Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back, everybody, to Wings because we have not been weekly. No, thank you. Thank you everybody for tuning in again to Weekly Wings. Your go to podcast from drone life.com bringing you the latest in drone drone news and insights.
Been staying very productive here in North Carolina and a little mild hiatus. Legs are killing me. Put some flooring in, went to Disney World, some work, travel.
Certainly the year, maybe the first day or two was slow and with everything in the politics and the world of drones, I thought it was going to be a slow start to the year, Terry, and it. It really wasn't. How have you been?
[00:00:59] Speaker B: I've been doing pretty good.
In between our last episode, I have picked up a new hobby and I have been going for two, going on three weeks to it. It's been like pulling fingernails to get us in the same call at the same time.
But I'm glad we finally made it.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: What's your. What are you. What are you doing? Are you still. Is it knives or did you give up on the knife making?
[00:01:22] Speaker B: I gave up on knives for now. I'll go back to it eventually. I need to get like a more well ventilated area. Don't want to breathe in Met, but Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I've been doing a little bit of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: Oh, all right.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: Voice Gracie's gym.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You enjoying that you're gonna fight Rodriguez anytime soon?
[00:01:41] Speaker B: I can confidently say anybody that has six months or more on me, it's done for for me for right now.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Well, all right. All right. Well, yeah, I've been, you mentioned going in this, this is transitioning into like a financial podcast. And I guess when you start to look at things over time, it's natural to just, you know, these companies, this is what we're discussing, these products. And it's either, you know, the operation, the technology's success, or it fails. And with that comes like company growth, economic growth. I think, I think now with the cycle of the American political system, we're moving into a more financially kind of focused. And we see that with the markets and the, the cryptos and the business opportunities. And so, yeah, it is pretty, pretty interesting. And then I think the industry also has reached a point. It was talked about starting maybe 12 months ago, 18 months ago, is just completely lost the word there, companies coming together, right. Because it's a very tough industry. It's not as big as folks think it is. So acquisitions, right, Companies find a little bit of success and they're being acquired by, by bigger businesses in order to kind of vertically integrate that product. So I think there's a culmination of, like, politics where this administration is. We're going to see things move during the administration. And then also just the age of the drone industry, the commercial drone industry, the defense drone industry, where all those acquisitions are happening.
But it's interesting, right? It's all about. It's all about the money.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Money motivated, financially motivated. That's what the American capitalist system is about.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: So we're going to try to mix in a few things here.
Talk about still the technology.
Some of these companies that are popping back up that are, you know, publicly traded. So there's some kind of value to point to there, which. Which we'll dive into. But one thing that Terry sent over. What. What are we looking at here? I watched it, dude. I'm gonna share it.
We got the video here.
I'll turn the volume down. Boom.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So for the audio only listeners, it looks like the Jordan brand had a small drone presentation. I don't know exactly where this is located, but it is over a body of water and it is just the Jumpman logo highlighted in red. Looks pretty cool. I would go over to the jumpman23 Instagram profile if you would like to see it. It was posted four days as of 2 18, 2,025.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: And so four days ago, this was in Oakland, and now I'm kind of putting this together. The All Star.
[00:05:12] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: NBA All Star weekend was Golden State Warriors. I'm pretty sure they're out of Oakland. Right.
[00:05:25] Speaker B: San Francisco is where those are from.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: Is it San Francisco?
[00:05:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: I don't state, but the Golden State is California.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: I like San Francisco. Yeah.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: Is where they're out of.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: Oh, all right. Well, I don't know why I thought Oakland, but I don't know if it's a coincidence.
[00:05:45] Speaker B: Bridge in the logo.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know if it's a coincidence, but the All Star game was out there, and this is pretty cool. Notice how they're doing it over what? Water.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: Water. A body of water.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: Right. So if you have a failure, you know, one of these drones, you reduce the risk. This giant Jumpman logo. And so now, again, it's one of those things where, like, I'm like, what is this? What is this? Because I'll hit play again and it restarts. I'm like, what am I seeing here? Is a boat gonna hit a bridge and.
[00:06:17] Speaker B: And then this is real, right?
[00:06:20] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't. I don't. I didn't. I don't See why it wouldn't be real. It's not like it's doing anything crazy. I mean, the Jumpman 23, is that the actual. You got the blue check. But that doesn't mean really much these days.
It seems like it.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: I don't know, I just see that maybe it's not right there. Nice AI. I don't think it's AI because if you, like, look closely, you can see him kind of fighting the wind a little bit. It's over a body of water next to a bridge. So that kind of makes sense that it's fighting a little bit.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: Either way. I mean, there's been a lot with drone light shows, even after all that's happening. But seeing something like that is pretty cool. Pretty cool.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: Terry's surprised when I seen that.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: Yeah. And then Terry's like, was that even real? I'm like, come on, man.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: You never know now, man. AI, it's getting out of hand. I don't like it.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: It is. We got to do our.
Or do diligence. And it's getting really good. Especially those short.
The short little five, five mini second clips. So, Terry, we talked about Unusual Machines in the past, right?
[00:07:36] Speaker B: Last four episodes, it feels like.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: Are you familiar with unusual machines?
[00:07:41] Speaker B: Yes, yes, I am.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: So last it was motors, electric motors. Right. They hired the previous Tesla executive. They were announcing they were going to be doing the motors.
And then earlier this month, this came out, and this was. This was pretty interesting, was to see unusual machines enter into a definitive agreement to acquire drone software company Aloft Technologies in order to grow the American drone ecosystem.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: It's interesting to start to see the shift where it's just a bunch of small companies and now they're all starting to, like you said earlier, they're just starting to get bought up. It's starting to get monopolized. So it's like it's starting to become bigger companies.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Just so I don't think Monopoly, not really monopolized, but vertically, like vertical integrated. We're a company and we have just motors. Well, instead of just selling motors, now we're going to buy all that. We're going to make the drone.
And then once you can make a drone, because unusual machines is like, we're going to. We're going to make a drone. Well, once you have a drone, what are you going to use to fly it?
[00:09:06] Speaker B: And soft ar.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: And so what's really interesting I thought was, was this isn't like unusual machines didn't buy them with money.
It was almost an entire stock purchase.
So Unusual Machines gave shares to the owners of a loft valued at roughly 14 and a half million dollars.
[00:09:38] Speaker B: Was there a jump in the stock price from that?
[00:09:42] Speaker A: As of this article, it's just showing it's down 1.46%.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: Let me, I'll go do a little research real quick. Let's see.
[00:09:49] Speaker A: And so what's third?
[00:09:51] Speaker B: Not really.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: And so what's curious is like how long do they have to hold the stock for? Like if they, they use the stock to buy a loft and then they say like they can't just immediately turn around and sell all their shares, like they, they might have to hold the shares for at least 12 months or something. Something, something.
[00:10:16] Speaker B: Yeah, it's probably like a weird contract where they, they can sell 10% after a year, another 10% after two years. So it just keeps.
[00:10:28] Speaker A: The delivery by a loft financials receipt of certain third party consents and the holders of no more than 10% of Aloft Commons stock have asserted appraisal rights. This is just.
Yeah, so it's, it's interesting as they talk about piecing things together.
I think Unusual Machines is trying to potentially create like a drone in the box type of a platform or also Aloft is, it's like this software that you can put on the screen of the remote controller.
I don't know if they have a remote showing up. So you, you can basically fly from a computer for like drone as a first responder.
And that's where like a lot of the big, you know, potential market share is, is flying from a computer. But then also they have, it's probably not on here, but like the ability to have the software that you put on a remote controller. So if Unusual Machines is actually going to produce. Go ahead.
[00:12:11] Speaker B: They, they went out and found a company that is kind of almost all encompassing for anything they want to do. So they're already building their remotes. They would be able to put this software on the remote if they released a drone with the software?
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Yeah, like they could get an Android device, like an Android screen, put it into a remote controller, load aloft onto that remote controller.
[00:12:36] Speaker B: It would be the firmware. Firmware or operating system. Right.
[00:12:40] Speaker A: It'd be the os. Yeah, like the software. Basically the, the software. And so that's where like you read this, they acquire drone software company. So the Aloft is the software. They're building their hardware motors, they add elect, they have electronic speed controllers.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: It makes sense what it, what is Unusual Machines planning? You, you already kind of gave your guess for the drone in the box.
I don't. I don't know what to think about these guys. Like they're planning something crazy because they wouldn't be going out and putting their hands and everything. And certain to. I wonder what their long term goal is. Like what are they trying to make.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
And it's just like when you go to their website, it's just like, look at our stock value.
[00:13:35] Speaker B: Oh, of course.
Good sign of a company.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: It's.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: And then this. They got Trump Jr. Somewhere, right?
[00:13:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Board.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: I can't remember what he took over.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: There was something that they. They announced and then it's not even like on the.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: The advisory board. So he's advising them. That probably won't be on the.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: Yeah, but it's pretty cool. They got this whole page just for their stock ticker on their website.
A lot of.
[00:14:22] Speaker B: Does it show. Does it show where they gave him $12 million worth of stock?
[00:14:28] Speaker A: That's crazy.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: Volume picked up on the 14th. What was that about?
[00:14:36] Speaker A: I don't know.
Too much of the weeds.
[00:14:41] Speaker B: We need a financial analyst to join us next. Next week.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: And so to kind of get into that. To make a perfect transition is congressional funding.
Congress introduces bipartisan legislation to expand drone funding for law enforcement.
So interesting.
Within the past week.
The Drone act of 2025 seeks to enhance public safety with federal support.
Representatives Lou Correa and Troy Nels.
We got bipartisan. A Democrat and a Republican have introduced the directing resources for officers navigating emergencies.
See how they did that there? D R O N E.
The Drone Act.
And so this bill would allow law enforcement agencies to use federal grants to purchase and operate drones.
It's the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistant Grant program and the Community Oriented Policing Services grant. So the Burn JAG and the COPS grants right now, any. Virtually any federal grant for law enforcement public safety. It. It in the fine print says you are not allowed to buy drones.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: Hmm.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: And what do people need funds for right now?
[00:16:46] Speaker B: Drones.
Public safety.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: These are existing grant programs.
And so what this officer, Sheriff Barnes of the Orange County Sheriff's Department says is the Drone act will authorize the use of critical federal funds to purchase UAS equipment and build out programs to improve the safety of our local communities.
What do you think about that?
[00:17:23] Speaker B: I didn't know that like in these. These grant programs that they're. They're not allowing the cops or the, you know, the agencies to buy anything. Like you can't buy a drone with it. Like, why can't we buy a drone that enhances public safety? We need to change it, they're changing it or trying to at least Liability.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: The big word that plugs the whatever of progress, insert their liability.
We give you money, you use that money to buy something.
We don't want to be liable for what you do with it. And drones, for the past 10 years, the agencies that have integrated them and found ways to even just take from their own budget, they've always been ahead of the, the perception of the drone. You have to be ahead of the public perception and then also safety, safety, safety, safety.
They take a drone and you've got the aclu, you've got, you know, there's, there's all these things out there, violations of first Amendment, second Amendment, whatever. The, you know, the, all these different rights that folks have. And so drones have always been right on that. The, in the gray area between like right and wrong. There's never been an ex like you. You, you have no existing case law that, that speaks to like not can drones fly and do this? But are you allowed to use drones? Because everyone agrees, hey, you take this drone with federal funds and you go save someone's life, great job. But what if you take that drone and you go, you know, surveil somebody and you didn't get a warrant, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so that's, I think, been the hang up with federal funding.
Does that kind of make sense?
[00:19:45] Speaker B: No, that definitely makes sense.
[00:19:50] Speaker A: And here's the kicker. They're not saying this right now. It doesn't say this. It says major.
The major County Sheriffs of America commended the bill. Unmanned aircraft Systems. By adding UAS as an eligible expense to the Burn and cops grants programs, we can equip law enforcement with the best technology to protect communities.
What's the caveat that's going to be in this bill? Or probably that probably is in this bill, but no one's mentioning.
Do you think they're going to let you use the federal funding to buy DJI drones?
[00:20:30] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, no, definitely not. That's if Elon Musk doesn't get to the funding first and rip the whole bill apart.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: But this is something that makes sense. This is where funding should be going here. Not to police departments in some other country to get TV ads and commercials for DEI or, you know what I mean? And again, these funds already exist, Terry. So it's not like they're creating a new pot. The pot of money already exists. They're just giving the agencies permission to use the money to buy drones because they don't need more body cameras. They don't need more riot shields. They don't. I mean, they could always use more of those things. But you get to a certain point where it's like, hey, we really need the $10,000, we really need the $20,000 drone.
Can we use the money that already exists? And so this is kind of like common sense, no brainer.
But if you follow the money in the capitalist society, the thing here is why is unusual machines trying to produce a drone? Because there's probably going to be federal, like the gates of federal funding are going to open. And so the market is, is there.
And when the American drones are twice the price, three times the price, they need the support of the federal government to make the purchase.
And so that's why it's like, it's not just a lot unusual machines. You know, there's a, there's a handful of other US Companies, unusual machines just happens to be publicly traded. And that to me, and I think you, and to potentially other people, it's like, oh, wow, this is neat. This is the beginning of, it's either the beginning or the end. And for, for a lot of folks, hey, if unusual machines can start making drones, that means they're going to make them here in the U.S. right? So maybe jobs, production facilities.
[00:22:52] Speaker B: Well, it's interesting this kind of happened, I know you mentioned body cameras earlier. This kind of happened back when they started to introduce the body cameras like they started. There's these companies that were like, we'll produce them, we'll make them. And then there, there was a few that already kind of had them, but the stock just shot straight up the moment the bill passed. So I don't know. This is.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: Well, if you look at Axon, I think Axon is a company that's not publicly traded and they stayed private. And when body cameras became a thing years ago, right. It was all about camera accountability and it was liability. Hey, who, who, what happened and how, how are we going to figure out not just who's responsible, we need to know who's responsible because that's going to help us determine liability. And then it's like, well, do we want body cameras on all our officers that are made in China? You know, you can buy the cheaper Chinese body camera or are you going to buy a body camera that's made by Axon in the United States?
You know, American made, but it's three or four times the price. And that's kind of what the drone industry is, is, is looking like. The thing with, with the body cameras is they're much easily you just slap it on. Everyone can wear one.
It's not 20000 instead of 10 000, it's 1200 instead of $300. So it's kind of like it's a weirdly purchase where some people still want their, their DJI drones because honestly that's all they can afford. Axon. Right. Did you look them up?
[00:24:41] Speaker B: They're not heard of this company before. I don't. I feel like they are publicly traded.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: Think so.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: Yeah. They are 702 USD per share.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: No way. That's crazy. So this I'm gonna share? No. Why am I Facebook?
[00:24:58] Speaker B: Yeah. Back in 2017 you could have bought it for $25. That's right when the body camera started to come out.
[00:25:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: Oh, that hurts. It looks like Exxon's going into drones too. Have we talked about.
[00:25:09] Speaker A: So they, that's what I'm about to play is this. Oh let's see. When did this come out? Two years ago. All right, they, they, they're, they're, they dabbled into maybe make their own drone but then they partnered with I believe skydio. So they've become like a reseller of Sky. They're, they're, they're building out like like a software for body cams and drones and they're, they're, they're trying to stitch everything together into like one picture. And so they have a leg up because Axon sells body cams to so many agencies that it would be easy for them to just introduce drones.
And so this came out two years ago.
See they've got the like a photo kite tethered type drone and this is, this is a one take tour. Look at. Welcome to Axon.
[00:26:18] Speaker B: This place has money. This reminds me of the lab in Tarova.
[00:26:24] Speaker A: An audio only like this thing right here. It's just, it's an FPV pilot flying through Axons US headquarters and it just looks like a cross between like a Tesla Starlink Iron Man.
[00:26:42] Speaker B: Looks like you're in a laser tag arena.
[00:26:46] Speaker A: She was showing off her ring, huh?
The synchronization of everyone walking.
This is all from not just body cams. It was the Taser right there. The Taser, right?
[00:27:15] Speaker B: Yeah. They may be the person that made the tape. Are they the one that invented the Taser?
[00:27:20] Speaker A: Not invented, but they like refined an American version with what I believe was like interchangeable cartridges.
What was that same. Look at this.
[00:27:36] Speaker B: Is that Bumblebee?
[00:27:37] Speaker A: Bumblebee.
Look how many employees that is. Have you, have you lost count? And now we're into the manufacturer, these are their manufacturing. Now the drone's flying FPV style into there.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: The FPV pilot was sweating going down through here.
[00:28:03] Speaker A: Like, that is just the coordination, but the size. And then. So now look at all these vehicles. Look at all these vehicles that just go out for, like, delivery road shows.
They got the rooftop bar, there's the.
[00:28:27] Speaker B: The drone, the tether back to where we started, right?
[00:28:32] Speaker A: Do you want to work at Axon, Terry?
[00:28:34] Speaker B: This is, this looks like a very cool place to work. I can't lie to you.
[00:28:45] Speaker A: And so, yeah, there you go. That's. That's Axon. And having gotten into that, it's.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: I'm sure Exxon will be able to develop a drone however they would like. They got the money to do it.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: But I do think what they've realized is like, they have, they already have the connecting piece. So rather than make the drone, they can just work with the best.
Because at the end, it's what folks are starting to realize in the theme this year is the rtcc, the Real Time Crime Center. And so at the Real Time Crime center, that's when one person is looking at drone video, dash cam video, body cam video, you're looking at street cam video. And inside the Real Time Crime center, you're getting all the data.
And then you can push that out to decision makers in order to, like, you know, make, make the best decisions in the, in the shortest amount of time. And then how do you get. You can make a great product, but if you can't get that out in front of people, you will never be successful. And what Axon is, already has, is they are in front of every single agency. Even the agencies that don't own Axon, they know what Axon is.
[00:30:14] Speaker B: They probably wish they had Axon.
[00:30:16] Speaker A: They wish they had Axon. And so there are still, there are still agencies, departments, and people that don't even know what DJI is. You know what I mean? Like, they know what drones are, but they don't even know what the actual makers are. And so I think anyone who partners with Axon, it's like they don't have to make the drone. If they partner with Skydio, they're going to get a piece of that revenue because they're the ones selling it. So why go out and hustle and make and gather and, you know, they already have an amazing process.
They're just kind of dipping their hand into someone else's pot, if that makes sense.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: It does make sense. It does make sense.
[00:31:02] Speaker A: And so one more, one more Here kind of on the financial side. And we're all unpacking this together.
And Terry, I'm having to jog Terry's memory a little bit here.
[00:31:18] Speaker B: I still don't think we talked about them. I don't know. I have good memory about stuff like this.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: So. Andas Aerobotics, I'm going to share this instead. So this is from Drone Life. Whoops.
This was on January 6th.
Andas American Robotics Secures FAA Waiver for Expanded drone operations.
So we looked at this.
[00:31:50] Speaker B: Oh, it was a boring waiver.
[00:31:52] Speaker A: That's boring waiver. Ondas Holdings. And I remember looking at this and thinking, oh, they're publicly traded. They announced that they're subsidiary. So Ondas again is like umac.
Ondas is the top publicly traded. Underneath them is American Robotics.
And it's American Robotics that got a waiver for beyond visual line of sight. And they're operating out of their Baltimore global ops control center.
They have drones in a box. American Robotics. And so Ondas owns this company, A company that already has a box already has a drone. It's got a weather station on it and they have waivers.
And so American, we did discuss this. If you go back and either way. So here's American Robotics website.
This right here is crazy. This right here is.
This is what I talked about when I like, oh, this is nuts. 18 months ago when I was doing my started my masters, I remember and thinking this could be an idea I might have mentioned on the podcast. But like a cube. You could drop a cube in the middle of Nowhere with like 10, 20, 100 drones in it and then one day you could just deploy all those drones.
Do you remember, here's the Iron. Iron Drone.
[00:33:46] Speaker B: No, they're trying to have the play on words like the Iron Dome, but it doesn't really work for some reason with drone. The Iron Drone.
[00:33:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Instead of an Iron Dome. The Iron Drone.
[00:33:58] Speaker B: Yeah. It doesn't. It doesn't really fit. I don't know why.
[00:34:02] Speaker A: And so you have the Optimus system which is in operation. The Optimus system 247 drone dock operations by American Robotics. Drone in a box, 40 minute flight time, 5 miles edge computing with some AI IP rated American flag on it. You can put EOIO IO IR. Looks like you can put a LIDAR sensor on this thing. Aerial delivery. It's pretty cool.
The Kestrel system looks like their airspace management and security. So you take this Kestrel system, you pop this on and now we've talked about this.
This is your electronic vo. This is how you make sure the airspace is clear without having a human there. So you got airspace, you got hardware, ground box, drone.
That's what they got their waiver to operate more of. But what this article is discussing with this one here that just came out, I don't know, within the last week, I think day today it looks like this. Today is about the Iron Drone radar system.
And they are going to tour the globe. It's Raider drone, Raider system. I don't know, I said radar, the drone Raider system.
[00:35:46] Speaker B: I didn't mean to nitpick you on that, but.
[00:35:51] Speaker A: So that is this here a counter UAS for critical security.
So this is about deploying a drone in a box.
Not to collect data, not to photograph fields, you're not going to photograph buildings. This is a counter UAS system.
It's a drone in a box that is designed to detect and eliminate incoming threats.
[00:36:34] Speaker B: And it looks like a cyber truck.
[00:36:36] Speaker A: It, it looks like a cyber truck and it looks like it has eight motors.
[00:36:44] Speaker B: So does, does this drone. How does, do they just. They just detect them. That's it. It's the whole purpose.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: Detect them, detects it. And it looks like there's two of them stacked. Did you see that?
[00:36:56] Speaker B: How many does this box hold? Because it's pretty cool.
[00:37:01] Speaker A: Raider 1, Raider 2. It looks like it's holding two and it's got.
[00:37:13] Speaker B: Did it just throw a net at it?
[00:37:15] Speaker A: It's hard to see from this video.
[00:37:18] Speaker B: Not a great video.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: Here we go. Ready, Ready. It's going to pop up like 1, 2.
Maybe not. This one has stacked motors. So you can see you got eight motors on this smaller drone.
It's got to be quick, right? If this, look at that thing just take off. If it's supposed to detect and eliminate aerial threats very quickly. Look at this. One, two.
[00:37:41] Speaker B: It's got to be fast.
[00:37:42] Speaker A: It's gotta be fast. I see two of them in there.
So this is the. It detects this threat.
It initiates launch.
Doom 1.
Oh, didn't see the second.
And it just goes in for the intercept.
Terrible video. We're looking at clouds here.
Now it's chasing it.
[00:38:17] Speaker B: Oh, there it is. Yeah, in front of it.
[00:38:20] Speaker A: Yeah. It looks like it deploys some kind of net with hairs.
[00:38:26] Speaker B: So it just autonomously tracks the drone and just dismantles it. That's cool. Wait, it says intercept right there. Was that intercept, say and like the little detect track.
[00:38:40] Speaker A: Yeah, intercept.
[00:38:44] Speaker B: So it does neutralize them mid flight.
That's pretty cool. I like this.
[00:38:56] Speaker A: It's subsidiary Aerobotics has launched A global demonstration tour of the Iron Drone Radar. American robotics. But what's interesting is that's American Robotics, and then this says Aerobotics.
But it looks like they're going to be going North America, Europe, Middle east and Asia.
[00:39:19] Speaker B: I bet the people over in Abu Dhabi will be buying.
[00:39:28] Speaker A: Says you. Offers unique capabilities with minimal collateral damage and reusability after inception. So it's. It's kind of interesting. If the aircraft itself deploys that net in front of it, then I guess potentially you just bring the drone back and you can kind of change out the cartridge, which would make it.
[00:39:51] Speaker B: It's a lot better than slamming straight into the other drone.
[00:39:54] Speaker A: Independence from GPS jamming. So they built it to operate in contested environments.
Reusable interceptors. Yeah. Yep.
That's pretty cool.
Andas Holdings.
[00:40:14] Speaker B: Throw one on top of the White House. Do it.
[00:40:17] Speaker A: And Andas holdings is like, super.
[00:40:23] Speaker B: Cheap.
[00:40:23] Speaker A: It's like a $40, $50, right? Yeah.
[00:40:28] Speaker B: There are a few coins in that basket.
[00:40:30] Speaker A: You know what? The only thing they're missing is announcing, like, Paul Rossi to their board of advisors. I'm sure then it would just. The stock would just go through the roof.
How do we get holdings and then convince them to get Donald Trump Jr. On board? Because that's exactly what UMAC is. If you go back and kind of look at unusual machines, six, four months ago, they were a dollar, right? And so six months ago, they were a dollar, and they had three employees and they owned an online retail company. And now fast forward to today. They bought a loft software and announced Trump. They're at $12. But this company, American Robotics, has drones in a box. They have waivers. They're actually an operational hardware with software. And they're doing a global tour of a drone interception, detect and intercept capability. I'm like, I wonder in six months if I'm gonna look back.
Yeah, well, we're gonna look back and be like, oh, my gosh, we were talking about that company. Remember?
[00:41:57] Speaker B: It's. It's that process have been that it's gotten us twice, I think, so far where we've looked at a company and they were worth, like, nothing. And then we talked about them again a few months later, and they're like, oh, it's $30 a share now.
[00:42:11] Speaker A: And this isn't the first time Ondas has come up. They've come up because of the waiver and their ability to generate. Generate. I gotta go back. I gotta look at that. This is not investment advice. And that.
[00:42:23] Speaker B: No, do not do anything we say.
[00:42:25] Speaker A: Now, something else Jumping to like the. The tech side where we discussed ondas in the American robotics. Something about LiDAR.
Next thing here we're talking about GeoQ and GeoQ launches affordable LiDAR payload systems. So you have the TV One Light and the TV One.
What do you know about LiDAR, Terry?
[00:43:03] Speaker B: Nothing. I know absolutely zero percent. I looked it up. It is light and distance, correct? Is it light and distance?
So like what it kind of stands for.
[00:43:20] Speaker A: Off the top of my head, I shouldn't.
[00:43:21] Speaker B: I just know lidar light detection and ranging. So I was close.
I need to research LiDAR. It's becoming more and more prevalent and it makes sense why it is.
[00:43:35] Speaker A: So have you heard of lidar and anything else?
[00:43:40] Speaker B: My phone has lidar, I believe new.
[00:43:43] Speaker A: Is it a newer iPhone?
[00:43:45] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:43:46] Speaker A: I don't know if it was like a 14 or 13, but it came out with. With lidar, it helps with like the measuring app. It helps with determining photo distance and.
[00:44:02] Speaker B: Light to let into the lens.
[00:44:04] Speaker A: And also for autonomous vehicles.
Oh yeah, like a lot of autonomous vehicles. The expensive ones like whammo and stuff. You see those weird things that are on the outside. Some are like visual cameras, but others are using lidar because of its ability to very accurately detect distance to objects and being able to do it in low light conditions, because a visual camera is great, but when you don't have any light, you can't see what's in front of you. Lidar has the ability to, even at night, detect where.
Where things are and then to measure things precisely. When it comes to surveying, grading earthworks.
And now even with ocean, there's something called a hydro.
Goodness, I don't think it's hydromorphic or something, but there's. There's a lidar technology using green light where you can actually penetrate water.
So you can survey the bottom of a lake or a river by flying a drone over it. Traditional cameras and lidar bounces off of the surface, so. So doing coastal erosion, if you want to know, like beaches that are eroding and how much of the shore, when the water's constantly over, it's very hard to tell. So anyway, LiDAR precision measurement. Also it penetrates vegetation. So you can use lidar, a drone equipped with LiDAR to measure the ground elevation, even even when you're flying over trees.
Because what the lidar does is bounces off of surfaces and then continues to penetrate.
But lidar has been 30, 40, 50, $60,000. There's lidar sensors that go on.
There's some lidar sensors that go on airplanes that cost $500,000, $700,000, $1 million. Cameras that are used to map like an entire state.
[00:46:53] Speaker B: You can get this one, the, the true view light for 19 grand. 1-8990 19 with a full year of.
[00:47:06] Speaker A: The pro of annual processing. Because this is what they don't tell you is your, your sensor costs 19,000. But then you also have to buy the software in order to process the data because this thing isn't just taking a regular picture. You're ending up with some special files. Well now you need special software to process those files and then you need special software to read the files.
So a lot of professional surveyors and construction architecture engineering firms haven't gotten involved in it because the cost is so high, the software cost is so high. But now, just like all technology, you know, now you can buy something for 20 grand and that becomes much more affordable because you can put it on a ten thousand dollar drone, right? Ten thousand dollar drone, twenty thousand dollar sensor, that's thirty grand.
And now you can survey under trees.
Man, that technology was a hundred thousand dollars two years ago.
And it's not made in China.
[00:48:14] Speaker B: Where is it made at, Paul?
[00:48:16] Speaker A: Where is it?
[00:48:18] Speaker B: Is it made in Texas? Like it's made in Texas?
[00:48:22] Speaker A: Alabama.
Goq.
I was gonna guess that Texas was a good guess.
But see here, like do you see these other sensors?
[00:48:36] Speaker B: They look expensive. Yeah.
[00:48:39] Speaker A: This one right here with the Regal on the side, like a Regal. That's expensive.
[00:48:45] Speaker B: It has 719more numbers to it.
[00:48:48] Speaker A: So look at that. I mean. Yeah, so you've got, you got, there's levels to this, there's levels to this stuff.
[00:49:02] Speaker B: I wonder if there's an open source like lidar processing software.
[00:49:09] Speaker A: Alabama but like thermal technology.
It used to be like a thermal camera six years ago was $20,000. Now you can buy a drone with a thermal camera for $5,000. So the price has come down, you know, the price is, you know, cut by 75%.
You know, you're paying now 25% what you would have four or five years ago. And so the same is happening with lidar where you're paying a fraction of the cost.
And then here new now available for purchase, starter, starter range LiDAR. So it's, it's a entry level. Oh, why is, oh look at even.
Only $9,000 down, Terry, with True Finance.
[00:50:07] Speaker B: Only $3,500 a year for the software.
[00:50:12] Speaker A: After your first year, renew at 3,500. Yeah.
[00:50:19] Speaker B: Credit check required. Cool.
[00:50:21] Speaker A: That's, that's interesting though. They're charging you 9,000 and then $1,000 a month. So 11,000 plus 9,000. 20,000.
And so you're paying, you know, a little bit more, and then you pay 3500 either way for a year.
[00:50:46] Speaker B: Two grand for a mount.
[00:50:48] Speaker A: Well, then here. Yeah. So now you got to figure out if.
If you're flying the.
The IF800, it's $0. So the inspired flight IF800, that's a $30,000 drone. So 30,000 plus 20,000. You're 50 grand for this entry level LIDAR Harris aerial mount. Clog works free fly. This is pretty cool stuff right here.
[00:51:16] Speaker B: But what. Okay, question. What makes these mounts worth $1500? I am super confused about that.
[00:51:23] Speaker A: Designed and assembled in the U.S.
is.
[00:51:26] Speaker B: That why it's worth $1500 a piece of metal?
[00:51:33] Speaker A: I don't know why.
So here it's zero for the inspired flight in the free fly because it will mount directly to it with no plate. I. I don't know why they're charging 1500. Unless there's like an electronic.
The cable. There's like an. Yeah, the cable probably has to extend.
Basically. I will like. Like this. Either you already own this drone and you're buying this sensor because if you're. If you don't own a drone yet, it wouldn't make sense to have this. You would just buy this one because this one's cheaper anyway.
It's just marketing crap. It's like, hey, you already own that drone. Do you want to use this sensor with it? If you do, you're gonna have to pay extra money.
[00:52:25] Speaker B: Good on this. This company for lowering the price a considerable amount for the lidar.
It's a good step for the average Joe to start a company using lidar mapping.
[00:52:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And then just like tons of software per. Per year. Pro. Oh, my God. It's just like endless software. Software this, software that. How do we feel about the CIA, Terry? How do you feel? Don't speak for me about the CIA, because they're probably listening to you.
[00:53:06] Speaker B: Oh, I'm for sure on some computer in the CIA. My name's on one of them, for sure.
[00:53:14] Speaker A: So I saw this pop up. This is.
This is from today.
CNN's reporting the CIA is flying covert drone missions into Mexico to spy on drug cartels.
Look at that drone.
[00:53:35] Speaker B: So that's a pretty one. I think that's what those who may not be named flu.
[00:53:45] Speaker A: That.
The. My favorite part is the American flag. It's like you go to any hangar if it's a real hangar, if if real patriots work there, there's going to be American flag. It's like you have to have an American flag in a hangar.
Especially if it's a military hangar.
[00:54:04] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. There's probably four in there, at least.
[00:54:07] Speaker A: View plans. What? Not paying for this.
I went to CNN just because I figured it would have been free.
I gotta go back.
[00:54:17] Speaker B: So the CIA is spying on the cartels. This just came out. I'm sure they've been doing this. Respectfully, there's no way they haven't been.
It's not too secret if you post a news article about it. Daily Mail.
[00:54:44] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, this is.
This is great.
[00:54:56] Speaker B: This is great. Spy on them as much as you can. Figure out where those tunnels are.
[00:55:01] Speaker A: And they throw in. I like how they threw in this photo here from Germany from, like, recent training. I think this is part of what we. What we. The training exercises.
[00:55:13] Speaker B: We talked about it.
[00:55:15] Speaker A: Yeah. The Enduro. Does this just look like this? Why does this look like a gun? This just looks like the upper of like a.
[00:55:24] Speaker B: Looks like a stick bug.
[00:55:28] Speaker A: It's hilarious.
Is someone really carrying this on their back? He's got his BFA on, just blank firing adapter.
That's the Enduro Ghost. That right there. Making waves.
We got this. This.
[00:55:46] Speaker B: The picatinny mount on it.
[00:55:49] Speaker A: A rail. Yeah.
It 100% is.
And there's a Skyo remote.
But like, this is like, yes. This is like, yes, do this. Fly the drones over the border, please. As many as possible.
That's the wait.
[00:56:14] Speaker B: Permission, hopefully.
[00:56:18] Speaker A: What do you mean?
[00:56:20] Speaker B: From Mexico.
[00:56:23] Speaker A: With permission from Mexico.
[00:56:25] Speaker B: I think they have. Yeah, I think they gave it, but.
[00:56:30] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, tell them. You just tell them we're flying this to be like, we're gonna fly over here, you know, and. Unless they're like, doing it themselves because they're talking about drones identifying fentanyl labs soon. Like, unless the Mexican government is benefiting from this, it's like, yes, we are going to be flying into your airspace. Oh, thank you for your permission. That we assumed.
[00:56:53] Speaker B: Well, yeah, as long as Mexico is not, like, benefiting over it. It's like, what do you get? You gain. You only gain in the situation.
You get knowledge of, like, where the criminals are for free. I'm sure they give them, hey, there's a fentanyl lab over here. You go get rid of that.
[00:57:13] Speaker A: And then I think posting this stuff and making them know that, like, even if it's not flying there, we want them to think it's flying there.
[00:57:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Make them paranoid.
[00:57:24] Speaker A: And then this Is the last thing we're talking about. We're going to wrap up the episode because there's been so many crazy things to happen in aviation. And it. And it.
I don't know exactly, looking back when in December.
Gosh. I don't remember what it was, but I feel like going back into December, we had, like, the drone incidents at the light shows, but the same time as the drone incidents at the light shows, there was just, like, a series of plane crashes. Plane crashes and incidents. And it just continued and continued. And since.
Since our last episode. There was the Blackhawk helicopter. American airlines crash in D.C. there was the plane that crashed into the.
The smaller plane that crashed into the building. There was something else. And then this. That just happens is like.
It's just shocking that you saw this, right?
[00:58:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Thankfully, I don't think anybody died in this.
I think there's a few injuries, which you're gonna look at it and be like, nobody died.
It's like, upside down.
[00:58:46] Speaker A: Yeah. We don't need to know about the insurance company.
This is insane.
[00:58:53] Speaker B: I didn't watch the video. I only seen photos.
[00:58:56] Speaker A: This is insane.
Like, the plane lands.
[00:59:02] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:59:03] Speaker A: And flips over.
Like, it. It lands.
[00:59:09] Speaker B: Was this an emergency landing? Is that why they were videotaping it?
[00:59:15] Speaker A: I don't know if it was an emergency landing or this person was just like. I mean, planes had just taken off and landed just ahead of this.
[00:59:26] Speaker B: I'd have to go back in a plane. This is in a plane.
[00:59:30] Speaker A: No, no. This is in a car.
[00:59:31] Speaker B: No, I'm pretty sure that's.
[00:59:32] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. That is a plane. Yep. Yeah. So you can see there. It's like the cockpit, the flight deck divider. Yep. Because they're on the taxiway getting ready to take off.
[00:59:44] Speaker B: There must have been a call that they're coming in for an emergency landing.
[00:59:49] Speaker A: I think the conditions here were. So what I was hearing is that the wind gusts and the wind shear. Like, when you look, it was not a sunny, normal day. Looks like the frozen tundra with absolute howling winds.
There's a passenger that was recording when he was getting out of the.
Of the aircraft.
I think it's this video.
[01:00:19] Speaker B: What they. I know somebody said, turn that off to him.
[01:00:24] Speaker A: Like, the camera.
[01:00:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
All right, here's our Fox News.
[01:00:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Fox News advertisement of the day.
Just videoing.
And like, this is it. Get out. And you're like, oh, my gosh. You're just.
[01:00:45] Speaker B: You're. There's people upside down in that.
[01:00:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And there's fuel everywhere. And this Person happened to grab their, like their bag from the overhead and people are just photographing this.
[01:00:58] Speaker B: He's like, I'm not, I gotta go to my work after this.
[01:01:01] Speaker A: And they're spraying it. It's like, it's like if somebody, they're.
[01:01:03] Speaker B: Like look at, to make sure there's no fire. So the.
[01:01:07] Speaker A: Look at that.
[01:01:08] Speaker B: Would you rather the people get wet or be on fire?
[01:01:11] Speaker A: That is insane.
[01:01:15] Speaker B: Oh, I can't do. These people are gonna get such good money.
[01:01:18] Speaker A: Well, think about it. People made a big deal about the door coming off. Like that Boeing flight that had the door pop off. You know, like the door came off and it landed and it was just like, like. And people were like upset that they were only getting like a 700 credit or something like that. I mean what are you supposed to get when you're playing completely flips over and you have to climb out of it? Like what do you hit him with.
[01:01:48] Speaker B: A class action lawsuit on that one?
[01:01:50] Speaker A: Will you ever get on a plane again?
[01:01:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[01:01:56] Speaker A: That's crazy. Like I flew through D.C. like I flew into Reagan Airport at 8:30 at night. Like the same within the last like week, like a week ago.
[01:02:11] Speaker B: Hope there's no Blackhawk.
[01:02:14] Speaker A: It's very chilling. It's very like you can't live your, your life in fear. But I think for the people that went through that and survived that that.
[01:02:25] Speaker B: Is absolutely, it's traumatizing is what it is. You went on a little roller coaster ride. I think thankfully there's only injuries. Hopefully there's not no life threatening injuries, but.
[01:02:35] Speaker A: And so you kind of ask yourself, like, am I supposed to just be thankful? Like, like to just walk away with my life and what if anything are they supposed to give me that would.
[01:02:46] Speaker B: That would like they're giving them money, change it.
[01:02:50] Speaker A: So that's, that's crazy. The one interesting is it was in Toronto, right? If that had been in the United States, on top of every flight from.
[01:02:59] Speaker B: From the U.S. was an American pilot.
[01:03:02] Speaker A: I'm not entirely sure, but the fact that it was in North America, it basically makes you feel like it was in the US But I just think, wow, safety, safety, safety. And things like this happen. You can only imagine. Everybody wants to fly into, you know, everybody wants their flight to get there and be on time and not be delayed and, and you know, these conditions, like it's gonna potentially snow here in North Carolina and it's like everyone's gonna want to continue to do things as normal. But gosh, it's gonna make people really Think twice about going into airports and inclement weather. And so would you rather wait another night, get stuck, not have a flight or be flipped upside down over? And when you think about the airline, the airline would rather deal with the headaches of putting people in a hotel than have to pay out millions and millions in, you know, insurance settlements.
[01:04:07] Speaker B: Yeah, so that's, it came from Minneapolis. That's where the flight came from.
[01:04:14] Speaker A: That's crazy. I couldn't believe when I saw it upside down like that. I just thought how do you get like, how do you get upside down? The only way is a crosswind. Right? It's like a perfect crosswind causing it.
[01:04:27] Speaker B: It looks like they came down really hard, probably got pushed down, it bounced, tipped it because wind hit it.
[01:04:34] Speaker A: Well, be safe flying out there. Adverse weather conditions. We appreciate everybody tuning in to this this episode of weekly wings your drone life.com podcast.
I am still Paul Rossi. Terry Neff thank you, thank you for, for co hosting and your insights into this this episode's various topics and diving into some of the, the financials. It'll be exciting to see where these companies and organizations had. It'll be interesting to see if this Drones act of 2025 picks up any, any steam and hopefully allows these agencies to use some of these existing federal funds to, you know, to acquire some of these products. And again that's, you know, interesting good positive news for companies like Unusual Machines on the DOS holdings with American Robotics because you know, they're not selling the cheapest products. They're selling American made products that folks departments want to get behind. They just don't have the budgets to do so and this could open up, you know that, that avenue. So would be really interesting to just kind of see how all that, how all of that develops lidar costs coming down and drones over the Mexican border. So thank you everybody for your time and attention. We hope you learned something or found some nugget of value while you tuned in to this episode. We will see you next time. Fly safe.
[01:06:15] Speaker B: Fly safe.
