Is Shev Shevchenko gonna defend the title?
[00:45:03] Speaker B: I don't know. That is a very scary lady she is fighting. I don't know if you've watched Manon. I don't know how to say her name, but that lady, if you've ever watched her fight, you're gonna be like, okay, that's a good one. She's like, Chef Cenko. If.
If. Well, I guess she's only two years younger. She's like Chef Shanko, too, so.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: Well, looking forward to that. Gonna have to wrap it up here on this episode of weekly wings dronelife.com podcast.
Another, you know, interesting episode is always being able to just kind of look back on some. Some of the comments that we've gotten here and the tariffs and the potential bands and diving into the usual unusual machines. Red Cat talking about what they have going on, you know, cold weather, drone testing, that the battery stuff is. Is super, super interesting.
And that's one thing where when it comes to like commercial, it's like you just wait till later in the day you fly. When it's warmer, you can heat your B up. Taking these drones into the, you know, contemporary operating environment downrange where the soldiers are or the grunts, it's completely different than what we're used to. And that's interesting. Batteries, right? It's super important battery management. And in the war fighters arena, you just don't have the ability to like keep your batteries warm and you know, maintain them. And if it's cold, you still want to fly and you become dependent on that vehicle. So that'll be interesting to see, to see how they, they grow from that testing. And I don't even think, I'm not even sure how they can, you know, but. And the infantry squad vehicles, that's cool. Go gm, right? Good for them. Everywhere. Everywhere.
[00:47:04] Speaker B: James, always releasing a cool vehicle for the military.
This is every time.
[00:47:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And then, But Polaris, I, I had posted something recently where I came across some Polaris snowmobiles. You know, they were starting to produce like military specific snowmobiles. So that's, that's pretty cool. And then Joby kind of wrap things up here. Check out Joby if you haven't and aren't aware of Joby.
Yeah, just, just they're one of those leaders like an archer. And they did, they did some recent testing as far as what failure looks like and you know, just to wrap out, you know, safety is boring, right? When things are working, when systems are functioning, when backups are in place, things happen and you know, failures can happen, but operations can continue. Maybe not to where our, you know, we intended. We might have to go to an alternate, but that's that mindset of delivery drones, pilotless air taxis and UAS that are going to be operating in these advanced arenas.
And so thank you everybody for your time. Appreciate your attention and we look forward to spending some time with you on the next episode of Weekly Wings.
[00:48:38] Speaker B: Thank you everybody.
