Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back everybody to this week's episode of Weekly wings, a drone life.com podcast.
As always, I am Paul Rossi. Joining me is Terry Neff. We have an exciting episode this week. We're going to dive into some more autonomous helicopters in the agriculture space. Going to be look at some really neat advanced technology, neuromorphic cameras and cyborg beetles. We'll also be looking at some drone light show technology as well as diving into a little bit of the defense side of drones. Looking at a recent announcement by the army in regards to their short range reconnaissance acquisitions.
And then we'll be ending the episode on more of the regulatory side looking at some advanced air mobility technology and announcements that are really exciting because the future of pilotless air taxis is certainly upon us.
Before we jump into things, I was curious, Terry, what is your favorite drink?
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Favorite drink?
So currently, you know, I just recently started drinking these a lot. Not great for you, don't recommend it, but these are very good. So this is currently my favorite drink.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: What is this?
[00:01:38] Speaker B: What is a white monster? Yeah, sorry, not everybody's watching my bed, you know. It's a white monster. This is the large one. Probably wouldn't recommend drinking the large one three times a day like I do, but white monster.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: Growing up, I can remember drinking those OG monsters before. There was like a thousand variations. There was just the green label, the OG Monster, like a 16 ounce can that was like crack when I was middle school, high school, nonstop. Now though, I take what's my favorite drink? Yeah, I kind of thought about this one a little bit. I was like, I don't know. And then I realized it's not something I drink all the time, but hot chocolate.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: Hot chocolate I could get. I don't drink hot chocolate often, but that is a top five experience when you do it, especially if it's cold outside.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: And like the thing is that you can have like bad hot chocolate, you can't mess up the white Red Bull. Right? Like if you go, you buy it from the store, you get white Red Bulls, Red bull, you know, Dr. Pepper Soda from a fountain. It could be good or bad hot chocolate. Same thing. Like you could, you could have some pretty bad hot chocolate. But cold weather up north this past week. So I ended up having, it was weird. Hadn't had hot chocolate in quite a while and had two cups of hot chocolate in one day.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: Yeah, you either drink no hot chocolate at all or multiple cups at a time. That's how it is. It's one of those items.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Hot hot chocolate, crack. Yeah, you're Right. It's like, it's like can't just have one cup. Well, kind of jump into these topics here. I've got the links a little bit mixed up, but we're starting things off here.
Lots is happening in the drone space right now, just across all sectors.
And one of the things we touched on during last week's episode was the.
Was it the Firehawk? Right to the autonomous Blackhawk with the rain automation technology built into it. So article came out in Drone Life this past week where Rotor Technologies and AG Nav announced partnership to automate aerial applications with Spray Hawk helicopter.
And I was like, it just, I was like, spray Hawk, Hawk, Black Hawk. Didn't we just talk about this? And I was like, no, that was the Fire Hawk. And so this is a company, ROTOR Technologies has taken helicopters and automated them. So the Robinson helicopter line, it's a, you know, lower cost helicopter system.
You can see here, this is one of the companies automated.
Looking at this here, I don't think that's AI generated, but it kind of looks like it is. We'll jump to the website. But what it is is the company is working.
What is it? Rotor Technologies is working with AG Nav in order to use their navigation software to produce a, a more accurate autonomous helicopter system.
And so this is not. I'm jumping over to the website now for, I keep for Rotor Technologies.
And this is the 2025 R550 Spray Hawk MSRP $1.5 million.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: This is, this is the first website though, to be fair, to just give us a price. And I respect that. Like nothing we've ever looked at has. It says contact us. It's never. This is how much it costs. And you can buy one right now if you really want to.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: And introductory pricing starts at 990,000 until December 15th.
[00:06:04] Speaker B: That is a render. It says it right there.
Not. I like this step forward.
I like using technology that we already have in integrating newer technology to make it even more efficient. And this is a great step because, I mean, you think about it, the drone, you can build a big drone like that, but why not? We already have something that is already made that you can just kind of integrate some technology into and it does the same exact thing on a bigger scale.
[00:06:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. And this is kind of exactly the point you make. It's a. It can carry 110 gallons.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: It's a lot bigger.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: So.
And it's automated. You can pull it on a vehicle just like you could pull a drone. And so when you look at it, they're adding obstacle detection. So what, what makes drones autonomous?
You know, what gives them that autonomy is that ability to detect what's around them. So having a radar, altimeter, lidar sensors, cameras for wire strike, obstacle avoidance, like you said, it's taking that technology, that helicopter, that aviation hardware that already exists, it's already proven, and integrating new technologies into it.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: And I'm sure you can still fly the helicopter. That would be kind of stupid if you couldn't.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: Well, that's what I was wondering because they're showing, you know, they come down here and show cost and performance across their helicopter. You know, the standard helicopter layout, two DJI drones and then your, your dusty crop hopper, your air tractor. So your operating cost, your capacity, what's the productivity? And then how much does it cost to operate? So as I was looking at this, I was, I was kind of wondering, if you're spending $1.5 million on this helicopter and you can get the standard helicopter for half the price, are you still able to fly in it? You know, say you don't want to spray, you're not carrying 110 gallons of liquid. But this is really, really intriguing.
And then from my. I'm just curious, like, what, what is the pilot going to be required to have in order to operate?
[00:08:39] Speaker B: Well, is it. It's autonomous? I don't. It'll be like, like you set the route kind of. I mean, it's only. It's just gonna be zigzagging most likely if it's spring crops.
[00:08:49] Speaker A: So for efficiency. Efficiency, right. You know, it's not gonna zigzag. You're gonna have that autonomous flight planning.
I'm just curious because you're well over £55, I'm sure in the beginning, I.
[00:09:04] Speaker B: Don'T know, it's probably gonna be a process.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: You know, I'm curious, I'm cur standpoint, like how many folks are actually toting the helicopter out on a flatbed and flying it manually. Right. And then how can time consuming is that putting the software on board so that you're on board and it's flying by itself. And then at what point does it become beneficial to be like, you know what, I'm not going to get in the helicopter. And it goes back to people want to fly in the helicopter. But this is something that is really intriguing. And like you said, what was most intriguing interesting was the fact that they actually had the price out there, but they're only showing rendering. So that's pretty.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a little scary. I probably wouldn't give them $1.5 million until they give you an actual photo of it.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: You could put down your $250 deposit. It's like buying. It's like buying a car. You know how companies, like a few years ago, I don't know, a little before the Bronco, I don't know if it was a Tesla thing.
[00:10:06] Speaker B: Cybertruck.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: Well, it was before the cybertruck, because when the Ford Bronco came back out, these auto companies were like, oh, put a $200 deposit and you can pull the cybertruck. Yeah, the cybertruck was like that. But I'm saying there was cars before that too.
So it was like, hey, here's some renderings.
Here's a fancy website. And people were actually putting down deposits.
[00:10:34] Speaker B: Oh, Rivian did that. I think I invested in one of those companies. I made like 400 bucks and I got out and then they crashed.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Rivian did do that, that's for sure.
Let's see. Get the right article up here. I'm transitioning to another topic here that I thought was super interesting. We've seen over the past 10 years, you know, drone sensor technology costs come down the footprint, the size of the sensors, you know, similar to the way a laptop computer, a cell phone, an engine, lots of other technologies, you know, downsize microphones. And what I came across this week that I thought was absolutely amazing, because gps, especially with what's happened in the Ukraine, GPS jamming unreliable signals is the ability to navigate without gps, not just indoors, but anywhere.
And so I guess there's something called a neuromorphic camera.
And a neuromorphic camera, this article that came out is highlighting that it can help a drone navigate without gps.
And what these two companies have come together in order to do is to create a drone, a guidance system for a drone that doesn't use gps, but instead uses this neuromorphic camera and the drone's internal inertial navigation system. So a drone has the ability to track movement from relative to its start point. But what happens after 10, 15, 20, 30 minutes, depending on the quality of the sensor, is it starts to drift.
Like it. You know, over time, it. The. The calculations that it's making start to happen. It's hard to keep up with. Right. So when you don't have that GPS satellite positioning data, what are you supposed to use in these neuromorphic cameras operate much like the human eye.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: Well, this just reminds me of the article we talked about. It's been a few months, but is the ant like the Ant tracking, I guess, is what you could call it. Like, the researchers were kind of like mimicking what the ant does, where they kind of just like take visual cues to know where they are and then they save the data. It was for a drone. That just reminds me of this. I don't know what this camera is. From what I can tell on Google from a quick Google search, it's way more complicated than I think I'm able to process.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: It's. It is, it is insane, right? Like, it's.
I was just trying to see. The two companies here are Nilec, nq, subsidiary of a British missile maker, and then the other company is Advanced Navigation. So Nilec, I think I'm pronouncing that right.
Nile Q and Advanced Navigation have partnered in order to, you know, integrate the INS and the neuromorphic camera. And like you said, Terry, when I saw this, I'm like, all right, visual cameras, RGB sensors, mechanical shutters, you know, mapping, modeling, video, photo. And then you got thermal sensors for looking at, you know, variation in temperature, fires, you know, nighttime, not night vision, but like seeing variations in thermal, you know, heat signatures at night is helpful. And that technology became more readily available. LIDAR sensors for precision mapping, surveying, you know, elevation data.
And so now to see these neuromorphic cameras and then to start reading into it, you're like, wow, this is, this is a lot. And so just in a short amount of time, what I've kind of gathered is that this neuromorphic sensor operates much like an eyeball where it's detecting change in light.
So if a neuromorphic sensor or a neuromorphic camera is, you know, pointed at the same, if the composition of the image stays the same and nothing changes, then the neuromorphic sensor is. It's basically going to be black. There's no change in the light emitted onto that, that pixel. Now, if that neuromorphic camera, if you're moving it across, you know, you're panning it, tilting it, or if the subject, the light in that frame is changing.
Now the. Each pixel in a neuromorphic camera, it's going to tell you how much the light has changed. So if the light stays the same, it's zero and it's nothing. If it gets darker, it's going to basically say, hey, this pixel has gotten darker. And if it gets lighter, it's going to tell you it's getting lighter. So it's sensing change in light versus giving you, like, the visual. And I guess it's somehow it's a lot of the way that your eye is working, it's just adding color to it. So if you're just staring at the same image and not moving, you're pretty much at an even balance. Like the amount of light that each part of your eye is seeing stays the same. But as you move or if a light moves in your vision, then you're registering that there's more light.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: Yeah, it's complicated stuff I'm trying to understand.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: Excuse me. So in the dark, right, if you don't have GPS in a low light environment, even when it's low light, you're still going to detect that change.
And when you can feed in, I guess, satellite imagery, the satellite imagery is going to let the drone know how light or dark the scene underneath it should be.
[00:17:40] Speaker B: So. Okay.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: Pretty interesting stuff. There is a lot to unpack in that, that whole article using the INS and the neuromorphic camera, because there's a lot about uploading the local imagery to the drone and compressing it. So as it's flying, it's comparing the light that it's seeing of the surface to what it's expecting it should be. So it'll be neat to see how that integrates into the future of. But most likely, I think it might start in the defense side.
[00:18:11] Speaker B: Oh yeah, it's almost always does, unfortunately.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: And so speaking to defense, you know, what do you think of when you hear the word cyborg?
[00:18:24] Speaker B: Robot, Killer robot. That's what I think.
[00:18:27] Speaker A: So what are, what are we looking at here?
[00:18:31] Speaker B: So I just randomly came across this article earlier today and there's just this college kid over in Australia that is what I can only describe as making a beetle his own, like, personal drone. So it's like a bio drone, I would say. But he just, he hooks up this chip to it with the help of his professor, I think, and then he can control the movements of the beetle. I'm sure this has been done, but he, I think he wants to use it for like to somehow find disaster victims. So, like, if you think about it, I mean, the beetle can go anywhere you want it to. Right. So if you could hook up a camera to that and then just make it go into the rubble. I mean, it's genius. It's genius if you can get it to work. It's in the early stages right now, but.
[00:19:29] Speaker A: It'S super interesting. I didn't have, didn't dive too much into the, the article itself, but like the, or the, the video here, unpacking it, electronic backpack. It kind of seems like they're using you know, like that like electronic muscle stimulation that people buy and they attach to like their back or something and then it like causes like a little bit of movement. So it's like you're stimulating this area of the beetle, causing it to make a movement.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Yeah. And it shows it in the video, them actually like demonstrating it. Where they tell it to move forward, it moves forward. They tell it to go left, they press the button, it goes left. I mean it works well.
[00:20:14] Speaker A: So you got a little backpack with a little electric, little power source and then you can just like give it a push forward and it will send, you know, that pulse to the certain part of the beetle. And what you're saying is if you can get a camera or the neuromorphic.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: Yep, there you go. Put one of them bad boys on it with some AI, let it do.
[00:20:39] Speaker A: Its thing and kind of have it tell the beetle where to go and how to do it. That's going to be pretty crazy.
[00:20:49] Speaker B: And now I, now, you know, I don't want a chip in my brain from Elon Musk.
[00:20:53] Speaker A: And that's the cost. Right. So you look at something like that and it's a super low cost solution, or at least it should be. Right. Because you're not putting.
You only have so much space to work with. And going back to that previous story with the neuromorphic camera is they're saying, yeah, these can be expensive. Like a neuromorphic Sensor could be $1,000 if you're using a drone for GPS. Denied piloting. And you don't have to put a GPS sensor.
Right. You're reducing that cost from the product. So even though the technology is a little more expensive, it allows you to save money somewhere else.
But yeah, a little backpack. What was that? They're putting backpacks.
[00:21:42] Speaker B: Was it on everything the B? Yeah, I think it was a B.
I forgot what they were using that for. It's probably the same exact thing we need.
[00:21:51] Speaker A: Oh, they were tracking. They were, remember they were tracking the movement of the.
For like pollination. I don't know if it was for pollination purposes, but they had put it as like a tracker device.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: So I'm wondering, they need to come out with like a bug's life. Like we need a new bug's life movie where the bugs are like test subjects.
Test subjects. One like you got bugs flying back in and it's like, oh my God, what the hell's on Larry?
He's like, get it off me. Tourette's and out and put me in an ice bucket.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: And then did this to me in the play. D'oh.
[00:22:32] Speaker A: They tied it. They tied a string to me. What was that other you put? You. We looked at the.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: The bee or the. No, is a fly. People type like pieces of floss around flies and.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: And then drones too. Because imagine for insects, you know, planes were one thing. They were like way up there. But now insects and bugs and stuff, you've got all these drones flying around and every once in a while one of them accidentally gets sucked in the propellers. So that'd be interesting to see.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: Well, it's already kind of to the point where, like we have that kind of. Not. Not what you're saying, but the way in my brain just processed what you said was like, imagine there was like an imposter. So, like there's. They already do that with ducks. There's like a robot duck. And all the other ducks are like, they kind of like accept them, but they're like something's wrong with them. You know, it's just like a camera. It's a remote controlled duck.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: Yeah, man, that. Wow. Maybe we should make that movie. We should write that script. Is the imposter. You know, like the research students create the fake drone beetle or fly, and then it goes in and it becomes like a member of the.
[00:23:48] Speaker B: There's like always one that's like, I don't like that, dude. Something's wrong with them.
[00:23:52] Speaker A: The queen. The queen is like always against it and then somehow it saves the day. Yeah, whatever.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: We just gave Pixar their next movie idea.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: Bs 5. So moving along here.
Not AC Milan. I'm pretty sure it's a soccer team. I don't know. Terry, you follow soccer?
[00:24:15] Speaker B: No.
Well, it's gotta be, though.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: I feel like if you don't like. I went to the soccer tournament right in like the big million dollar tournament here in North Carolina. But I just feel like soccer has gained so much momentum and not as much as it's growing here in the US But I just feel like internationally. But a cyber. Cyber drone. The company illuminates the Dubai sky with drones celebrating AC Milan's 125th anniversary.
[00:24:45] Speaker B: It's kind of weird they did it in Dubai and not in Milan, where they're from. It's a little weird.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: Yeah. And, you know, 125th anniversary. I mean, I guess soccer has been, you know, around.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: A long time, as.
[00:25:01] Speaker A: Long as any sport internationally. So it's. It's significant. But we got a clip here. It took me a little bit to actually find a video, but we had a thousand drones flying, and we're certainly moving into that time of year where we're starting to see those Thanksgiving shows. When I typed in, like, light show, I was getting all these things from last Christmas. Everybody was setting records last Christmas. So, you know there's gonna be some new records this Christmas.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: So here was the video. I found someone who was out on.
[00:25:42] Speaker B: The correct logo anymore.
[00:25:43] Speaker A: Oh, was that not right?
[00:25:46] Speaker B: The jaguar logo? They changed it.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: Oh, I see what you're saying.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: So I'm pretty sure this is.
Yeah, it is, because you can see the people moving super fast.
I'm pretty sure this was the video from recently, because this video was just posted. Yeah, but look at how they're, like, changing the lighting so it looks like that little fire.
[00:26:12] Speaker B: Dude, I do. I do like it. But it is still kind of odd that they.
They did it in Dubai.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: Oh, Manny. I guess. I don't know. There's probably.
And then the clothes. There's that. There's that, like, theme that, like, similar.
You know what I mean? Like, that.
[00:26:38] Speaker B: It's like a sink wave.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, it's a cre. It's like a controlled chaos.
[00:26:47] Speaker B: Well, it's crazy. I mean, it.
Let's bring it to the military industrial complex for a second. Imagine seeing that swarm coming after you with bombs on him.
That'd be very scary.
[00:27:00] Speaker A: Yeah, them swarms. There was a contract that came out recently, I think I saw.
Well, it just came out, like, in the last couple days. There's a contract, three companies that.
That the military was looking at for actual drone swarm capabilities.
So companies that can basically provide.
I don't know, it's probably not even the lethal point. It's like, hey, can we just get drones that can just fly in unison together? Because that right now is.
Is pretty significant. And then let's worry about weaponizing them later.
That's not the hard part. Right.
[00:27:38] Speaker B: You can attach the bomb to anything. You know, attach it to a beetle.
[00:27:43] Speaker A: And so with that. With the drone light shows we talked about, you know, many times. Drone light shows on the weekly Wings podcast. And one of the things that we always talked about was, yeah, hey, that's a great, you know, drone light shows. Anyone can buy drones, but the ability to create the story. Right. The animation and do it better than the competition and not just using some, you know, default.
Whatever it's called, you know, like, you know, cookie cutter Christmas trees and things of that nature. So recently, SPH Engineering came out with basically more advanced light show software for revolutionizing Aerial Entertainment, an intuitive, all in one software that empowers beginners and experts to design stunning drone choreography with ease.
Well, if you're not a beginner and you're an expert, you probably don't want to see this. Like, yeah, it's so easy. Beginners can make great drone light shows.
[00:29:02] Speaker B: Well, this is, this reminds me of like the modding community for games. Like, if you're making it easier for anybody to make it, you're gonna get some.
Somebody will just make something just to make it and then they'll publish it and then a drone company will be able to use it. But it, there's people that do modding and like these video game communities and it's like almost better than the game that the developer made just because they modded it. So that's kind of similar, but the more accessible it gets, the better they're gonna get. It's just the more people that get into it.
[00:29:41] Speaker A: Well, for the market to grow, like just directly relating it to another drone thing would be FPV flying.
Right? 10 years ago you could do, you know, freestyle FPV drone flying, but you had to know where to source the parts from. You had to know what parts work together. You had to be able to solder it and, you know, put the hardware together. Then you had to, you know, connect it to a computer. You had to kind of program it, figure out what remote you're going to use.
So it was possible, but it was more difficult so less people were doing it. Now you have DJI selling, you know, an FPV headset remote. You're buying everything together. The batteries are, you know, intelligent and more people are able to get into FPV drone flying, which increases the market, which is good for, you know, companies. So for SPH Engineering, they sell the software and they sell, they partner with drone manufacturers. So they're selling this to companies like SPH Engineering. Their whole thing is to work with the companies that do light shows. So the easier they can make it for a company to buy drones and, you know, fly them really well, the better their business is going to be. And so we're just looking at here on the screen is just like probably a screenshot from the software because when you're doing this light show, you know, every drone is basically just a dot in a three dimensional space and you're constantly figuring out how to move those, you know, all around in order to create different designs and make sure they're not hitting each other. And then what color does this dot need to be at this time.
So this will be interesting, you know, to see. But then you figure, you know, when you want to dive deeper into that, that market, hey, they came out with a new software. But hey, if you already have drones, do your drones work with their software? Right. And so that's where this whole business is still at. It's like, once you get A, does that work with C and D? And once you have A and D, is that gonna work with F? But I hope, as someone who's not doing drone light shows, I hope that it becomes easier.
[00:32:34] Speaker B: Right, because it's only going to become.
[00:32:37] Speaker A: Easier as a consumer, as a consumer of drone light shows, I will want to see more and ideally better shows. Let's see this week, November 28, Pinehurst, North Carolina, if you haven't got this.
[00:32:56] Speaker B: Week, when is it? The 28th?
Yeah, the day Thanksgiving.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: Oh, it's either the day after Thanksgiving or I'm not. Can't remember off top of my head. But I know Pinehurst, it's got that drone light show coming up. So I think you were, you were saying that we didn't tell you last time.
[00:33:16] Speaker B: Yeah, you told me.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: This time we've got our tickets.
[00:33:20] Speaker B: If it's not on Thanksgiving, I'll go. I don't think it November 29th. Friday, the day after.
[00:33:24] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll see you there.
[00:33:26] Speaker B: See you there, man.
[00:33:31] Speaker A: And transitioning to our next topic here, drone life.com article, Teledine Fleer selected for Red Cat's Black Widow US Army SRR program.
So thermal imaging and AI software integrated into RedCat's Black Widow drone.
So right here, what we're looking at on the screen is Teal.
Teal US American company, recently, I think this year acquired by Red Cat holdings.
And they are producing the Black Widow drone, which has been announced that the army short range short range reconnaissance purchasing will be acquiring some of these drones in order for the army to deploy.
And the thermal imager that is used on this drone is the Teledyne FLIR thermal sensor.
[00:34:50] Speaker B: They're buying almost 6,000 of them or they're planning to.
That's a lot.
[00:35:00] Speaker A: It isn't. It isn't. Right?
[00:35:06] Speaker B: I mean, you have to think, okay, I don't know exactly how like military structure is, but you have like a squad, right? I mean, each squad gets one. Maybe. Maybe each platoon gets one.
Somebody gets one. That's a lot of them.
[00:35:21] Speaker A: It, it really is.
And it's two aircraft per system. So if they're buying 5880, then they're getting over 11,000 actual drones. And it makes sense because if you're out in the field and you know, you got one drone, you got no drones, you got two drones, you got one drone. But I think the way that, you know, we've been talking about the US army building out their, like a platoon, you know, so it's not like, hey, we're just handing these out to anyone.
They're actually creating units.
So new units. And these new units need equipment. It would be like, you know, starting a new, like Space Force right when you start.
And that's, you know, a little bit different, but kind of the same when you start Space Force, you're like, oh, we don't have anything. So we need to purchase equipment in order to execute our mission. So I think the military is in a, in a point now where five years ago they were purchasing the equipment, the drones, but they had no plan to get the drones integrated. It's a lot like what police departments and fire departments did five, six, seven, eight years ago is they just went out and they bought these drones and they had put no thought into, once we have it, how the hell are we supposed, how do we integrate this into operation? Who's supposed to fly it? When do they take it out? Where do they stand? You know, what do they say?
And so now the army actually has, you know, what it seems like is they built out their counter UAS folks, they're UAS folks. It's not just taking someone who already has a job and saying, hey, here, fly a drone now. It's saying, hey, we're actually going to enlist soldiers to be UAS operators. Let's remove that red tape so that they're not liable. Let's give them two and a kid instead of one so if something happens, they can continue to do their mission. So kind of exciting. But five, the biggest thing here, 5,880 drones. And when you look at it, they're not buying all these at once.
[00:37:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, it's also says plans too.
[00:38:00] Speaker A: It's like a thousand.
It's like a thousand over five years. So then you start to wonder like four years from now, is it going to change the product, the quality and things like that. So it's up to this amount, which is what investors want to hear. But it doesn't necessarily mean that many have been purchased. So good for defense.
But, but, but that number pales in comparison to the commercial industry.
So when you think about what that drone can do in the sensor, it's a Mavic 3 thermal, right? Like it's a. It's the equivalent of a DJI thermal drone that costs six grand. So I'm sure the military is paying way more than six grand for these systems. And DJI is producing hundreds, you know, tens hundred thousand drones in a year. And so it's a huge win for the, you know, whatever military industrial complex. And great for Redcat holdings who acquired Teal Drones.
You know, huge win.
[00:39:09] Speaker B: Military contracts, always nice.
[00:39:11] Speaker A: The Black Widow.
[00:39:13] Speaker B: Oh yeah, this the names for Teal. Teal is a good name for a company. And then you got Red Cat. That's a pretty cool name. Then you got the name of the products. Black Widow. Come on, man, you guys are killing it over there. A product named Black widow definitely cost 50k at minimum.
[00:39:29] Speaker A: Yeah. And so, and let's see. Here we go. Let's do it. Let's go to Teal Drones website. Boom, boom.
[00:39:39] Speaker B: It's like that'd be the first thing that popped up on my website.
[00:39:43] Speaker A: It's just so crazy though, because it's just like, hey everybody, this is what we use, you know, this is the drone we're using.
[00:39:56] Speaker B: Oh, they already know that, whoever that may be.
[00:39:59] Speaker A: Red Cat awarded. So the future of short range reconnaissance. The Black Widow did.
[00:40:05] Speaker B: This drone's pretty cool. The payloads, like everything's modular. It seems like you can just like take the prop off, like the arm off with the prop. It's pretty nice.
[00:40:17] Speaker A: Like the lighting. And then like the rod just, just jam out of here. And then now I'm seeing the remote. It's like, oh, let's add couple rods to the.
[00:40:30] Speaker B: Well, they have that remote from what I was looking at. And they have a different remote too.
[00:40:39] Speaker A: Yeah, it's, it's really cool stuff.
[00:40:47] Speaker B: The Teal 2, the Headron, all weather operation.
[00:40:56] Speaker A: And like this, this is just the beginning, right?
And if you go and you look camera off top. I had the name, the kid that, that started Teal, he like started Teal right here. I'm pretty sure. George, George Mattis, founder of Teal. He founded Teal when he was in high school.
[00:41:14] Speaker B: Oh yeah, he's loving it right now.
[00:41:22] Speaker A: Yeah, pretty. Pretty amazing.
So I got a couple more stories here to cover looking at things from kind of a regulatory standpoint. Some advancements here on the, on the regulatory side. We've talked about BV loss a lot over the last month. Two months. And so will keep that going with carbonics. Volanti achieves nationwide, nationwide FAA BV loss approval. Pioneering long range fixed wing UAV operations in the US so with the FAA's approval for BV loss missions. Carbonics and Argon tech solutions bring advanced VTOL drone capabilities to industries demanding precision and endurance.
So again we have companies working together in order to open up nationwide.
So when you talk, we talk markets, right? Hey, we have an approval to fly over here. How many customers are right there?
None.
Hey, we just got approval to fly across the whole nation in uncontrolled airspace to do long range beyond visual on site inspections. Hey, how many customers are across the whole nation?
[00:42:52] Speaker B: Everybody.
[00:42:53] Speaker A: A lot.
[00:42:58] Speaker B: Is this the first like, is this the first like nationwide waiver?
[00:43:07] Speaker A: I don't think this is the first nationwide.
I think Census Technologies has some nationwide approvals. You know there's a handful of companies, it's not a long list.
And so. And most of them are all drones like this. You know, there's no waivers for nationwide.
[00:43:29] Speaker B: Super lightweight, just like lightweight, lightweight. Long range falling if it happens.
[00:43:37] Speaker A: Ev, tall, you know, long endurance, you know, 50,000, 60, $70,000 drones with very, very specific mission sets.
That's just, it's a nice looking drone.
[00:43:58] Speaker B: Oh, you could say what you're about to say there, I mean boy is a very good looking drone. Nothing.
[00:44:03] Speaker A: See it looks like the, it looks like Eiger drone. Looks like a Ringitech. Looks like it looks like it could deliver some stuff.
[00:44:11] Speaker B: It's 1 kg. 1 whole kg is what it can deliver.
[00:44:16] Speaker A: Oh, it can carry a kilogram. Oh, here we go. Yeah, payload. And when they say that it's not even, they're talking, not even delivery. They're talking like you're camera.
[00:44:24] Speaker B: Oh no.
Yeah, you probably attach something to it. Little, little hook.
[00:44:32] Speaker A: Yeah, a little something. And so you've got Carbonics manufacturing and Argon Tech Solutions, you know, working with them in order to produce a product that can navigate the complexities of beyond visual line of sight.
And so just another example of a company that now they have this nationwide authorization and uncontrolled airspace to do these long range mission sets. So as I'm just thinking here and as I'm speaking I'm thinking well hey, where are they going to fly from? Maybe their intent is to, you know, have a remote pilot operations center and they're going to have you know, a handful of pilots. So they're not going to hire a ton of pilots. But if they're going to start an operation, the drones, you know, they're not going to fly drones from Michigan to Florida. So they might have pilots in one state but if they want to launch an operation somewhere else, they're going to have to at least have those ground support crew members, the folks on site that are, you know, setting the drone up, doing on site, pre flights, post flights, battery swaps.
So it'll be interesting to see. I know everyone was always thinking years ago, oh, we need more pilots, need more pilots. And I don't know if it's so much as, you know, the industry will need more remote pilots as it continues to move forward.
But I think what folks don't talk so much about is the, the ground support that'll, that'll help. That'll be required with that beyond visual line of sight. Because if you're not there, who is? Who is, Terry? If you're not there, who is? If you're playing football on Sunday and you're not home, who's at your home making sure you're not getting robbed?
[00:46:31] Speaker B: My robot dog with a 12 gauge shotgun on its back.
[00:46:35] Speaker A: Yo. Oh my gosh, dude. Are you, Are you tracking what I'm saying about the, the Chiefs? Pat Mahomes, Travis Kelsey, another one of their players, they. All their houses got broken into this past.
[00:46:50] Speaker B: Oh, that's common. That's. I didn't know that. But that's common for like athletes. Like every once in a while you'll hear like a UFC fighter. Like, I went to fight and then my house got broken into. And you're like, oh, well, they ain't.
[00:47:00] Speaker A: Talking about the UFC fighters on the news because this happened to the Chiefs players. And now this idea, it's the perfect people to rob. They're saying, no, they're saying there's an actual syndicate. They're saying, like, there's a criminal organization that's been targeting the NFL players and potentially NBA players. And so just recently. So you know what? Holy cow, we need to call, we need to call as a lot. We need to hit up Aslan and be like, yo, if you haven't thought about this yet, because they're like, hire a house sitter. Who's going to hire a house sitter? Like, dude, they need, they need, they need a spot robot dog. Dude, they just need, they just need a, one of the Mar A Lago dogs. They just need a drone in a box. Dude, everyone's like, you know, they, I didn't even think about it until just now, but home security for professional athletes. Get yourself a drone dog.
[00:47:54] Speaker B: Well, so that reminds what you just said about them, like breaking in when they're like off plane. That reminds me of. There's, it's ongoing. So when poker players go to These big tournaments, there's these like hacker social engineering dudes that will break into their hotel rooms and install viruses on the computer. So when the poker player goes home and plays poker, they can see what they're doing and they know their hands and stuff. And then they beat them and they'll join the lobby. So they don't beat them at the tournament, they'll beat them online and then they. So that's a act. That's a crime syndicate too. That's a big problem. There's hundreds of those dudes.
[00:48:30] Speaker A: It's. It's kind of crazy that this is like just now, like when I heard on it, I was like, oh, wow. I would have thought this would have happened sooner, right?
[00:48:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sure it's been happening for.
[00:48:44] Speaker A: A while, but it's probably happened and then it hasn't happened. And then enough time passed and, you know, people were like, oh, we could, you know, we could execute something.
And yeah, they probably watched these people houses for a long time. Since the beginning of the season. They were probably watching for the first eight weeks.
[00:49:03] Speaker B: Just kind of brought in eight Louis Vuitton bags into his house.
[00:49:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:49:10] Speaker A: Air taxis. Air taxis. So SkyDrive and SAI Flight collaborate on electric air taxi routes in South Carolina. So I think, you know, looking at, you know, BV loss, a huge reason we're seeing more organizations get, you know, large area approvals for beyond visual line of sight with smaller drones is because the detect and avoid technology is becoming more readily available. You know, having the systems in place so that you can make sure this drone's not going to hit another drone or it's not going to hit another aircraft.
And what's neat about that is that's the same sort of technology we need in order to put, you know, humans in aircraft without pilots and have them fly from A to B.
[00:50:10] Speaker B: So I used to live in Greenville. That's where I lived before Fayetteville. So they couldn't have done that, started this cool stuff while I was there, of course. But so they're making routes. It's like the start of the plans.
[00:50:27] Speaker A: Yeah. So in the beginning here, it's a lot of, you know, crawl, crawl, crawl, crawl, walk, walk, walk, walk, walk, run.
And so it's aircraft approved, operator approved, locations approved, routes approved.
[00:50:45] Speaker B: Greenville, Sunny Center. Okay. So the way Greenville set up downtown Greenville and then the airports, like down the highway, it's a. If in my mind I'm thinking how they're going to make the routes as safe as possible, it's kind of like almost a straight shot off the highway to the airport. So it's like actually a perfect location because you could just fly off the side of the highway and just fly straight to the airport from downtown Greenville.
Yeah, like on the side. And there's nothing on the side of the road. It's just like a bunch of trees and stuff. So.
[00:51:24] Speaker A: And then it's not like it has to be nothing there. Just you know, it's lower risk. But it's just approving a route in order to know that hey, for the first three months these, this company is not just going to be going willy nilly here and there. It's like hey, let's just do this, let's just do this route. These routes for the first three months, six months, let's get information, let's figure out how it integrates and then let's grow from there. Because easily you could say we'll go everywhere but you just don't know what impact it's going to have. And so here's the SkyDrive aircraft. And what's interesting is it's Japanese company.
You used to live in Greenville. We're in North Carolina. South Carolina is not that far away. They're talking about pre ordering. They pre ordered 10 of these aircraft.
So like I don't know, I have to now dig deeper. Like is this a rendering or is this thing actually flying in Greenville?
[00:52:20] Speaker B: Because if it is, it looks like a photo and then that's a rendering up there.
[00:52:23] Speaker A: Right, Like a real photo and then that's photoshopped. Yeah. So like if once more happens here, I might not fly on the thing, but like I'm gonna go there.
[00:52:34] Speaker B: Oh yeah, I'm gonna see there.
I'll be the tour. But here's the terrible airport, no offense, better in Fayetteville's.
[00:52:44] Speaker A: Take me to the possibilities of.
[00:52:49] Speaker B: Oh yeah, Mike and Jeff's. It's a bar, barbecue place. That's the best place there.
[00:52:54] Speaker A: And so here is Right. So the drone is the skydrive Drone manufacturer skydrive now sai.
Sai?
What's that?
[00:53:12] Speaker B: I think Suzuki makes it. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut.
[00:53:15] Speaker A: You off that just maybe sky drives the company. They probably partner with someone who's already in the manufact manufacturing. But SAI Flight is a part 135 air carrier.
So SAI flight is a US part 135 air carrier. So SAI Flight is already operating aircraft out of this airport. You know they're already moving passengers and people.
So their, you know, an existing air carrier that is just integrating a new type of aircraft into its fleet in order to, you know, remain competitive. So you have that partnership of manufacturer, operator, and then in a location, and then in a location where, you know, the airport and then the economic development group in this region recognize, hey, we need to get behind this because you bet you're, you know, your bottom dollar. You just, you could bet anything that sound old. Sound like I'm old. No, that you don't just bring these aircraft here. Like the airport is having to do infrastructure updates, they're having to dig up the ground, they're having to, you know, pipe in extra power. Because if you're gonna have 10 of these at this airport, you're gonna operate, you know, 5, 4, 5, 6. At any given time, you're gonna have to have a good amount of more power to keep these things charged. So it's a, it's a combination of, you know, an operator that's willing to, you know, go through the training and the qualifications of the staff in order to be compliant, the manufacturer bringing in the aircraft and then the airport, you know, setting up the facilities in order for all this to take place. So this is really exciting.
[00:55:21] Speaker B: Very exciting math. Go up there. If it ever takes off fully, I'm going to have to go up there and check it out.
[00:55:31] Speaker A: And for the final story, staying on the theme of kind of regulatory and pilotless air taxis, I thought this was, was really interesting seeing this article that came out just a few days ago in drone life. I guess an Israeli evtol maker is suing DJI for alleged patent infringement. And I'm like scratching my head and I'm like, an ev tall company is suing DJI for a pat. I'm like, what could this possibly be? And the company, Urban aeronautics alleges that DJI's high end drones violate emergency landing technology. Patent.
Yes, you can patent emergency landing technology.
[00:56:23] Speaker B: You can patent safety.
[00:56:25] Speaker A: Yeah, you can patent. That's exactly like how can you put a patent on, you can safely land in an emergency.
You can't use that.
[00:56:35] Speaker B: I was like when the dude, the guy that started Volvo made the three point safety belt and he was like, I'm not patenting this. This is open to everybody.
Why is there not more stuff like that for safety related stuff?
[00:56:50] Speaker A: And so you kind of start reading into it and you're like, all right. Urban Electronics, an electric vertical takeoff and landing manufacturer, suing dji, a drone giant, claiming that the company's technology for safely bringing down a multi rotor aircraft violates and copies one of their patents.
And it states the drone sold in the US the DJI Matrice 300, the 350 and the new the fly cart, which is that payload carrying drone.
Apparently they infringe on the three propeller emergency landing patent, the tpel. So if the drone loses one propeller, it only has three left.
And I guess the, the way they've programmed it to safely.
[00:57:50] Speaker B: Oh my lord.
[00:57:52] Speaker A: Land.
[00:57:53] Speaker B: I feel like that's reaching that they're saying they copied them. I mean it's just like there's only so many ways you can make it come down, you know, like in a circle. Is that what we're talking about? It can't come down in a circle.
[00:58:05] Speaker A: Yeah, it's so confusing, right? Because like you lose three motors, so then you, or you lose a motor, you have three motors so you're not. It's more like a controlled crash.
And so there's like you have to have this algorithm and maybe that's what it is because a human couldn't do it. Like if you lose a propeller, if you lose a motor and a quad and you have three, like all your normal stick inputs are not going to do what they would and you're not going to be able to like change the way that it works.
But there is, what DJI did is kind of build out and create this like fail safe. So if it happens, your control import inputs are adjusted. It's like rewriting the flight algorithm in real time. Like hey, this is how the drone should fly with four and oh, if you lose one, change the configuration so that it does it like this. And so like what people have told me is it doesn't keep flying, but you can kind of control land it because you have to constantly compensate for the lack of that motor. And maybe that's what they're talking about. And my other thought here was maybe Urban Aeronautics worked with dji.
I don't know, maybe there was just something bad that happened here. Yeah, but he said they're not going to. It was weird.
I think the guy said like he would not expect Urban Aeronautics to seek to shut down DJI sales in the US So like they wouldn't try to shut down money.
It's a good feature and their customers should be allowed to benefit from it.
[01:00:05] Speaker B: Yeah, we kind of cooked with this feature. I think people should use it. But I do want some money for it, you know. Like what?
[01:00:13] Speaker A: Yeah, he said usually these are just settled outside of court where the defendant company agrees to pay the company bringing the suit a licensing fee.
[01:00:23] Speaker B: So they want A piece of that DJI pie?
[01:00:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Five bucks per drone.
They're like, we want a piece. Like, yeah, well, they're not even going to be selling in the United States pretty soon.
But I did want to click over to the urban aeronautics site because once you go to their site, you're like, interesting. Like, here's a drone that people are sitting in. So it keeps on that evtol theme. So I've never heard of urban aeronautics until reading this article. So I don't know if this was even just a ploy in order to get more publicity because, like, again, I'd never heard of them. And now here we are talking about them, and it's truly fascinating.
The.
You know, but. But what's interesting is they go. We've done over 300 test flights.
Whoa. 300.
[01:01:26] Speaker B: This is interesting. I don't know. I don't know what to think about. That's a crazy design.
[01:01:30] Speaker A: And what we're looking at, it's got a parachute here, it's got double fan. And that's what they're saying. They're basically saying, hey, this thing's 10ft wide. It fits in a parking space.
So they're trying to, you know, they're stating that all the other ev tall manufacturers have got it wrong because they're building these big, wide aircraft.
And, you know, they think that these things need to be designed in a way that you could just.
[01:02:00] Speaker B: Oh, they have a video of it flying.
[01:02:03] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. But it doesn't. It's not. Not what they're showing you in the renderings. It's this thing right here.
That thing.
[01:02:12] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, that's probably like the less expensive version of it.
[01:02:22] Speaker A: And so, yeah, you can fit in a parking spot. The FAA is never going to get down with.
[01:02:29] Speaker B: I don't think the insurance companies would like them.
[01:02:32] Speaker A: These things landing in a parking deck. Oh, I'm just going to park it. Right. Like it's a true flying car, you know, like, oh, we're just going to have this vertiport here. And no, the. In order for these things to go in and out of cities, the vertiports are going to have to be so much many feet wide. So even though your vehicle is only 10ft wide, you're always going to have to have like these minimum thresholds because the vehicles are going through certain specifications. And then the vertiports, these things are called vertiports. If you haven't.
The city hawk is what they call it. If you haven't. If you're not familiar with, like, Pilotless air taxis, they're going to take off from Vertiports. And so what this thing is sitting on right here with just some like open railings and like that's, that's not a good depiction of what an approved Vertiport is going to look like.
Practical, fits in a parking spot.
[01:03:28] Speaker B: That's the only thing they got.
[01:03:30] Speaker A: It's quiet, it's safe, it's durable and it's eco friendly.
It's cool, it's neat, it looks cool.
[01:03:40] Speaker B: But I see how interesting how it works.
[01:03:45] Speaker A: So you have lift and then you're using the vanes. You're like they're adjusting the vanes in order to guide the flow of air to rotate the vehicle left.
[01:03:54] Speaker B: Is that what those are called? Veins or vents?
[01:03:57] Speaker A: Vanes or fins?
I don't know if that's the real official name. And then this, this one looks like it actually has a pilot in it. So it looks like they're making it more like an actual.
[01:04:09] Speaker B: Like you're flying a weird helicopter.
[01:04:12] Speaker A: It's like the jet. It's the Jetsons. Right?
But DJI stole their.
[01:04:21] Speaker B: It's funny because for a quadcopter. They don't have a quadcopter.
[01:04:26] Speaker A: That was the other thing I was like, see the thing that they're selling you right now is even have four motors and only has two.
[01:04:33] Speaker B: But.
[01:04:37] Speaker A: People, like I said, I, I think at least it got us talking about them so. Well, that was a great episode covering everything from, you know, the spray Hawk agriculture, automated helicopters down to, you know, air taxis and emergency landing patents to the military and drone light shows. Pretty interesting episode. I think my favorite part of this episode, now that we're. I decided to start adding our favorite parts to the recap. But, but just in general, the neuromorphic camera, right is. Is something that became of much interest. So it's something I'll probably be looking into more. Maybe other people can as well. But looked at the Spray Hawk Rotor technologies looked at the neuromorphic camera for a GPS denied or non GPS drone operations light shows. Congratulations to Teal and Red Cat holdings being part of the army's SRR program and boy, it's going to be really interesting to see how things advance with these pilots, air taxis, EVTOLs and advanced air mobility.
We appreciate everybody tuning in to week this. This week's episode of Weekly Wings, a dronelife.com podcast.
If you have any questions, comments, leave them at the YouTube channel. For the folks that are listening on the podcast, these are uploaded to The Drone Life YouTube channel. So you can leave comments there.
[01:06:17] Speaker B: Or please let us know. Please let us know if we're doing a bad job or a good job. I mean, if you like us, give us a thumbs up. Maybe tell us what you like about it. The show can change depending on what the consumer wants.
[01:06:32] Speaker A: Yeah, 100%. So I appreciate everybody again for their time and attention. And be sure to check out dronelife.com throughout the week in order to stay up to date on the latest things that are happening. But don't stay too up to date, otherwise you won't have to listen to us. So thank you, Terry, for your time this afternoon and for your insights. Look forward to next episode.
[01:07:01] Speaker B: Look forward to next episode.
