Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Happy New Year and welcome to the first episode of season two, weekly wings dronelife.com podcast. It is 2025. I am still Paul Rossi, and co host with me is still Terry Neff. Terry, how are you doing?
[00:00:21] Speaker B: Actually, I'm doing great, Paul. I'm a little tired, a little lethargic, but I'm ready to start this new year up strong. It is currently the third and I.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: Say actually because I'm like, how are you doing? Actually, I miss.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: But.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: But. Happy belated birthday the 1st of January.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Big, big day. You got your cerveza T shirt on there.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Modelo. Modelo. I didn't choose to wear this either. I just.
[00:00:47] Speaker A: No. Threw it on particular reason. What was your best gift that you've got for Christmas?
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Best gift I got for Christmas, I got a $10 Starbucks gift card. And then my mom bought me a Kill Tony live package. So I got a signed poster with Kill Tony or I with Tony and Red man signature on it. Come with a little classical shot glass and a Kill Tony hat. And then both live episodes. I still got to watch the 31st episode.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Right on.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Yeah, It's a good package.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: Sounds awesome. I got a jacket. I got a jacket for cold weather.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Nice. You need it right now. It's cold as hell outside.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And went up north. Went up north to Connecticut. It was snowing. Vermont. It was snowing. And surprisingly, it's like the lightest, smallest, tiniest, like, jacket. Right. That I own. And I'm just like, it. You're like, this could not keep you warm. You know how. How could this keep you warm? And then you put it on and it's just like, holy cow. You're like. You go inside like, I gotta take this thing off. I gotta take this layer of nothing off. I'm so hot. Yeah. No, I'm like, anti jacket.
[00:02:01] Speaker B: Wearing a hoodie currently.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: Yeah, like the hoodie. And so this thing's nice. You actually put the hoodie over it or you put the. The jacket over the hoodie. So it's. It's. Yeah. Super nice. And then the other thing, I shouldn't tell you this. I probably owe you. I don't know if you got any checks for signing the thing or if you got anybody to sign that petition.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: But I got like two people.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: Did you. Yeah, that pack.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: Yeah, dude, I got. I got two people to sign it. Did you get check at. Where's your.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: Oh, I was gonna say, am I.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: Gonna have to go see Elon Musk?
[00:02:33] Speaker A: You might, but I'm Pretty sure. I got checks from America Pack petition and they were for $47. So I was like, holy.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: I told everybody that signed it that I would give them half. So as soon as it gets here, I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to start divvying it up.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: I just still can't believe it came. But to be honest, it looked like junk mail. So it's.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: Oh God, I hope it didn't get thrown away.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: It has the little preparations on three sides. Like it looks like, oh, there's a check. But when you read it, you're like, yeah, this isn't a check. You know, it's one of those like pretend, fake, you're pre qualified.
[00:03:12] Speaker B: This is for insurance.
[00:03:13] Speaker A: Yeah. And then I actually popped it open and it was the amount, the 47amount and the America pack. I was like, wow, that's.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Am I the only one that signed it for you?
[00:03:26] Speaker A: No, I believe my wife had signed it out.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: Individual checks. That's crazy.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: And then I sent it to my sister and then I think they do it like that because they know people throw it away. So it's like the check expires after 91 days. So there's a ton of these that'll get thrown out.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: And that's smart. That's smart.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: And then they can use it for like future political campaigns and whatnot. But my sister, I sent it and she said, I think I signed up. I don't remember if I had done it. And I'm like, of course people don't do it because it's so hard to vet things nowadays. It's way easier. Like, it's like your spam filter. You know how often you are trying to get the reset link and you know it's coming in, so you go look at your spam folder. But how often are people really looking and they're combing it. You just believe in whatever this, the, the settings that the default settings are. And I think people are just so inclined to go, no, that's spam that, spam that. When these like high risk, you know, type of not these opportunities come up, you're just like, nope, don't want to talk about it. I just want to move on with my day. It's like this deep in the decentralization stuff because I'm like reading and diving and it just gets to the point where you're like, is this even.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Is this legit? Is this going to make money and.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: Is it worth figuring out if it's legit or not? You know, What, I mean, like, at the end of the day, even if it is, is it worth the learning and the diving into that? But happy New Year, everybody. Thank you for coming back and joining us. Hopefully, everybody had a great holiday time. Christmas, Hanukkah, all the various holidays, New Year's. You know, to the folks in Louisiana, it's terrible, these acts of terrorism and, oh, it's terrible because it just brings so much devastation to individual lives. But then it's like, you could immediately see in these. Just a thought here is, like, you see, people start to question, well, why weren't the barriers there? And, oh, the Super Bowl. And, well, is the super bowl important that we don't have barriers for the next two months? And. Because they were. They weren't installed and in place yet. And, well, why didn't we have trucks? You know, why. Why was it so easy for someone to just drive on? And it just goes back to, you.
[00:05:36] Speaker B: Know, it's always going to go into conspiracy theorists, no matter. Like, it's always going to hit somebody.
[00:05:42] Speaker A: Well, not conspiracy, but just questioning, like, oh, you could have done more. You could have done more. Because people are not in that position. And when you're not in that position, in hindsight's 20 20, so it's unfortunate the devastation it causes, like the immediate impact, but then it really tests the country. It tests the community. It tests, you know, the. The political discourse, because the mayor is this and the chief of police is that. And at the end of the day, I think what the person.
I can't remember who exactly, if it was the governor of Louisiana, but they're basically like, just stop asking us these questions. We're not here to point fingers. We're not here to, you know, dive into. We want to make things better. We want to prevent this.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: I hate. I hate to be this person, but you can't go to Bourbon street expecting to be safe. That's just not something you do as a human.
[00:06:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I think there's like, the most.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: Dangerous street in America, I'm pretty sure.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: But some people go there and they get, you know, totally under the influence, and it's like, what happens? Like, they go there and they're just. They're just like, oh, they're just carefree where someone like myself, you know, the training that I've had, I'm like, I don't even want to go there. You know, like, to me, like, the risk is so high and the. The, you know, the benefit pros versus the cons. But for some people, their expectation is to be able to go there and just, you know, exercise their freedoms and that the God dang police are going to protect them and if something happens, the, you know, paramedics are going to run to help. And so when they go in there, people literally go in there with that. That mentality. Totally different. But just kind of. I was thinking about music, Terry. Little young for like, music comes out so often and so it's so easy to access it that like 20 years ago when an album would come out, it was like an epic event. You know, folks would like sit down and there was no live, there was no Netflix. You didn't have on demand. So like the significance of music and the release of new music, it was like for individual people, they would get and almost celebrate the release of a cd. And once you had it, if you went to a concert, that CD was your way of like reliving that experience in your living room. People would buy, you know, great audio. We have these microphones now that make us, you know, magic audio. It makes us potentially even sound better than we do in person a little bit. Yeah. So it's like people used to just indulge in music and then if the concert, you're like, oh, we're going to that concert in two months, like, let's play that song. And you would just. Just listen to it, knowing that eventually you're going to hear it live.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: I would say that is somewhat still true for certain, like artists, like the Anticipation, dude. I mean, I've known people that have like thrown listening parties for Playboy, Cardi. So I mean, that's like probably the worst one to throw a listening party for. But I've seen those.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: Yeah. And maybe now with the way technology is, your listening party is even bigger because people can join not just in person, but you have like that whole collective group. So. But again, I think it goes like. When I was thinking about this, it was like people 30 years ago, you just didn't have like, like it was accessible at all. Oh my God. The event, to be able to play it and hear it. Because you didn't have Netflix, you didn't have Squid games, you didn't have, you know, every other piece of content and information right at your fingertips. So you're like, well, what. What are we going to do tonight? Oh, the same, you know, watch a movie again, you know, a vhs. So it was like all of a sudden. Yeah. But anyway, what's going on in the base? We've got some interesting topics. US Army's testing some stuff, some systems really neat EVA VTOL aircraft and a US drone manufacturer that is trying to get their, their, their product out there on dronelife.com and some, some other avenues. They looked pretty interesting. I don't know about the price point. And then we'll talk about some Chinese drone stories underwater and a above ground as well as some success stories on the police side. And then wrap things up talking about just aviation and drone safety in general. But this first one here goes back to kind of what we saw toward the, you know, throughout 2024. A common theme, military testing.
Not just drone systems, but counter drone systems as well. So we've got this news. U.S. army test drones for recon in Romania. Skydio and Enduro are the chosen systems.
Why Romania?
[00:10:35] Speaker B: Why Romania? I'm assuming it's because it's very close to all the conflicts that are happening.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: Yeah, so I actually stopped when I did my deployment to Afghanistan.
Romania was one of those stopping points along the way. I think I was there for like eight hours, maybe less.
[00:11:01] Speaker B: Was it fun in Romania?
[00:11:03] Speaker A: I have no idea. I don't know. I just got off a plane and then sat in the tent and shuffled around and got back on another plane.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: For some reason when I think of Romania, I just immediately go to like a warehouse just full of just 7.62ammo. And I think war dogs did that to me. So that's the only thing I can think about when Romania comes up.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: Just.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: Nice and depressing with a bunch of ammo that's rusted.
[00:11:33] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. No, I mean it's, it, it literally is just like a grounds of moving, like logistics. Whether it's people or staging people, not product, but gosh, like supplies, food rations, equipment.
So they're Talking about the X10, the Skydio X10. Skydio valued over a billion dollars. I just feel like now after everything, everything goes back to the value. Where's the stock? What's that ticker?
Not a public company.
And the drone flies. It operates, I think from a security standpoint from, from it checks the boxes that the Department of Defense and the military would need. And then also Andurl's Ghost X, which we've talked about the Enduro system on some of the past podcasts. They've won some contracts.
[00:12:33] Speaker B: They keep coming up. This is a big company right here.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: Are they public?
[00:12:43] Speaker A: I want you to look it up. Did you get one of those fancy phones?
Fancy 1.5 billion dollar contract maybe? Yeah, we've definitely talked about their different systems because I know they're, I think they're counter.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: Uh, I think they are public.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: Wait, are they raises 1.5 million.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: I think they are public. They are trading at $30 though.
Not too bad if they're trading though.
[00:13:12] Speaker A: I mean how could they not be?
[00:13:14] Speaker B: I think you have to go through a broker. Like it's weird.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: They got a lot.
[00:13:20] Speaker B: You can go through a secondary marketplace to buy it.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: Gotcha.
The company at 14 billion values.
So there's a company that there, there's.
[00:13:33] Speaker B: A.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: Agency that's valuing Anduro at $14 billion. And so Skydio is like.
I think they were like a billion dollars.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: I definitely think Andrew, or however you say the name, sorry, losing focus here. I think that's going to be like one of the main, main like companies in the next five years. That's just going to just rule everything for a minute. Especially like in terms of like defense and just like military operations. They're number one for sure. They're too good at what they do.
[00:14:17] Speaker A: Yeah. So in reading this it's like not a publicly traded company and there is potential ways to invest pre op ipo.
[00:14:25] Speaker B: So they were just testing these, were they? They were just flying them around basically. There wasn't no goals to see if they were good at anything in particular or is it just.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: It mentioned some heavy lifts. I think the Enduro system was involved reconnaissance operations is what they were really primarily testing the systems for.
Let's see, there was another article that it connected to here why it has.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: A GPU on it.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: Romania, very different type warfare. So this was in Defense Visual Information magazine.
One is a small reconnaissance and one is the medium range. So skydio is a srr, small size and then the Enduro would be your medium sized reconnaissance. So they're testing out the two and training potentially. It looks like they've had over 132 soldiers trained to operate the Skydio drone and then get in the, in the air in less than 10 minutes.
[00:15:37] Speaker B: I wonder how many of these like these like testing like there. There's got to have been a few like off the books like and so test of drones. Right. Like there's not just they're not telling us about every time.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: I don't think they're testing here it says in more detail there's like the heading. And then my platoon directly from a staff sergeant is saying my platoon is out here conducting training for the equipment and tactics and building familiarity to increase our proficiency with all the equipment. So I don't, I don't think it's as much as testing as it is training.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: Oh, so these are like, for sure what they're going to use, right?
[00:16:18] Speaker A: Qualified aircraft operator before you're able to put the aircraft in the air. So we run initial qualification program, and They've got over 132 soldiers qualified on the Skydio.
[00:16:29] Speaker B: How many people are qualified on the other?
[00:16:32] Speaker A: It doesn't say. It's all about testing the personnel and test the structure of the platoon and the communication between the squads and how they work together.
And they're talking about the Ghost X. It's going to be disseminated down to battalion levels and also required certified training to go through training program. So it just seems like the skydio drone is a little bit more integrated at this time, and the Ghost X is going to follow the same.
And so this says first field training for new drone systems. And then the other article said something else.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: Yes. So that is really, like, misleading. So see how this one says first field training.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: It's interesting, the header and then.
[00:17:25] Speaker A: And then this article says, U.S. army test drones for recon. So this is where I got tests from.
If you go back to the. The main source, it's not testing, it's training, which makes sense. There was a lot of testing. Last year, these contracts that we talked about went out. Enduro got some of them. Skydio got some. So now they're moving into a advanced phase of integrating it in. And Romania would be a good place to.
If you already have people. It's just weird. You know, you would usually buy it and train here in the United States, and then you're, you know, you're deploying soldiers that are already proficient, but if you already have folks downrange and you're trying to get them trained up, then you could potentially just pull them to Romania.
[00:18:13] Speaker B: Romania. I will say I know just a little bit about Romania. It seems like a sick place. I'm not gonna lie to you. One of my favorite YouTubers, when I was like, 14, lived there.
[00:18:23] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
Well, from military to a more civil, commercial approach here you heard a pivotal.
[00:18:39] Speaker B: Terry, I have not heard of this company.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: Look at this thing, the Helix. I can't remember. I feel like I've seen it. I don't remember if we. I don't think we've talked about this. Maybe something similar.
[00:18:55] Speaker B: Oh, they had to make sure they had the Rivian in the shot right there pulling it, dude, Rivian.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: But here's another one. Yeah, Rivian. I don't know. I'm tempted. You know, Rivian's like 28 bucks. You know, super Low compared to like.
[00:19:09] Speaker B: Actual videos of it flying or is this like render.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: Yes, this is videos of this thing operating.
No Runway required.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: Dude, it looks. It looks cool. Don't get me wrong. It looks like I would wreck it immediately.
Like, what. What do you need?
[00:19:28] Speaker A: Like, but that's like an auto takeoff. Like, I guarantee you, like, you push a button and then it auto takes off and gets you into, you know, your.
Your needed setup.
[00:19:45] Speaker B: Like, what's. What. What certificates and license are you gonna need to fly this bad boy?
[00:19:51] Speaker A: I don't know. I haven't. I haven't been able to dive that far into it. I think it'd be considered like a ultralight or a sport.
Sport type pilot thing. So not. Not a whole lot.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: This is like trying to replace cars, right? So like, you just imagine like having to go out to the parking lot and just like, let me check my props before you leave. Nobody checks their tires before they leave.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You're like, let me go. Let me go to the backyard. But it, like they say replace a car, but when you look at it, it's like you need a car to tow this trailer. So they're selling it with a trailer. And I mean, unless you have a house sitting on a ton of land, you would actually need like a boat. You know, you could own a boat, but if you don't, if you don't live on a lake, how are you gonna get the boat to the lake unless you leave it at the lake?
[00:20:53] Speaker B: Oh, I don't know if they're saying that this is replacing a car, but I'm assuming that's their. Their intention eventually.
Unless it's just like a hobby thing, which this would be a cool hobby to have. I mean, could you imagine zooming around in this? Boy?
[00:21:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Then you look at the price and it's just like, insane.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: Where's the price? I haven't seen the price reserve or.
[00:21:20] Speaker A: You want to see the price? Here's your handle. So if you need to deploy the parachute, you got your two. Two controls right here, your screen.
[00:21:27] Speaker B: There's two control sticks.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: Yeah. I wonder what scares me.
[00:21:35] Speaker B: I'm not nearly coordinated enough to do.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: You got your pre flight. It's all in the app. So you just use your app to go through and do your pre flight.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: Reserve your helix.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: Now you want me to press that, don't you?
Did you click it yourself?
Yeah. Package one, the basic package. So it's operated under part 103. So it's an ultralight.
[00:22:02] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: Operating under part 100. $390,000 reserve yours today.
Nine grand.
[00:22:13] Speaker B: What's the differences between the packages?
[00:22:15] Speaker A: The package one comes with a standard charger. Package two comes with a level two charger, so you're going to get charged up much quicker. Also, package two has a little bit different, like trim paint on the outside so it physically looks different. And then package two comes with the trailer.
[00:22:36] Speaker B: Okay.
You could also spend 20 grand to put a cat on the side of it more.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: Right. If you spend 20 grand, you could do your own all out.
If you spend. Package two only has Ads B in and remote id. So like you can this thing with package two, you're going to get Ads BN and remote ID in so you'll see other planes and other drones. Package three is going to give you Ads B out so you'll have Ads B out. With Ads B out, that means you can operate within the mode C veil.
So your, your, your most equipped. Your ELT emergency locator.
That doesn't come in the other ones. An elt, basically, if you crash, the ELT is like automatic alert system that will send a message to like a data center that monitors it and it'll be easier to find you because your crash aircraft will be emitting a signal.
And then you got a couple different color schemes here.
Yeah, I don't know.
[00:23:53] Speaker B: It's just a hobbyist thing. Now the more I'm looking at it like, oh, I wasn't even sure, dude. People buy their little planes to fly. Why not this, you know, this is cool. This is a. I would definitely want the.
As opposed to playing. Obviously you would want the, the spot checking and the. What, what am I, what's the word I'm looking for the quality control. I would want them to look at this thing 400 times.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: Well, so they are. That's the thing. You're paying this $260,000 because it's being manufactured as a part 103 ultralight aircraft. So it's having to meet all these specs. It's not just some folks in their garage slapping this thing together.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: Well, you don't know that.
[00:24:38] Speaker A: We do know that. We do know that.
If we go back basically to the bottom here.
[00:24:51] Speaker B: Where's their factory at, man, about this?
[00:25:01] Speaker A: That's insane, dude. Right there.
How about pivotal? Are they private?
[00:25:12] Speaker B: Let's see. I'll look it up for us.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: Muse, Ken Car. Carlin.
Create a team here. I don't know, it doesn't really say.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: Let'S see. Pivotal.
[00:25:42] Speaker A: Oh, contact us. I'm over here. Oh, no.
[00:25:47] Speaker B: Dude, they could be in a small warehouse somewhere. You don't know.
Amazon started in a garage though, to be fair.
[00:25:56] Speaker A: Here you can get all their address and stuff in legal.
Anyhow, just something neat little ev. Tall personal crap.
[00:26:07] Speaker B: I like it. There's going to be some crazy stunts people are doing with those eventually. Like we got the stunt planes. Where's the stunt EV Tolls.
[00:26:16] Speaker A: Well, just like the helicopters. But I think it's, I think, I think it's just like the, the NASCAR has been toting around even more. They had, they, I forgot to mention it like last month NASCAR had their electric car here in carry like a month ago. But I didn't find out till the day of. I was like, I'm not riding all the way out there but I think electric aircraft and then let the pilot's air taxis or let these, let these, you know, Jetsons aircraft just kind of be safe and, and eventually people are going to start to like boost them as long as you have excess thrust. But then you need to build the structural integrity into it. People will be doing the same kind of aerobatic, you know, electric maneuvering and.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: Piloting ten years before the evtol evil Knievel comes out.
[00:27:04] Speaker A: Well, and then if you look on like YouTube and stuff, it seems like it's kind of happening a little bit. Like those really weird ones.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Where the people have the basketball and they're, they're bouncing the basketball flying on the drone.
[00:27:16] Speaker A: Well, yeah, and they're like, and they're like they're actually in their garage making a like a car size flying thing. Like I am not getting in that.
So xcraft.
I noticed in the opener here, Terry, it seemed like you wanted to dive right into Xcraft and maybe specifically their prices or whatnot. But I'm just, you know, I'm certainly intrigued by it. Looks like they might even have a docking drone here. I just kind of saw this as an advertisement.
[00:27:52] Speaker B: And was this an advertisement on drone life?
[00:27:56] Speaker A: On drone life, yeah.
[00:27:58] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:27:59] Speaker A: It was this drone. The Matrix 3 advanced commercial drone. Regularly 5,000 on sale for three grand. And I'm like, oh that's, that's interesting.
[00:28:11] Speaker B: I was looking at the black ops. The black ops.
It seems really innovative. Honestly, look how small it is. It says it has like a.
Where is it at?
Could have swore it said it had like a hook on it.
Oh, here we go.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: Yeah, it says it carries a 20 gram payload with the Skyhook.
[00:28:39] Speaker B: What is skyhook? Or is that like the like undercarriage part? You don't like Actually hook something into.
[00:28:45] Speaker A: It, it might show on this video.
[00:28:50] Speaker B: And I, I could not help to think that this looked like somebody released a YouTube video not too long ago. And the it said like the video's name is i3D printed a tiny quadcopter and for some reason it just, just hit my mind because I think that is 3D printed.
[00:29:09] Speaker A: Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah, a hundred percent. It didn't show the camera thermal imaging though.
[00:29:16] Speaker B: I mean for four grand though, you get a cool backpack, you get the goggles, you get the controller. It's really not too bad. You can even buy a solar charger.
[00:29:28] Speaker A: Yeah. And that they're even going out and do and like selling these because the biggest thing is like you said you could 3D print them and you could make it but then it's fidgety and you have to know how to use it. So that's this nano with the thermal. That's incredible because there hasn't really been a nanothermal drone except they are starting to come out. The problem is it's Autel came out with a small compact thermal drone. DJI is getting ready to release a compact thermal drone here. But how are they going to get it in the United States?
They can't get stuff into the US and it's part of what we're talking about a little bit. The second Here is the CCP, the NDAA 25. It doesn't have the ban, but now the Department of Commerce is coming out and basically saying oh, we shouldn't be operating these drones. And it's just a con. It's just constant. It's constant, constant. There's good products at the twenty thousand dollar price point that our American made twenty five grand but there's nothing comparable at five thousand. So like what this company's doing is it's pretty interesting and I'm just seeing now that they're as seen on Shark Tank. So I'm like, well I haven't seen anything about this company. X craft.
[00:30:41] Speaker B: Go down to the like little infographic thing. They got the remote so funny.
[00:30:46] Speaker A: The remote looks good, like it looks decent. But the aircraft itself, it looks like Skydio and it is 3D printed. But Terry, there is like good ways to 3D print. What am I looking at?
[00:30:56] Speaker B: Go to the black Ops, the page and then go down.
Yeah, that one. Then go down. There's like a little like check mark. Oh yeah, this stuff is so funny. No Chinese spyware.
[00:31:11] Speaker A: Yeah, American made. No Chinese spyware.
FPV goggles included. Like I don't want FPV goggles.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: The blackout mode is cool. I have to say.
[00:31:23] Speaker A: The, the Mavic, you can turn the lights off on them. I don't know what that means. Blackout mode.
[00:31:29] Speaker B: You know what this is selling to, right? This is selling that. This is for like, it's, it's like ultra privacy button drone form. Like there's companies that would sell like these phones that were more or less meant for drug dealers, but they, they just, they were encrypted and it, they were like four grand.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: Well, it's NDA. They're claiming it's on the website that it's NDAA compliant. So if it's NDAA compliant, then certain funds can be spent on it. But then it's like, like, oh, works in a grid down.
Hits the fan situation. You know, check, not the mat. Like, why wouldn't the Mavic work in a grid down SHTF situation?
It would. And then, and then no software updates before flight. You don't have to do software updates on a DJI Mavic thermal before you fly it. It could carry 20 grams.
So some of this product. Well, I'm not saying I don't like the product. It's just that graph is terrible. And then so they're doing that and then they've got the, this outdoor one. But it's three grand for a drone that looks like a skydio and you can really good to go back. You can 3D print things. Well, you just have to use the right materials in a good printer. And it seems like maybe they are.
[00:32:53] Speaker B: Wait, hold on.
[00:32:55] Speaker A: But you have to charge that much to have support. If you're only going to pay a thousand dollars for a drone, how are you going to build a company? How do you expect people to go to that one? Oh, and then this is hilarious. They're like, oh, this is a light drone that you hang.
[00:33:11] Speaker B: That's cool though, you have to admit.
[00:33:13] Speaker A: I mean the idea is neat.
[00:33:20] Speaker B: You could like, you could incorporate these into drone light shows. Come on now.
[00:33:27] Speaker A: Well, drone light shows are taking a huge hit and we're gonna talk about that too here. Well, it's not even that too early because it's not even the, it's the, the attendees that's. That are taking a hit.
Which is awful because I think back to when I was like, oh yeah, in the, in the video I recorded, I was like, oh, there goes another one, there goes another one. Like there was three drones that went down. But yeah, Xcraft a few different products here. And then this maverick.
[00:33:54] Speaker B: How much is this one.
[00:33:56] Speaker A: This is three grand. It's just your FPV drone for indoors with no thermal.
[00:34:03] Speaker B: It seems like they just, they love the three grand mark.
[00:34:07] Speaker A: Well, everything's on sale too.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: That's the MO of this type of website.
[00:34:15] Speaker A: What's the che. The thing is, is what's the cheapest you can make something for and not lose money and still make like, you know, again that's the sweet spot. If you have a $3,000 product and you can make it for $1,000 and you can sell a $200,000 like it's all. And it says they're on Shark Tank.
[00:34:39] Speaker B: I'm sure this is going to be a successful company. I think eventually they're not going to be three grand though. I mean this is definitely just like a startup. It's probably just a team of a few dudes just having fun making stuff. Can you lay down Willow? I like petting you and all, but I need you to lay down X Craft.
[00:34:58] Speaker A: Panaging. See but what is this? See they put something totally different on if you type in xcra. Shark Tank, America's drone company as seen on Shark Tank. So now here's Xcraft T Mobile for business registered partner. And now here's this box. Discover Panidrone.
And so this drone, the Matrix rtk it looks like here's a nano one shadow.
[00:35:36] Speaker B: It's like a whole different website.
[00:35:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:39] Speaker B: And then here website more.
[00:35:40] Speaker A: Here's like their initial legacy, why they called it xcraft. The things like the shape of an X.
So weird.
[00:35:49] Speaker B: So interesting design for the. What is that?
[00:35:55] Speaker A: What?
[00:35:57] Speaker B: Oh, it's like the way it docks on the Panadrone. There's like a, it has like carbon fiber like rods sticking up like this. Like it's a grappling hook.
[00:36:11] Speaker A: Oh, there you go. The cyber truck.
[00:36:14] Speaker B: There we go. Is there a Pepe mask anywhere?
[00:36:16] Speaker A: Another cyber truck. Is it deep? Is it wrapped?
[00:36:20] Speaker B: Is it wrapped?
This is weird because this, this is, this is the same. Why are we not seeing this website? This website's so much cooler. Just incorporate a buy button on this website.
Oh. And then it takes you to this. So what this is is this is like a pre made shop that they just kind of like you click buy now on this website and it takes you to like a godaddy like website.
Oh no. I think the nano black ops is sick. And honestly for four grand we could justify it. We could justify it.
[00:36:57] Speaker A: Yeah. More to come. We'll keep an eye on Xcraft. I mean they're, they're Advertising. They're trying to get the product out there. Shark tank. We'll do a deeper dive, try to see what more to come.
And now Chinese underwater. Now we're going to dive into China here for. For a few minutes.
Super interesting. Did you see this news about the underwater. A suspected Chinese underwater spy drone that was.
[00:37:25] Speaker B: I did not. I've been incognito over the last few days.
So it's a water drone.
[00:37:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
And there's no.
[00:37:42] Speaker B: I've been seeing a ton of stuff about China and drones recently. Like, didn't they just like kind of show off a, like a long range, like drone deterrent system that like, just scans the airspace and flies around?
[00:38:04] Speaker A: That's.
[00:38:05] Speaker B: It's like a radar system.
[00:38:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And it seems like there's a lot more going on here where it seems like a Philippine ship was rammed by the Chinese coast guard. Looks like the South China Sea is just typical South China Sea.
[00:38:21] Speaker B: Is there an island right there that they built?
[00:38:27] Speaker A: And China's just gotten to drones.
[00:38:32] Speaker B: So China's all over the place. You got to respect the hustle from China.
[00:38:38] Speaker A: The water drones respect the hustle. Yeah. And the drones are great.
So now we've got. They've hustled so hard and captured so much of this damn drone market. They're now seen as a threat.
And so we just see the Commerce Department issues a notice, proposed rulemaking to limit use of Chinese made drones and components. So the government's basically saying, like, and we need information. They're putting out a notice that says we want to create a new rule. And it's the same stuff that's happened in the FAA, right. They put out these NPRMs for drone delivery for beyond visual line of sight. And they ask how. How can we do this? We need your input. We need your insight. And so now they're asking industry and, and the people, how should we be structuring this proposed rule in order to mitigate the risk that. To national security of using Chinese made drones and then also mitigate the risk of the supply chain?
[00:39:53] Speaker B: I'm gonna be honest with you. Didn't hear a single word you said for about 10 seconds. You just completely froze on my end.
[00:39:58] Speaker A: Completely froze. Well, the good news is it's saved locally, so we'll hear it all.
[00:40:03] Speaker B: But it's okay.
Schizophrenic.
[00:40:07] Speaker A: Yeah. To summarize it, basically, they're going to make a rule and they want industry and individuals and the people of the country to. To chime in and, and help.
Help figure out what the Rule should look like in order to bolster the US American UAS supply chain and enhance security.
[00:40:33] Speaker B: Do we not have a photo of this drone?
[00:40:36] Speaker A: They found that?
I don't know. I tried to find one and didn't see it. You know, over there in the Philippines.
[00:40:45] Speaker B: You tell me that Philippine captain didn't have anything on him.
He didn't have a phone on him. Oh, I think I found it.
Oh, I found it. Here we go.
I'm gonna send it into the chat so you can pull it up.
It's just. It's just a yellow rocket looking thing.
That's an interesting drone.
What is that? Capturing.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: There is the suspicious drone.
[00:41:16] Speaker B: It does look very suspicious. But I feel like if we're going for stealth, why are we making it yellow? China, come on now. Use your thinking caps.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I love like my favorite part of this photo is they set it on two tires and three.
[00:41:33] Speaker B: Is that three back there? Yeah.
[00:41:35] Speaker A: You sure?
[00:41:36] Speaker B: It's a big boy.
[00:41:38] Speaker A: How can you say three for sure?
[00:41:41] Speaker B: So there's one to the right right there, right in front of us. There's one right behind his left and right leg. And then there's another one directly to the left of his leg.
[00:41:50] Speaker A: I don't know. That could be one tire, one very long tank tire, and then all this trash over here.
[00:41:59] Speaker B: So I guess this is on the fisherman's boat. Don't slander the fisherman like that.
[00:42:03] Speaker A: Ah, yeah, that makes sense. That, that does make sense. It does look like they're sitting on the fisherman's boat, let's say. I hope that's not like the Philippine police headquarters. They clean the floor.
HY119 is about 6ft long.
Not even capturing stuff. I mean, it looks like it does have sensors, but I'm like, they're just messing with people. They're just picking up location data.
[00:42:35] Speaker B: They're just sending them around, seeing what they can find.
[00:42:40] Speaker A: Courtesy of Chinese Academy of Sciences. So now you sync this back to go. Yep. China had posted some photos previously of a little fleet of these. And now all of a sudden I.
[00:42:53] Speaker B: Wonder what data it's capturing though. That's so weird.
Why did they find it?
[00:43:05] Speaker A: Yeah, who knows? Students, man. You know, there's students, there's Chinese students.
[00:43:12] Speaker B: Oh, it tracks submarines.
It helps find submarines.
Well, you really have to go through 14 links to figure this out.
[00:43:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And so amongst that news where they're out probing you with underwater submarines, underwater, you know, drone vessels.
You've got this rulemaking that's hoping to reshape the US Industry. And, you know, prohibit and reduce the the use and manufacturing with components anything from China, Russia or other adversaries. And this is going to increase security and complete a whole mar a shift in the market. So I'm like, holy cow, man. Terry, UMAC could be the right way to go.
RC could be the way to go. When they you look at this proposed rulemaking and who's to benefit most companies like Anduro, Skydio, man.
[00:44:22] Speaker B: Yeah, find me a good battery company to put a few grand into.
[00:44:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Did you go back and look at that company?
[00:44:28] Speaker B: I did not need to go back. We do need to go back and find out what they're doing.
[00:44:34] Speaker A: And so enough, enough on China here.
What we're looking at now is the New Mexico Police Department use a drone to nab a suspect who is a car thief within minutes after putting that drone up. So here's another one, Terry, that popped up. I'm like, oh, police won. I was like, this is weird. This article just came out.
Yeah, this is until the New Mexico police, they got a video here. I'll let this roll. Oh, Santa Fe police truck was stolen. Officers tried to do a traffic stop.
[00:45:38] Speaker B: Did he just pull into that spot? The truck? It looked like he just pulled in.
[00:45:43] Speaker A: They were trying to do a traffic stop. So yes, he pulls in and jumped out of the truck.
[00:45:52] Speaker B: Final units, 103 1.
[00:45:54] Speaker A: 1031 for the stolen vehicle.
[00:45:56] Speaker B: What? He stole the worst truck possible, bro.
[00:46:01] Speaker A: He's gone.
Leaving high rate of speed. Probably heading back onto gone. CommunicALL 3.
Show me your hands. Show me your hands.
Show where you are.
Come here.
Oh, Dodgers fan. Of course, of course. Dodgers fan.
[00:46:26] Speaker B: Oh, speaking of la, you know how there's just a ton of car chases?
Wouldn't this help of what, like we get. There's a ton of car chases in la, like daily, more or less. And they were just following them with helicopters. What if we get like a long range, you know, high flight time drone and we just kind of track them with that? Just kind of set it to where it just tracks that car, you know.
[00:46:52] Speaker A: Oh, folks are starting to do that. I keep saying, on the highways for Amber. Amber Alerts, dude. You know, like when an Amber alert goes out, they know the car and the license plate, they know the color. So imagine having drones that could just pop up and just immediately start scanning.
[00:47:07] Speaker B: They need to do that in LA when somebody steals a car, because, I.
[00:47:11] Speaker A: Mean, well, they have. So it's such dense populated. I think that they have like other cameras and they don't do a very.
[00:47:22] Speaker B: Good job of chasing these people, though.
[00:47:25] Speaker A: I don't have. Yeah, I don't have the stats on that.
[00:47:29] Speaker B: They just kind of suck at it. I'm not gonna lie to you. You might as well just not chase the dude.
[00:47:34] Speaker A: And, and so how cool this is. Like this just came out within.
They show the, they did a good job.
[00:47:41] Speaker B: The drone footage here resigned pretty quick too.
[00:47:45] Speaker A: Yeah, you can see in the drone footage, right, They've got the.
[00:47:50] Speaker B: Do you think the video, if it was in the summertime and the leaves were on the trees?
[00:47:56] Speaker A: Oh, for sure, man.
People would have been out dogs. Things would have been moving and scattering. Look at that.
[00:48:04] Speaker B: The most calm, like arrest. Like the dude's not even looking at him there for a second.
[00:48:10] Speaker A: Great job. By the.
[00:48:12] Speaker B: Good job. Was that Santa Fe Police Department?
[00:48:14] Speaker A: Santa Fe pd. Yeah, Santa Fe Police Department. Let's see. Drone was located within 15 minutes and doesn't have any officers names here, but huge shout out that just, just happened very recently.
[00:48:27] Speaker B: Probably took him three minutes to pull it out too. So it's really like 12 minutes is how long it took him to catch them.
[00:48:33] Speaker A: Yeah, that's, that's, that's probably a good point there.
Just wonder what drone they were using. I bet you it was Chinese.
[00:48:45] Speaker B: Andrew. They're just gonna bomb.
[00:48:47] Speaker A: Yeah, it was their medium range reconnaissance vehicle.
Last couple articles here we've got thermal imaging drones could help water company spot leakages from miles away. So another article that just came out this day of recording Severin Trent anticipates this technology will be very beneficial in achieving its target of reducing leakage by 15 by the end of this year, 2025. So they're going to use a thermal drones in docks. Thermal drones in docks conveniently located in order to deploy these four leakage.
[00:49:29] Speaker B: Hmm.
[00:49:33] Speaker A: The company uses the thermal imaging drone to detect drops in temperature on land below to spot leaking pipes.
So they've been using this technology for years. And so if there's a leak in the pipe, the temperature of the ground under that pipe is going to be cooler than it should be. And that's. So it's. They're not, they're not even looking at the pipe. They're not analyzing. They're looking at the ground temperature underneath the pipe itself.
[00:50:02] Speaker B: That's a dji, I think, right?
[00:50:06] Speaker A: Oh yeah, in that photo there, that's DJI in the box.
[00:50:08] Speaker B: That's the one they're using.
[00:50:09] Speaker A: Matrice 30T with a dock one amazing aircraft.
[00:50:16] Speaker B: So it's just a water company company implementing this. And the water Doing it for years.
[00:50:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Water company, they've been doing it manually, though. Going out manually, taking the drone out, flying the lines.
[00:50:27] Speaker B: Taking the pilots jobs, man.
[00:50:30] Speaker A: No, because they're remotely operated, so now the pilots don't have to lug all the crap out there and they can do these inspections more regularly. What if they do an inspection and they do it once a month, but the day after you do the inspection, the pipe fails, you're not going to detect that leak for another 20, 30 days.
But if you can fly every week, you're going to detect faults. You're just. You're gonna catch things quicker. So you don't eliminate the pilot, you just make it way easier for the pilot to do the job more efficiently.
It's interesting because someone's gonna have to be on the other side of the box. Right.
[00:51:11] Speaker B: I wonder how much money this is gonna save them a year. Because, I mean, like, a small leak can cost a house, like $200 a year.
So.
[00:51:29] Speaker A: Let'S see. I don't really see in the article. Didn't really mention.
[00:51:33] Speaker B: I bet they don't have, like, a clear statistic on that.
Surely it's saving them a ton of money, though. Much more money than what the drone's worth.
[00:51:43] Speaker A: Well, you think of the cost that it takes, the time it takes someone to go out there and drive, and then the gas cost trying to find it.
Yeah. Tens of thousands of dollars is going to be saved.
[00:51:56] Speaker B: Good. On. What is the company's name? Servant? Trent.
[00:52:00] Speaker A: Severn.
[00:52:01] Speaker B: Trent is a sewage company.
[00:52:03] Speaker A: And so now, just to wrap things up here in a timely fashion, we had another incident and it wasn't as severe and I didn't quite catch it, but another drone falls during a New Year's display. Did you see this, Terry?
[00:52:22] Speaker B: I did not.
I've seen these.
[00:52:26] Speaker A: What did you want to be when you were a kid? Oh, no, get rid of that.
[00:52:31] Speaker B: I seen the bad one that happened not too long ago.
[00:52:36] Speaker A: That's so loud.
[00:52:39] Speaker B: So is it just like one drone falls and they're like, we cut it. Cut it.
They're just scared after what happened to the other one.
[00:52:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And I don't know how long this video is, so. Did we not discuss it on the show?
[00:52:55] Speaker B: The.
The former one? I don't think so.
[00:52:59] Speaker A: The first one.
[00:53:00] Speaker B: No.
[00:53:01] Speaker A: All those lights just went out.
[00:53:05] Speaker B: Oh, that. They started a.
[00:53:07] Speaker A: It was just like a mass failure.
[00:53:12] Speaker B: Foreign. Let's see what's happening. What's China doing to the drone light show industry? They're hacking them.
[00:53:18] Speaker A: We know so far.
[00:53:21] Speaker C: Hey, Justin. Well as of right now, we know one person was hit by one of those fallen drones and sustained a non life threatening injury. They were treated at the scene by EMS and released. We do know now that the show was canceled. It won't be happening or relaunching tonight. But as you can see behind me they are still setting up the stage for the flip flop drop at midnight.
Earlier tonight, thousands of people were excited to see 200 from the sky.
[00:53:48] Speaker A: There was a dolphin that came up and looked like it was jumping, but it looked like a gust of wind hit it and just kind of. It dispersed into a bunch of different pieces.
[00:54:02] Speaker C: This lasted for about 30 seconds once drones started a quote controlled descent to their landing zone. This was Folly's first ever drone light show, replacing the annual fireworks show on the pier. Event coordinators said the drones were meant to be more eco friendly, but they say it was also more costly.
[00:54:19] Speaker A: I understand the environmental.
[00:54:23] Speaker B: Where was the previous accident? Where, where was that located at? Like, like the, the sky elements 1.
[00:54:31] Speaker A: Where was that at Florida.
[00:54:33] Speaker B: Was it on a beach?
Maybe we shouldn't do them on beaches anymore if that's the case.
All that wind coming.
[00:54:54] Speaker A: Florida. Yep. So Florida and then South Carolina.
So that boy, boy in Florida was released from the hospital and sky elements had stopped. The didn't do any more shows as far as I understand. And then so for this to happen, it's just one of those things when there was only a couple shows happening and a few locations, there wasn't a lot of incidents. And then the more cars, you know, like when there's a few cars, not a lot of accidents, you add more cars to the road, you increase the likelihood. So it's trying to balance. The FAA's job is understanding when they give these waivers what's the right amount of space and separation, what's the right amount of risk? The more shows that are taking place. Every time a show happens there's. It increases the likelihood or the likelihood stays the same, but the chance of it happening is, is just more likely to happen. More cars, more of anything. So what's also interesting is at the same time that we're seeing like an increase in, we've seen this on the drone side, we're seeing aircraft accidents. There was a small plane just this morning I believe that flew into, tried to do an emergency landing and this small plane flew right into a factory that had like over 100 workers in it. And then also there was overseas, there was that international flight that just had the, that crash. I think it killed like Everyone on board except two people survived. And it was a Boeing aircraft that was being operated internationally.
[00:56:30] Speaker B: So South Korea.
[00:56:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It's really interesting when these things happen that, that how they get addressed.
Understanding there are certain risks associated with life and transportation, aviation, different. Different work and jobs. And so from a public standpoint, I. I don't know. I took. I took my family front row and had my kids sitting front row at a drone light show on December 21st. Now, there was a net that's. It's really interesting to kind of see this because it was at a baseball stadium. So the drones were set up on the outfield and everybody was sitting in the seat. So it's like. It's like you're watching a baseball game. How close is too close? But if you were sitting front row at, at the. In this stand, you had this giant net guarding you. So there was no drone was going to just fly right into our. Our kids or our faces. Could something have fallen on top of us? Potentially. But yeah, it's. It's this New year. It's very interesting with the, the stuff that's. That's happened in Louisiana. It's just, again, I think it's. I think 2030 might be where we're. We need to get to, because the 2020s are just really trying to drag us down.
[00:57:47] Speaker B: Well, I know it seems like this is, like, very bad in terms of the drone light shows, like, all these problems happening, but it's. You got to think they are safer than fireworks, right? Like, they've got to be. Who knows how many people got hurt by fireworks over the New Year's?
[00:58:03] Speaker A: Like, I mean, and so that's what I wanted to immediately my thought. And I didn't have the time to kind of look into it, but as I was in my bathroom, like, brushing my teeth, I'm like, you know what? How many? Not that this justifies what happened. And I think the reason I didn't look it up is because I'm not operating a light show company, so I don't need to answer some of these questions. But just from a thought standpoint, I was like, you know what? I do wonder how many folks have been injured or died due to some sort of firework malfunction. And. And then that guy went and blew himself up in the Tesla cybertruck with a ton of fireworks.
[00:58:42] Speaker B: Interesting year so far. We're three days in, man.
[00:58:45] Speaker A: That's what I'm saying, man. It's not a year. It's this whole decade. This whole decade. So when everyone thought like, oh, 2021 is going to be so much better than 2020, it was like, no, it's not. And then it was like, oh, we're gonna get right. And then 2024, we're gonna get to 2025. And it's like, nah, not on my list right now. We need to get to 2030. I'm telling you, it's 2030. I'm in it for the long haul. And I say that because I can't wait to see where bitcoin is at in 2030. January 1, 2030, will I be a millionaire? Stay tuned.
[00:59:22] Speaker B: More than one share of Bitcoin, there's no way it's going past like a million dollars.
[00:59:27] Speaker A: Stay tuned. Well, another great episode, Terry. Appreciate your time.
[00:59:31] Speaker B: Appreciate you. Glad to be here. Can't wait to get back on track with the podcast.
[00:59:35] Speaker A: Yeah, appreciate our audience for tuning in. Hopefully you found some insight and information in this week's episode. We talked a little bit about the US army doing some training, not testing on the Skydio and Enduro systems in Romania. Getting those integrated into the front lines. We looked at a pretty interesting aircraft. Evtol take off from your front yard backyard, drag it, tow it to wherever you want. The pivotal EVTOL aircraft. Just a small $200,000 to get you started. An X craft. A US manufacturer with a significantly priced out aircraft. It looks kind of like a consumer prosumer aircraft, but it's certainly priced at more of that. I guess it's not even like American comparatively to other American products. It's pretty cheap. So we'll follow them and see where this thing goes again. The China bad theme just carried right into 2025 and we'll see what the Department of Commerce is doing here with this proposed rulemaking. And hey, you know the, this whole umac unusual machines, Terry. They jump, they're back down again. What's the low? You're gonna have to.
[01:00:49] Speaker B: I sold. Did you know I made $3 total? So there you.
[01:00:55] Speaker A: There you go. It's dipped. Time to buy. Maybe it's. Yeah, because a lot of stuff's going to happen. Unfortunately it looks like the, the house can't get their, their stuff together. We don't know who the speaker is yet. This is live happening but once things get sorted, we're really going to see some, some move forward where we need to be. When things move forward, it's probably going to be with the US Drone manufacturers. Another shout out to the Santa Fe Police Department UAS to catch a suspect Good job. Way to go. And from a case study standpoint, water leakages, you seeing the integration of automation and docs into their well defined processes is really exciting. So we'll see. Hopefully more companies integrate that from the water side and maybe your water bills will go down if they start doing their job. As always, fly safe. Because you know, whether you're flying airplanes inside, whether you're flying drones from the ground, safety is always the number one most important thing to keep in mind and factor into your operations, understanding environmental conditions, your health and your aircraft. Super important. Again, thank you everyone for tuning into episode one of season two of Drone Life.com of Drone Life of Weekly Wings, the DroneLife.com podcast. We will see everybody on the next episode. Fly safe.
[01:02:14] Speaker B: Fly safe.
