Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome, everybody, to Weekly Wings, a Dronelife.com podcast where myself, Paul Rossi, Samuel Stansberry, and Terry Neff dive into some of the most current events and news revolving around the UA's industry. Thank you, everybody for tuning in and listening. As always, we appreciate your time and attention, and we have a great lineup of items to discuss in this episode of weekly Wings. We will be diving into some really interesting ways. The NOAA is using drones in order to look at weather and even forecast what is to come. We'll be at the University of Memphis diving into the news of their advanced UA's testing center they are developing. And our tech spotlight corner. We will be looking at some really neat military technology that is going to really change the way we see warfare play out in the near mid and long term future.
We'll be going to Georgia and looking at the prison smuggling incident that came about and has been going on since 2019, as the article has discussed. And news has been really going around since earlier this year when a lot of that started to surface.
In our success stories, we have two really interesting news pieces that we'll discuss where drones were used in order to find a missing 93 year old, as well as finding a missing child here in North Carolina.
We'll wrap things up in the regulatory corner, looking at cyber hawks beyond visual line of sight approvals, as well as the FAA having enforced some civil penalties over the last maybe roughly 18 months. So got a great episode. How are you doing today, Terry?
[00:02:14] Speaker B: I'm doing fantastic, thank you for asking. A little tired, but I think this will be a good episode.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: Excellent. Excellent. Samuel, how you doing?
[00:02:22] Speaker C: I'm doing well. I cannot complain.
[00:02:27] Speaker A: Excellent. If you had any complaints, we.
We wouldn't listen. You could file them in the rectangular receptacle that has the trash bag in it.
[00:02:37] Speaker C: I was going to say too many complaints. I might be off the podcast, right?
[00:02:43] Speaker A: No, complaints are okay.
[00:02:45] Speaker C: Just a few.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: Nope.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: Not allowed.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Just not too many.
[00:02:50] Speaker C: That's fair.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: So, looking at, looking at our first story here, the National oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has a new, new tool to gather real time weather data while wildlife fires are actively burning. One of my favorites.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Let's see.
[00:03:08] Speaker A: We can mute this advertisement here. Got a little video.
But wildfires is something we've discussed on previous episodes and the ability of drones to be used as a tool, potentially beforehand, to scout areas that are at higher risk and then also during these wildfires in order to help even fight the conditions.
But what we're seeing here in this specific story is, you know, using that drone as a tool in lieu of the event itself, to take in different atmospheric readings and relative humidity. So as it goes up, it's taking data the whole way. This new drone, operated by the National oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, is getting a test flight next time there's a big wildfire. Atmospheric research scientist Janet Entrerri and her team may be out there using this versatile machine suited perfectly for Colorado.
[00:04:17] Speaker D: The mountains make airflow very complex, and.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: It creates its own weather. A fire adds another level of complexity because it will also affect the weather. Being able to take the drone and drive to locations where you wouldn't normally have information is really a key part of this.
Getting accurate information near wildfires is perhaps more crucial than ever. Wildfires are here to stay, and NOAA wants to be prepared. We need to know what is going to happen in this moment, 6 hours from now, a day from now, a.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: Week, a month, a year.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: In order to be able to see what the most likely outcomes are of wildfires, especially as the climate continues to warm, we are projected to have more.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: Extreme events, and as a result of.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: That, we need to have better forecasts.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: In order to be able to foresee them.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: The data doesn't just help with long term forecasts. It can help the people who are actively helping to fight the fires if you have that kind of.
So that real time. But then that forecasting, like what was mentioned here, is to put the drone where a vehicle or a person couldn't go. It's really neat. I think what's also interesting is to look at the remote controller for folks that are audio only. We're not looking at a DJi drone flying here. This is not a commercial, off the shelf drone that you would typically seen or have seen before, knowing that it's the NOAA as a federal agency and just the way everything is at, you know, at this point in time with anti CCP. And it's really neat to see that they're integrating this drone from a forecasting standpoint, you know, beforehand, to better manage things. And then it looks like they're likely using a tool that they're going to be able to continue to operate regardless, regardless of, you know, how things shake out with DJI and some of the other drones that are more commonly used.
[00:06:21] Speaker C: The hex copying kind of threw me.
[00:06:23] Speaker B: For a second drone, say that they made it. I mean, I'm assuming they made this drone. It's not just like something you can just buy because it's too, like, tailored to the specific thing.
[00:06:39] Speaker C: Yeah, I would assume that or at least they're. It has a. Yeah, for those someone.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Yeah, because like you said, like Terry's kind of mentioning, it's specifically, you know, developed in order to measure.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: Purchased a drone and product.
[00:07:02] Speaker C: Right.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: So after dive deeper.
But when you're trying to get this data, it's not about the typical information video, photo that we're seeing in, you know, those commercial off the shelf drones, they're looking to get. Right. Air pressure, temperature, wind speed, wind direction, relative humidity, which isn't even like complexity data to capture. But capturing it at altitudes of 200, 400ft, 100ft has traditionally been more challenging when you're using, especially on the mountain range sensors.
Yeah, absolutely. As was mentioned in the video that you have all that elevation change in those mountainous conditions.
[00:08:02] Speaker C: They mentioned just first and foremost the wildfire aspect. And I was kind of expecting them to talk about thermal imaging or something like that. I was surprised we didn't hear or see that. But I can imagine it's on the drone.
[00:08:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Again, the thermal imaging is really going to be beneficial if you're looking at something that's hot.
[00:08:33] Speaker C: Right.
[00:08:33] Speaker A: And that's, again, like if you're fighting, if you're on the, if you're on the team that is.
[00:08:42] Speaker B: This seems like it's trying to prevent.
So I don't, I don't even know if it'll probably have that on it.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: The preventative and then the flying ahead or more of, ahead of. In order to determine like what, what direction is this going to be going or what is the, what is the likelihood that if this occurs, it's going to impact these regions? You know, if based on the current atmospheric conditions at 100ft, 200ft, if a wildfire were to occur, this is the path it could take. It's almost like forecasting like a hurricane path. A lot more of the hurricane yet. Yeah. So plotting and planning and being able to appropriately manage resources and then even like evacuation plans, I think that's maybe what they're more of thinking as opposed to, like Terry mentioned, the. In the moment. And so that's really, really neat because the challenging part there is, if you manufacture that drone, there's not a huge market, right. There's not a lot of people that are trying to buy drones just to go out there and get atmospheric conditions, especially as like a business. Right? Like people aren't, aren't paying for this, but when it comes to public safety, it's, this is critical. So I do think this could become a potentially a drone or this type of sensor, this like suite of sensors could be integrated into other commercial drones as far as wind speed and relative humidity and things like that. Because when you're looking at it from a public safety standpoint, emergency managers, fire departments, if they can collect that data, they can then share it with the larger machine for lack of better terms and more data coming in than the decision makers at the higher levels because the NOAA isn't maybe always going to be able to get out with their one drone or two drones.
[00:10:43] Speaker C: Honestly, too, this is some of their first.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: Sorry, we're just gonna find out what it is. Go ahead.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Sorry, I'm just trying to figure out what drone it is.
[00:10:51] Speaker C: I think I might have a little bit of a delay on my end as well. But I was gonna say it looks like this is just the first flight or two, and they've had it for a couple months, so hopefully these next few weeks can be very fruitful for them. It'd be cool to see like a whole fleet and what it can do throughout kind of the. Considering how broad America is, they could really take advantage of those rural areas and get some. Some data they probably couldn't otherwise.
[00:11:17] Speaker A: Yeah, and Terry, I'd imagine with it being like government purchased, if you go down far enough, you could probably figure.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: Out it's made by Switzerland based company. It's like a. It's a drone that you can kind of like use in multiple. Like you can just put stuff on it. Like, I've seen an article where it, like, was used for seating.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: Yep. That seemed that. That dome shape too. That dome shape design. Definitely. I would not be surprised.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure that's it.
And it does mostly say it's.
[00:11:49] Speaker A: For.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: Like, weather based stuff. And they're partnered with Lockheed Martin, so you know they got money.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: Yeah. You know what? That makes sense because that airframe, that body, that shape looks very similar to a Lockheed aircraft that I've seen demonstrated like two or three years ago.
Well, onto our next initial feature topic here. We're at the University of Memphis where $30 million has been secured through contracts to develop drone testing facility.
When flying drones, we are often restricted to days that have calm winds and no rain. I think every drone pilot knows exactly. I don't know how to explain, like, what that means or how that feels.
[00:12:48] Speaker C: Kind of what your days looking like in terms of flying.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: Yeah. But I think we all know too, like, when we talk about that, like, it's not like a disappointment because if you look at all other technologies as they've matured, that ip type of protection has been built into it. So I think while it sucks that it doesn't exist today, there's, like, a collective understanding that in, you know, five to ten years, there's probably gonna be a lot of UA's technology that exists that will be able to fly in, you know, precipitation and, you know, the wind. The wind ranges will likely only increase.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: It'll become the new industry standard, kind of like how the phones have gone over the last few years went from, you put a drop of water on it, it's broken, to where I can submerge my iPhone into a pool, and it'll be all right. So.
[00:14:01] Speaker A: And so. Exactly. And how do we get there? Right. How do we get from a to b?
And I think a lot of. For the UA's industry, you're gonna see that happening at the University of Memphis, where $9.2 million from the US Navy is to design and construct a cutting edge facility on President's island aimed at developing and testing drones capable of performing under adverse weather conditions.
So, military government funding. Right, that's where this advanced technology begins and matures, is the funding to develop it there? And then the trickle down, like long range extended operation. UA's military first.
But adverse weather conditions is, like, interesting, because today we call them adverse weather conditions. And then in a few years, eventually, when the aircraft are further developed, it's not necessarily adverse anymore.
An additional 21 million in US Navy funding over two years will develop a wind wall with variable airflow patterns for testing aerial drones.
A wind wall?
21 million on a window wall with variable airflow patterns. Does that not sound awesome?
[00:15:48] Speaker C: No, that sounds pretty expensive. Yeah, very expensive, kind of. When I first read the article, it reminded me of.
I was going to say it reminded me a little bit of the baseball cage, or I'm trying to think of that article we had last week with the. You don't need the 107 to fly.
[00:16:04] Speaker A: In the batting cage, right?
[00:16:06] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I. At first, it reminded me of that a little bit, but this is quite a bit grander, I would say.
[00:16:18] Speaker A: Yeah, that was like a hundred, I think it was 150,000, right? Yeah. For the. For the batting cage.
[00:16:25] Speaker C: This is going to be a serious batting cage now, huh?
[00:16:30] Speaker A: There's going to be a batting cage with a lot of leaf blowers hooked up.
[00:16:35] Speaker C: That's funny, too, because it looks like it might be several areas, not just the Memphis.
[00:16:44] Speaker B: You can take your drone to the local indoor skydiving place and just throw them in there and then just watch it hit the ceiling, because it goes straight up.
[00:16:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Tucson, Arizona, Orlando, Florida, and Columbia, Missouri are also part of this project.
But 21 for that wind wall with the variable airflow patterns. And, yeah, so you got basically, what, a little over $30 million heavily from. From the Navy. And you think maritime naval drone operations, launching drones from, you know, Navy ships, that's gonna present some pretty adverse weather conditions, especially high winds and, you know, rain, ocean mist, spray, moisture, salt.
And so you've got the Memphis Institute for National Defense Sciences. And so there's already this connection to that military technology engineering.
This is really exciting because, again, at the surface level, yes, this is probably going to initially help drive that military force, which I like to think of as positive for the deterrence of global negativity. But then also, it's always good to have the most capable technology if things ever happen, because we're sending, you know, we're sending our young men and women over there to engage, and. And at the end of the day, I'm always going to be pro, the best technology for us military. So this is, this is really exciting. And then the fact that, you know, this is going to trickle down and eventually lead to advanced civil and commercial us.
[00:19:15] Speaker C: It was kind of reminding me, I think, I'm not sure exactly how many podcast episodes ago we had the. We talked about Japan, and I think they were doing some tests with their drones in high wind conditions inside.
I remember we had trouble pronouncing the name of the institute.
[00:19:38] Speaker A: Yeah. And there was that. There was the. The horizontal landings.
Yeah, I think was the testing because they were talking about high vertical landings in high wind conditions versus horizontal landings.
There was also that. I think Terry had found that one drone that flew for certain, like the rotating solar drone. I think that was being done in a.
In an overseas school research facility.
Well, any other thoughts on that? And so I guess transitioning from, you know, the universities and kind of picking up that theme of that military technology.
Our next story here to discuss from the defense post is the enduro ghost shark submarine drone arrives us.
Look at that.
Do you think about that, Terry?
[00:21:00] Speaker B: Looks like, um, the bullet. Was it the bullet from Mario?
[00:21:04] Speaker C: Bullet bill?
[00:21:07] Speaker B: Yeah, bullet bill. I never played Mario, but that's what it looks like to me.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: That is exactly what it looks like. That is a very good observation.
[00:21:18] Speaker B: Kind of on the nose, eyes on.
[00:21:19] Speaker C: It, some googly eyes.
[00:21:22] Speaker A: Just needs the right yet googly eyes. There's Samuel. I have a feeling you, like, you're, like, regularly gluing googly eyes on the things or something.
Arts and crafts yeah, but yeah, if this thing had like the. The smiley face painted on here and an eye on each side. So for the folks that are on the podcast, what we. We have up here is this is like a massive.
It looks exactly like the bullet from a Mario Kart or just Super Mario or. Or just like a black bullet with a nice little fin on top and a couple of elevator stabilizers on. On each side to help guide it.
And this is the shark.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: And you said the US welcomed. I thought this was.
[00:22:32] Speaker C: Australia.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: I did not read this article fully.
[00:22:39] Speaker A: So. So the US has welcomed this for military testing. So this is not a US made product or this is not.
This is not a current product that is being leveraged by the United States.
And this thing was put inside of a c 17, which is pretty interesting because again, as you mentioned, Terry, it looks like a bullet. So this is able to be loaded right inside the back of an aircraft, the C 17, and then flown to almost any location where it then can be put into the water and operated remotely. And you know how.
[00:23:31] Speaker B: Sorry, I don't. I don't mean to cut you off, but you know how they drop the. The Humvees and stuff out of the aircrafts with parachutes? They have to try that with this going into the ocean where it detaches like 10ft above. Yeah, just like dive bombs. Sorry, that was just random thought. Sorry.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: I see it. No, it makes. I mean, it makes sense. This is an extra large autonomous undersea vehicle, so being tested, developed by Enduro Industries, which has a very much Tony Stark feel to it. And it's the ghost shark.
The rim of the Pacific testing is coming up, so I think this is in line with, you know, the whole military operational rotations where it's, you know, performing exercises in order to ensure that.
In order to ensure that, right, we are at our operational efficiency and capacity and we're prepared. But then also it's an opportunity to test out new technology with unmanned. Not just impacting. Right, the air, but we've seen and discussed how autonomy is really just changing air vehicles, ground vehicles, and then also submersibles.
[00:25:12] Speaker C: Especially considering kind of what this.
[00:25:14] Speaker B: Is the.
[00:25:18] Speaker A: Go ahead.
[00:25:18] Speaker C: Oh, I'm sorry. I was going to say especially kind of unmanned specifically, kind of just made me instantly think of the. The billionaire going down to the ocean floor and it's like no one's. No one's going to get hurt with this. This is crazy. They're going to be able to pull and get all sorts of data with this and whatnot. And I don't know, I just think that the whole unmanned aspect of this is completely insane to me. Like, purely remote.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: Nuclearizing it and not having to worry about the threat to the people on board.
[00:25:53] Speaker C: Right. Yeah.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: This is the same company that made the Roadrunner. It's been a minute since we talked about the Roadrunner. But this is the same company. Had to go on their website to figure that out. Yeah, we talked about it in the first episode or two and that's what.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: I got pulled up here.
[00:26:13] Speaker B: They make some dangerous looking products, man. They gotta chill out.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: Yeah, very Tony Stark. Right.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: That's actually. He shot out in the first Iron man movie when he puts his hands up the Jericho right there.
Yeah.
[00:26:44] Speaker A: And so this is really interesting because, like, that military aspect is huge because it's kind of a deterrent and they're doing additive manufacturing. Right. So they're the speed at which they can produce things with the whole additive 3d print type technology.
So much less waste than trying to cut things out of big blocks.
Yeah, that's wild.
But also from the research, when you think of this like the ocean and then space, the idea that you can go and look places that you haven't been before and you don't have to worry about the life support systems in order to send humans. So just not as much money going into the research and development and learning. But there's always lots of funding going into.
Going into the military side.
[00:27:56] Speaker C: It's a sick video, too.
[00:27:58] Speaker A: I mean, we could talk.
Yeah, it's like we could talk about the whole website just for one whole episode.
But really neat to see that. And I'm sure with it just arriving and showing up on site and with everything that it's involved with leading up, we'll probably see quite a few more stories about that coming up. And what else is really neat, what I like most about the next story that we're sharing here, the aircraft carrier George HW Bush gets first ever stingray drone control room on board.
So keeping in line with, again, the military theme and then that oceanic theme, which is funny because we started out with the NOAA, right. The National oceanic, an atmospheric administration.
And then we transition kind of that military. And now here we are, military ocean. The stingray is pictured here for folks that are looking, joining or watching on video, an autonomous refueling aircraft.
So the stingray is flown without a pilot on board and it refuels jet aircraft in flight.
This can be put on an aircraft carrier, launched from an aircraft carrier and piloted from that same boat, same ship.
And they have a photo here which I thought was really, really cool.
[00:29:51] Speaker C: That's quite the workstation.
Is that 8910 monitors.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: With the stickers still on them?
[00:30:03] Speaker C: Yeah, stickers still on them.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: This bad boy hasn't been used. Corsair keyboard. No, it's a razor block.
[00:30:10] Speaker C: It might even take a monitor.
[00:30:16] Speaker A: Here's one that doesn't have the sticker on. I thought that was so funny. Is they all still have the stickers then? These ones still have like the film.
But when you look at this, it's so it looks, it almost looks like a video game. You know the arcade where the chair has like the little lever that you pull up and slide it forward.
[00:30:37] Speaker B: It's an average setup nowadays for Twitch. Streamer.
[00:30:41] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:42] Speaker A: No electronic button.
[00:30:43] Speaker B: Where's the stream deck at, guys?
[00:30:47] Speaker A: Exposed wiring.
But like, I like to see that because at the end of the day, when you're taking a ship that's been in operations, design plans, and then you're gonna outfit it in order to fly, you know, autonomous aircraft like this, which is literally still, like, when you think of the complexity of it, is it flying? Yes. Is it as best as it will be? No. And so then you're having to pair it with your control station, which this is basically your remote control. It's always like second to the aircraft, but everything's not always pretty. Like, I like seeing this picture and I'm like, wow, china starts, you know, showing all these cool videos and it's like, here's our picture. And the stickers are still on and, you know, but it works. Like, I bet you that this works and it functions and it allows them to do some seriously significant stuff.
[00:31:50] Speaker B: Well, don't they usually use like a, I don't know much about this, but I had to do a little research. Don't they usually use like a massive, like, plane for this? Usually. And if you can just launch this off the aircraft carrier and it can get there at a reasonable speed faster than what a KC 135 Strato tanker jet would get to you. And it carries, might only fill it.
[00:32:14] Speaker A: Up once, but yeah, and that thing's carrying more fuel than like, that thing can refill multiple, you know, aircraft. And it, and it makes sense because if you're going to launch one of those, that thing has to have fuel for itself.
It has to have two pilots.
How many other it has to come.
[00:32:36] Speaker B: From land, not the aircraft carrier.
[00:32:38] Speaker A: How much exactly? Cause it's too big to take off from the carrier. And then how many extra support crew are on board in order to make sure that the complex systems work. And because you put people on board now, you have to have two of everything because you want to make sure the people come home safe.
Versus, like you mentioned, hey, my mission is to go refuel this jet, which took off from the aircraft carrier. How much of how much risk is involved with landing the jet to refuel it and then taking off again?
So I think if.
[00:33:24] Speaker B: I think the tires burn up when you land the jets as well, I think I've seen that somewhere, like, they have to replace the tires on the jets, like every other flight or something because they burn up.
[00:33:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it's just you have to. Everything has to be perfect. Like, when you're landing these jets, taking off and landing on an aircraft carrier, it's the shortest possible everything.
You have to have the headwind, right. If you don't have a strong enough headwind on an aircraft carrier, it's going to present risky situations. And then when you're coming into land, you have to be right at the precise landing location, because if you're too far right, you're not going to give yourself enough. You're going to have to burn those tires with brakes. The catapult's going to catch you. The catapult, if you're not slow enough, it's going to have to arrest more speed than it normally would. And if you're short, there's no such thing. You can't be short.
So I think, yeah, wear and tear is a huge factor. So it's really cool to see that they can put these and not just put them on the, on the carrier, but again, you're going to have pilots who are going to be able to, you know, conduct flight operations.
And I'm sure that's a lot of screens.
[00:34:53] Speaker C: I'm kind of mentally still stuck on that picture right there. And it just kind of makes me think, like, that is probably the future for a remote pilot. They're going to be having all these screens with all these different drones flying around, and it certainly does look messy, but I feel like after a while, it's gonna be this chaotic flow that they can just go into, you know, like, they can look where they need to.
[00:35:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I think a lot. And, like, half of it might not even, like, be relevant at any given time. Like, one or two screens might only be necessary when you're actually connecting and fueling, because I'm sure there's gonna be a cam. Like, one of those screens will probably be solely dedicated to a camera that is showing you the fuel probe and giving you just confirmation that the connection is seated and secured. Right. And then, you know, one screens radar and weather, most likely forward facing instrumentation telemetry on another screen.
[00:36:05] Speaker B: But I got the capacity on this bad boy. I don't know if it's, like, set in concrete just yet. I think they're probably still working on it. But this is from Wikipedia. The Navy's goal for the aircraft is to be able to deliver 15,000 lb of fuel total to four to six airplanes at a range of 500 nautical miles.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: And that's the. And then that's the MQ 25 stingray. So the MQ 25 doesn't fall apart? Well, there's no emergency doors that could fly off.
Does meet doors.
[00:36:46] Speaker B: And it is bigger than you think it is, by the way.
[00:36:49] Speaker A: Well, it looks to me it's like this. The size of the jet.
[00:36:51] Speaker B: He's bigger than that. I think. I've never had the jets don't. I don't know. It's definitely massive.
[00:36:58] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that thing's got a massive wingspan. Yeah, that thing's really cool, that MQ 25 stingray. And so eventually, we're going to be at a point, right. Speaking of a capability that would be particularly helpful should a war break out with China in the watery expanse of the West Pacific.
But again, it goes back to this drone. So the drones are refueling the jets. The jets are flying on AI.
We've got robotic submarines, ghost shark submarines. We've got, you know, the aircraft carriers. I think China was the one showing off. They have like an autonomous. Or they're building an autonomous carrier, or we're bus. Like, I got to dive into that. But there's. There's an autonomous aircraft carrier being built, and then you could put autonomous aircraft on there, and now it's. But again, when you think about it, and you were talking about this, Samuel, when we mentioned the.
Is like, this is how the future of warfare. But warfare is also significant because the loss associated with it, and I'm not saying that in a way that's like, I don't want things to go forward, but it's just like that.
What was the ends and the consequences of war was that loss of life, the loss of something. And when it just becomes robots, I think that might work, but eventually it's just like, there's just going to be a pile of robots in the ocean. And then what? And I don't expect an answer to that question. Very philosophical, awful picture for.
[00:38:34] Speaker B: I mean, it's just not the loss of life. I mean, it's taking land. So if. If they're fighting over robots, somebody's gonna win eventually and just take and probably still kill it. I mean, there'll probably be some bodies.
[00:38:47] Speaker A: Involved in land, but you're right, it's land. But when you're just autonomously doing this in the air, in the ocean, there's no really land associated with it. So I think even in space, right. I think there will be this period where, like, hey, this is going to work and this is going to be where we're at, but then someone, some evil person is going to be like, well, wait, you know, I'm not doing this just because I want to. When, like, robot wars on Sci-Fi channel or something, it's like, I want what they have. I want what they have. And I think that's. I don't know if that means anything or makes any sense. We have kind of switching gears here from military to a more, I guess, us based or not war focused or military focused, but still on a not so positive. I promise, stick with us through this episode. We're gonna get to the good, good stuff.
[00:39:58] Speaker C: No light.
[00:39:58] Speaker A: 23 indicted no light shows 23 indicted in an alleged scheme to smuggle contra brand into Georgia prisons with drones. So 23 people have been indicted to smuggle drugs and cell phones into prisons using drugs.
The article here that we have up is with ABC News, and what the article mentions is that drones had been used to drop marijuana, methamphetamine, and contraband phones into the yards at Smith State prison in Glenville, in Glenville, Telfair State prison in McCrae, Helena, and others over a five year period which began in 2019. So this has been going on since 2019.
What do you guys think about this? You know, I'm sure this is one of those things where, like, you see them flying in 2019. You can't just go do it. You got to build your case, have your investigation, maybe intercept a couple packages, you know, kind of trace people. Because in instance like this, you really want to make sure that you're getting to the. To the entire root cause.
[00:41:29] Speaker C: I was kind of honestly kind of curious what type of drones they were using, though, like, if these were, because, I mean, I feel like that's a bit of serious engineering power to just kind of designer.
They had to do some type of pre made.
[00:41:46] Speaker B: Well, they're not dropping.
Yeah. So, like, it's. It's like a rudimentary dropping system. Probably use, like, a servo or two. But, I mean, they don't have. They're not smuggling in pounds of this because they can't. They're smuggling in ounces at a time, probably that doesn't weigh too much. And then, like, I, there's a guy on TikTok, it always comes like, tick tock with me. But he was in prison, and they used to do tobacco bags and put phones in them and then just kind of protect the phones in the tobacco bags because, I mean, you can just get a bulk tobacco bag, and he just, they just send it in there via drone. And that probably only weighs, what, like a pound. So, like a regular DJI drone could do that. Nothing too big.
[00:42:35] Speaker A: Yeah, it looks like they were sending text messages. One, we can do two on one battery and two on another battery.
And so, you know, multiple deliveries, as Terry noted. You know, a pound, two pounds, three pounds in this instance. You know, drugs, drug, drug smuggling.
I'm sure these folks are gonna, you know, whatever they can kind of get their hands on the commercial grade. Same here in North Carolina.
Yeah. And then ten drones are seized. So authority sees a total of ten drones.
I'm sure this is one of those instances where they were just out, like, they weren't flying this very far. It was all not likely visual line of sight, but just some trigger mechanism, like an Amazon drop mechanism that pretty much any commercial off the shelf drone someone has come up with.
[00:43:45] Speaker B: I was watching mares of Kingstown, and this latest season, there was, they were delivering drugs into the prison and it was, the guards were paid off. So I was just coming in and out all day. The prisoners were getting upset because, like, the rival gangs were getting upset because they were just, they just kept the drones coming in. And that's product they can't get.
[00:44:12] Speaker C: Oh, they got matrices, a few different drones showing up here, huh?
[00:44:16] Speaker B: Legends.
[00:44:21] Speaker A: Yeah. I've seen some matrice 600s that were modified with drop mechanisms.
[00:44:29] Speaker B: Well, you have to think they don't have to smuggle in too much because it's, they can charge four times what it is on the street in prison because that person's going to pay for it, especially if they're withdrawing. So.
[00:44:46] Speaker A: Yeah, protection, things like that. I'm trying to see the, you know.
[00:44:52] Speaker B: Here'S like the, it's a fantastic drone right there.
[00:44:55] Speaker A: There's your Mavic three. And this is just a, like a drop mechanism attached to it that you could get from off Amazon.
[00:45:07] Speaker B: And you see the drone with the revolver on it.
[00:45:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, my gosh.
And so there's a lot of ways.
There's a mavic three again with the same kind of drop mechanism.
I don't know what this has a bunch of money underneath it or something, but there's a matrice 600.
[00:45:37] Speaker B: Border in Lithuania and then this.
[00:45:43] Speaker A: So pretty much just smuggling, taking anything you could readily get your hands on. I think this photo pretty much sums it all up.
Besides the top left, bottom right, that's like an air two or DJI air drone that you could just tape something to. A phantom.
[00:46:02] Speaker B: Phantom three notice on the phantom three photo, they taped the lights so they cannot see them. I'm assuming they're doing that at nighttime and just waiting until morning to pick up the package.
[00:46:14] Speaker A: Yep. Taping the lights. That's a good point of noting DJI drone here. Yep. So pretty much just outfitting and modifying commercial off the shelf products. And that is a reason why counter UA's technology, it should exist at prisons, jails. You can put up some sensors and you don't have to stare at the sky. Right. Just set the sensors up. It works like a ring doorbell camera, if anything, with that rf signal. Because these people aren't building their own drones with, like, you know, this isn't DJ the Ukraine. They're anti radar technology. They're literally buying a commercial off the shelf drone with a readily available operating frequency that you can detect these things and then have an alert system.
If a drone enters this airspace, it should immediately alert. You should have an alarm potentially go off, scare the crap out of the operator, say, we know you're there, we've detected a drone operation. You need to leave this. Yes, exactly. Cease operations, you know, and then turn all the lights on in the yard. The floodlights come on, light everything up. Yeah, the floodlights come on. And now you don't know where the drone is going to go. It's not safe to necessarily shoot it out of the sky. But now you can eliminate any degree of, you know, hiding, but you have to have a system to detect it. And that stuff exists. Well, on lighter notes transitioning to some positive stories for this episode, we are at WSNB News news four. We are in Gallatin, Tennessee, where the Sumner County Emergency Management Agency turned to technology to find a missing 93 year old woman.
If you're sluggish these days, you're not alone.
Don't want to hear what you have to say, but we do want to hear what you have to say.
Our Sharon Dankwa has the details on the search.
[00:48:34] Speaker D: Time is of essence and especially situation like this.
[00:48:37] Speaker A: Ken Widener with Sumner County Emergency Management said woman with Alzheimer's was missing.
[00:48:44] Speaker D: We responded to location with the Sumter County Sheriff's Office, Sumner County EMS, and the volunteer fire in that community, Mickey.
[00:48:53] Speaker A: Summer says he pulled out his drone.
[00:48:55] Speaker D: I launched the drone less than 1 minute. I had located her with a thermal image and the flir that's on the camera itself before I said, hey, I've got her. I actually flew to her location and turned the live camera on to make. Make sure that it was what I was looking at to confirm before I put it out over the radio.
[00:49:12] Speaker A: Watching Summer's drone footage of a woman with the walker stuck in the middle.
[00:49:16] Speaker D: Of an overgrown field, it feels very good, especially when you can do it quick.
I was actually surprised because I literally just launched the drone.
[00:49:27] Speaker A: Use this drone to lead the search party to her exact location.
[00:49:30] Speaker D: Well, I was actually the first one to get to her, and she was trying to go forward, and I said, miss Betty, I said, you okay? She said, yes, sir. Yes, sir. And I said, where are you going? And she said, I'm going. I'm going out there. And I said, all right, well, can we go back to your house? He said, yeah, we can go back home. And, man, she was in good spirits and talking to us. And we got her in a truck and got her back to the house. The Umes checked her, and he was fine.
[00:49:53] Speaker A: Sumner County EMa says this is the 12th person they found grown since the start of their program. The 12th.
I'm Sharon Dinklund. The 12th person they found. And that was video that has. That was.
[00:50:14] Speaker B: I hate the way my brain works.
Just immediate bad thoughts, like, you can't.
[00:50:26] Speaker A: $7,000 drone, and already twelve people, 7012 people found. And so if the drone found it that quick, could the people have found this person?
Right? More than likely, yes. Especially if they're good at what they do. The better you are at your job, the more likely you would have found that person, even without all the tools available.
But the fact that you can find this person that quickly, it just. It eliminates having to get as many people involved. It eliminates the amount of worry, it eliminates the amount of phone calls. The sooner you can wrap up a missing person's search.
Right. The better for every person involved.
[00:51:17] Speaker C: I think it's also, too, just the time is of the essence with a missing persons thing. Like you said, the sooner you can, the sooner the better. So.
[00:51:28] Speaker A: And speaking of time is of the essence. Right. So there is data now that goes back, and I don't think this is the exact one, but they're, you know, handbook of missing persons. There are the missing persons, like playbook or. I wish. I was trying to just pull it up real fast, and this could be the one right here. But in public safety, they have enough. They have so much data that has been populated over decades of missing persons that when someone goes missing, it's not just random.
Like, it's not all of a sudden we're just gonna just randomly go look. Immediately you find out, how old is that person? What gender are they? Right? Do they have any mental disorders? Do they have any physical limitations? People lean. You know, certain people that have, like, a bad knee or a hip, they're gonna walk a certain way. If they're in a field, they're gonna, you know, favor the left or the right. What were they wearing? What colors? Certain groups of people are going to be prone to do certain things. So after decades of actually finding missing people and putting that in, you can go to this playbook, and you can basically take the answers to all these questions, and you know how big your search radius is. So every. Every minute that goes by, your likelihood of finding decreases, the search coordination increases. So there's a point in time where the drone is not even useful, right. When you're 24 hours into a search, your area becomes so great. At that point, it's. You really need to know that the drone has to get involved very early on, as early as possible, because once, once so much time passes. Now, depending on the mobility of the individual, they could be. They could be almost anywhere. And so there was one other missing person story that actually came in this past week.
This is in Oak Island, North Carolina. This was on August 21.
The missing individual was a three year old child.
I guess there was a.
Again, they shared this video as well.
And so it doesn't seem to be a three year old.
And what it seems like is more of, like, when you look at the beach and you think of it as an adult, you know where you are, right? You know where you should be. And it seems like this child just got separated and just continued to walk down the beach and didn't know where they were and maybe didn't even know who to talk to.
[00:54:59] Speaker B: Well, speak for yourself on that one, Paul. I was recently at the beach within, like, the last two years, and it mentioned highway hypnosis. I went out into the water. I just kind of messed around a bit for a while, wasn't paying attention to the shoreline. And by the time I came out and I went towards the sand, I looked around, and I was like, where am I right now? Especially with that current 20 minutes to find my stuff.
[00:55:27] Speaker A: So.
[00:55:31] Speaker B: It happens.
[00:55:32] Speaker A: And so when you're, you know, law enforcement and you're trying to, as this video showed, how, where they found the child versus where they were flying from, you can easily ask, you know, what was this person wearing? And now this drone is able to, every time I pause it, this shows up.
You can find somebody, you can search and scan a beach much more quickly than if it was just officers on the ground.
So once you know someone is missing, it's how quickly when did this person go missing? Where were they last seen? And now this is where we need to start looking. So the pilot here, I just noticed in the video, like, looking at the remote, it looks like most likely a matrice 30. And so the pilot's able to stand here with the mother.
And now, instead of again being on the ground, trying to look through every, you know, everything else on the ground, you can put the drone up in the air, you can find the, the drone overhead. And I'm sure the mother knew, you know, blue shirt, blue shorts, had a hat on.
And so this drone is a force multiplier. And when you are trying to find a missing person, right, the larger your force is, the greater the chance you're going to find. So a drone at the appropriate angle, with the appropriate vantage point, is going to provide as much value as ten people on the ground. It's, it's multiplying that, the size of that force, you know, this one, this two person team is able to do as much work as ten or 20 people on the ground.
And I'm glad you found your way back, Terry.
So shout out to the, to the oak Island Fire Department on that recent rescue and location of that missing person. It's interesting, right? Because when you think missing person, you think of the 93 year old woman from Tennessee that's lost in the middle of the woods, not, hey, my son is lost in the middle of a massive group of people. And then wrapping up. We just got a couple more minutes here in the regulatory corner, again, highlighting some more.
Well, one more positive and then the final story here, I guess it could be a positive or negative, depending on who you are and if you are one of the pilots who the FAA has gone after. But before that, Cyberhawk receives FAA waiver for expanded us drone operations. We talked about this last week. I think we talked about it the week before. We mentioned that this is going to be huge as we get closer to commuv and as the technology becomes more trusted from a detection standpoint. But Cyberhawk receives their FA waiver for beyond visual line of sight without the need for visual observer.
Skyhawk does inspections, survey services and visual data management across the US.
So they're going to be able to operate their drones in. It makes sense. Remote areas, sparsely populated areas. Inspecting windmills.
Right. Inspecting critical infrastructure where it's very, very low risk.
And if they can keep this drone within close proximity to these windmills, transmission lines, utilities, it creates a shielded operation.
So I think this again shows that a combination of matured technology and operational procedures is enabling more beyond visual line of sight.
What do you guys think about this?
[01:00:02] Speaker C: Sounds like it's a nice, straightforward path for innovation, to be honest, at least from my point of view. Like you said, they've kind of shielded themselves with that infrastructure. So then that makes a lot of sense.
I'm just kind of curious if they're going to expand past that. But I mean, honestly, there probably isn't too much need.
[01:00:28] Speaker A: Critical infrastructure can be monitored and maintained more effectively, supporting the reliability of essential services. And also, as I was sitting here just thinking, I was like, this could be more jobs, like actual more jobs that generate a income for a company, which means like consistent paychecks and long term, you know, long term employment.
It's not just like a pop up thing. It's not just a what if? It's like, hey, we've identified an aircraft and procedures and I'd have to look more into this, but hell, that looks like it's high.
I mean, that looks like it could be a hydrogen tank.
But when you see stuff like this, like this company is going to be able to expand their operations across America. To me that's like, oh, man, they're not going to hire tens of thousand people overnight. But like, wow, they're the, this company might actually start hiring tens of pilots across every state, which would turn them into a massive organization, potentially 500 plus people. A remote hub here, remote hub there, but really exciting and again, expected, I think, more beyond visual line of sight because the technology's matured and regulators are, are comfortable.
[01:02:05] Speaker B: That is a hydrogen drone.
[01:02:10] Speaker A: Nice.
Makes sense if you're going to fly out here and then again, hydrogen less risk. There's not a lot of people around, so you want to get the most bang for your buck, ha ha, and fly for, you know, extended flight time. And right now, that's, that's hydrogen.
Hydrogen is going to give you some serious flight time.
And our final story article that we will jump through rather quickly here before wrapping up is from the Federal Aviation Administration.
The FAA proposed $341,413 in civil penalties against drone operators.
This article came out Friday, August 23.
This was between October 2022 and June of 2024. So over 1819 month period, $341,000 in civil penalties.
[01:03:21] Speaker B: There's one that stands out a lot more to me than the others, and it's the, the Miami Grand Prix one.
How you gonna get fined $18,000 for that? And then somebody who created a collision hazard with a helicopter gets five.
Dude, come on, we gotta make that. We got to make standard fines for this because that's not right. All right.
[01:03:51] Speaker A: Um, I think if you look at it, it's because they didn't have the remote pilot certificate and their drone crashed because of rotor wash.
And it might not have been like controlled airspace. So when you look at the Miami one, it's a, like pretty much every, there was a TFR that they were flying in, they violated regulations. It was classed airspace without authorization. They didn't maintain visual line of sight. Like, that's like, they pretty much broke every rule.
[01:04:35] Speaker B: Yeah, it just seems a bit much for what they did.
[01:04:40] Speaker A: Like the near crack.
Yeah, that.
Which is weird though. Like, I feel like they don't necessarily put a dollar value on each violation.
They all have the same dollar amount, so the more you break than the. Then the higher your penalty.
But they might discount you like dollar 500 per. So if you, if you're going to break one, you might want to break four.
[01:05:11] Speaker B: I just, I don't know if that guy had a great lawyer, could it.
[01:05:15] Speaker A: Could have been the attorney too.
And then, like here, 16 and 4000 against two people who operated drones. The airspace was classified as national defense. The operators flew drones in class b. Neither had. So like, why did one get 16 and the other four?
But there's got to be more to it. But yeah, it's super interesting how they say like among these cases were 32,000 against a person who interfered with law enforcement while flying. An improvident registered an unlit drone and he flew so close to the helicopter, the pilot, to stop the search for a burglary suspect.
That's crazy how you found this person, right? You know what I mean?
[01:06:11] Speaker B: Like, there's no lights on it, it's dark.
[01:06:15] Speaker A: Improperly registered, unlit.
What did the helicopter pilot do? Stop flying after the burglary and just like follow the drone back to its. Gotta get at that point.
[01:06:27] Speaker B: If you, if that's your drone, you crash it and you just leave. I mean, if it's not registered to you, you're fine.
[01:06:36] Speaker A: Yeah, that's wild.
[01:06:38] Speaker B: The worst criminal of all time right there.
[01:06:43] Speaker A: So, like, this is really something that actually happened. And then you think like, anyone can just buy a drone. So you're like, when you see someone and you're like, oh, you just got a drone. Be like, oh, don't do what the guy in Florida did.
[01:06:59] Speaker C: Local Florida man.
[01:07:03] Speaker A: He worked for them, for the, for the.
The guy who was trying to get away. It was like, intentional.
[01:07:11] Speaker B: And it does seem like Florida is handing out steeper fines than potentially other states are.
[01:07:17] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I see that with the. But it's the FAA that's handing these out. It's not necessarily the state of.
[01:07:23] Speaker B: I'm sure the state has something to do with it. You know, police officers and stuff.
[01:07:28] Speaker A: That's funny. This drone in this one, that was the drone that we saw in the picture where they had the lights taped up.
[01:07:36] Speaker C: Probably that stealth drone.
[01:07:38] Speaker A: But that's interesting. This was on September 22, 2021, but they didn't actually give this civil fine outlandish until the October window. So it's like things happened, but then they issued the fine. So it's not like all these things happened during this time period. They were just slapping out these dollar amounts.
So it's kind of funny because most of these, I'm sure all these stories started with someone just thinking like, oh, I'm just gonna fly my drone. You know, like they had no clue that it was gonna end in, you know, an $18,000 ticket a year later.
[01:08:28] Speaker B: Yeah, but this. The guy at the Formula one event was just like, I wanna get some pretty pictures of the cars.
This is my son's drone.
He doesn't have a certificate or anything.
[01:08:42] Speaker A: Yeah, and we've got the counter UA's stuff up at Formula one. You know, we got to keep those pictures. You know, we got a. We can't have anyone photographing those. But we don't have the counter UA's stuff up at the prisons. Well, why would we need it there?
Well, there's no money at the prisons.
[01:08:59] Speaker B: That'S why there's a ton of money in prisons.
[01:09:02] Speaker A: Well, not like Formula one, you know? No, can't be having any of that. Non. About that, man, any of that copyrighted imagery getting out.
So, yeah, do the right thing with your drone, because it's. It's become. Especially if we see anything yet. Stay away from these big time sporting events. Unless someone's actually paying you to be there or, you know, have your airspace authorizations. If you need help, you know, you can always reach out to like 910 drones or something. There's a then prisons and stuff like that. You know, if there's fences, if there's a fee to get in, and that fee is either a dollar amount or a crime that you have to commit, keep your drone away. But yeah, another super interesting episode. A lot. We definitely started out with some interesting conversations with the NOAA using new drones for weather forecasting. The University of Memphis receiving significant funding from the Navy in order to develop testing grounds and facilities to produce drones that can handle and operate in more adverse conditions. That's good for the military, and then that's going to be good for even the NOAA, because when conditions, winds pick up weather picks up precipitation, you still want to collect that data. But currently there's really no systems in place at a price range that is going to allow folks to really adapt and integrate at the level that's going to help. In our tech spotlight, we looked at the Enduro Industries ghost autonomous undersea vehicle, and then also the enhancements to the aircraft carrier Busch that is allowing the crews on board to actually pilot the MQ 25 refueling vehicles.
We stopped into Georgia, mentioned the 23 indictments that came out in regards to the drug, drug and cell phone smuggling that has taken place over the past five years.
In our success story space, we talked about drones being leveraged to, one find a missing 93 year old in a remote area, and also drones being leveraged on Oak island here in North Carolina to find a missing child who was not in a remote area surrounded by many people, but happened to be separated from his parents. So really neat to see a drone used in the past week in two varying situations, both by public safety to find missing persons. And then lastly, in the regulatory corner, we looked at more BV loss operations being enabled by the FAA for cyber Hawk this time, and then the $341,413 civil penalties that have been handed out by the FAA from October 22 through about June of 24. Really interesting to see. You know, not just that the civil penalties are coming out, but what are they coming out for? And I think it's important that information goes out so that the general public sees it and potentially starts to understand that there is some bigger things associated with some of these larger events. And then also even for search and rescue, you don't want to be interfering with the public safety helicopters or other air assets that are trying to help support and serve the community.
So, man, another action packed episode here. We really appreciate everybody tuning in to this week's I episode of Weekly Wings. Dronelife.com. podcast. Your time, your attention. We hope that you found some value and insight over the last, you know, 60 plus minutes here with myself, Samuel and Terry. Thank you both. Samuel thank you, Terry. Really appreciate your time here and your insights with the listeners. Hope everybody has a wonderful week and we will see you on the next episode of weekly Wings.
