Episode Transcript
Paul Rossi (00:00)
Welcome to Weekly Wings, your go -to podcast from Tronelife .com where we soar through the latest in drone technology, regulation updates, and exciting innovations. Each week, join Samuel, Terry, and I as we navigate the drone industry, offering expert insights, interviews with key figures, and a bird's eye view of how drones are shaping our world.
Commercial applications to recreational adventures weekly wings delves into how these remarkable vehicles are impacting education, construction, filmmaking, delivery services, and much more. Whether you are a professional drone operator, a hobbyist, or just drone curious, tune in to stay informed and inspired as we explore the heights of what's possible in the world of drones.
Subscribe now and never miss an episode of Weekly Wings where the future is looking up.
Welcome back everybody. This is episode 9 of weekly wings. How are you doing Samuel?
Samuel (01:05)
I'm doing very well. Happy July 4th weekend. How are you guys doing?
Terry Neff (01:09)
Doing pretty good, doing pretty good.
Paul Rossi (01:10)
Doing pretty good, Terry. Can you tell us how Zephyr Flight Simulator is doing? No?
Terry Neff (01:19)
i cannot i'm sorry don't play single player games man i have a competitive edge to me can't compete with myself all the time
Samuel (01:29)
You can compete with others time wise.
Paul Rossi (01:29)
yeah, there's not like, cause you were just talking, telling like before Samuel got on, you were talking about how you have all this down downtime and you're.
Terry Neff (01:33)
That's not how that works.
Samuel (01:35)
theater.
Terry Neff (01:39)
the ugly competitive games if i can make somebody yell i don't want to play
Paul Rossi (01:42)
competitive games
Well.
Samuel (01:46)
Can I get you on Elden Ring, Terry?
Terry Neff (01:48)
Am I 1v1ing you? Or can I make you mad in any way?
Samuel (01:50)
Well, I mean, would you play that? You know what that is, Paul?
Terry Neff (01:54)
I would play it.
Paul Rossi (01:55)
I have no idea.
Samuel (01:57)
It's a single -player, well, I don't even know how to describe it, fantasy game. We got to get on that Zephyr simulator, see if we can beat each other's scores, start racing against each other. That's the idea, right? Do we know if they have a time thing?
Paul Rossi (01:58)
soon.
Terry Neff (02:01)
Co -op.
Paul Rossi (02:04)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Terry Neff (02:14)
What about that?
Paul Rossi (02:15)
They time it there's like an obstacle course so you can you can run the obstacle course. There's different they certainly get gamify it but Terry wouldn't Yeah, Terry Yeah, Terry would know if he you know was diving into now anyway, and then speaking competitive UFC 303 that'll be exciting has happened as this recording is posted but
Terry Neff (02:20)
that what next week next week we've got to get a time
you
Paul Rossi (02:45)
We are going into that weekend. So very exciting. We've got some really good topics to discuss. We're here in North Carolina talking about farmers or in Florida talking about a Florida man, right? We're in the Ukraine talking about FPV piloting, right? This idea of what is a product. Is it a
consumer, a recreational vehicle, is it an enterprise vehicle? And with FPV drones weaponized on the battlefield, it's completely crossing the lines of what is defense and what is consumer. So that's neat. We'll touch on a little bit of NASA, SpaceX, falling debris, just a really intriguing story coming out of the aerospace industry.
Some light show stuff. You might have time to even catch this. Book your flight for a large drone light show that Samuel's gonna inform us all about. And we'll end the episode talking a little bit on the regulatory side in regards to country of origin or manufacturer drone bans. But diving.
Right into this week's episode, again here in North Carolina, and actually starting out with the DJI ban, we got North Carolina farmer weighing in on China ag spray drones battle. Everyone is contacting their state reps. So this came out June 20.
24th agriculture farm ag farmers news article by Elaine Watson. So you can see Russell Hedrick here has been using ag spray drones made by DJI for the previous four years. And he's got some awards. He's done some snick and stuff and he's been trying to, you know,
Reach out to Senator Bud and Senator Tillis, folks who are behind, as we've shared in the past, a lot of this, you know, momentum to ban DJI. It's really unfortunate, but it's really neat to hear and see this coming out. It's not about public safety, but rather, you know, a farmer in North Carolina who's growing corn and soybeans in Hickory, North Carolina.
Terry Neff (05:43)
he's doing something right. He holds the state record for soybean yield. There's some pretty big soybean farms near me. So he's doing something right.
Paul Rossi (05:58)
Yeah, and so these drones, right, no one talks too much about the agriculture side. When people think agriculture drones, they're not necessarily immediately thinking of the spraying, right? The ability to use a drone in order to spray crops. People are thinking mapping, modeling,
you know, using the drone from a visual standpoint. And there are other drones available that are not made by DJI or Chinese companies that can do that sort of stuff. Map, create models and give you visual photos and multispectral things of that nature. But if you go and look from a
from an agriculture spray drone. There is a...
There really isn't anything like the photo you're seeing here, DJI's ability to produce a large heavy lift drone. It's just unmatched in the industry.
Samuel (07:13)
technically a quadcopter we're looking at.
Paul Rossi (07:20)
so the, the Agrius T 40 and the T 50 is a DJI's latest flagship spray drones. And there, the frame has, you know, the picture here looks like a traditional quad, but if you look closer, you'll see that there's two motors on each arm there. So it's actually an, it's.
Samuel (07:43)
Right.
Paul Rossi (07:49)
It's a quad configuration with eight total motors to increase the lift capacity without increasing the physical footprint of the drone itself.
Samuel (08:02)
Makes sense. And it's just blasting those crops.
Paul Rossi (08:06)
and sew it.
Samuel (08:09)
Maybe blasting is too strong of a word, but it is very thoroughly doing its job.
Paul Rossi (08:10)
And so...
Dispersing, right? So folks have mentioned that because of the downwash, there is some folks that have posted and written and researched that the spray of the drone close to the crop and then the actual prop wash, the downwash of the propellers themselves, it actually helps with the dispersion of the product evenly over the crops.
Samuel (08:44)
That makes a lot of sense to be honest.
Paul Rossi (08:45)
So if we go...
Terry Neff (08:55)
Oof. That's a heavy investment.
Paul Rossi (08:58)
Yeah, so something like this. The T50. And so you're spraying and then also you have the ability to spread. So in this video, you're going to see a clip where it's actually spreading seed or fertilizer.
Samuel (09:16)
With your experience, Paul, do you think there is anything that can contend with this in the drone market right now? Anything comparable?
Paul Rossi (09:27)
There certainly is.
platforms out there that can pick this up that have these pumps, but their ability to do it efficiently and integrate in the, you know, doing it once is one thing, but being able to do it over and over and over and over again, because it becomes a critical part of the business, right? That is where other people have lacked.
And so while there are other heavy lift vehicles, there's just none that you can turn on and within a minute, it's just ready to go. And then these drones can sync together and swarm and talk to each other. Because when you have 30 acres, you're not using, you know, you could use just one drone, but you could also get two and start them at the same time and have them communicating to each other. 50 kilogram payload.
Samuel (10:26)
I do feel like that's one of the biggest things here is like, yeah, you know, there might be something else in the market for this farmer to use, but he's telling our representatives this because his business is kind of dependent on it. This is what the thing he is immediately using. There's nothing that can fill that void yet.
nothing completely comparable anyways.
Paul Rossi (10:50)
110 pounds is how much this carries. So you're well over the 55 pound, you know, part 107, your standard. This requires your agriculture spray. So there's a software there. It's just, you know, really just really all around.
Samuel (11:09)
Nice controller.
Paul Rossi (11:14)
And then the cost, when you just kind of look at quick numbers, you're around a $25 ,000 price point.
So.
Again, just people speaking out here in North Carolina, trying to talk to these politicians, being able to pair the small drone with the large drone, they work together, it's scalable, it's repetitive, it's consistent. All those things that you're looking for to be successful in business is what they've been using for the last four years.
And there is a, what up, what up, what up? Was that something going on there?
Samuel (12:01)
I was trying to find the right thing and I clicked the wrong one.
Paul Rossi (12:05)
Yeah, yeah. You're good. And just right here, how this individual, this farmer out of North Carolina, Russell, Mr. Hedrick, he kind of adds here what other people have said is American -made drones, if we had American -made drones using American -made parts with American -made software,
that were as affordable and as good as DJI, we wouldn't have an issue with a ban is what this is saying. But right now, they don't exist. And I don't see them existing in the next five to 10 years because we don't have the capacity and technology to keep up.
It's hard to admit that, right? But again, we're in election season. So I think there's just a lot of posturing going on, but very, I'm, I'm, I was excited to see this article come out.
Samuel (13:13)
Especially seeing that, I don't know, the video you showed us with the drone spring, like it just how effective it is. Cause you know, you can think about, yeah, this drone, there's another method, probably a tractor to be able to do it. But this is a fully autonomous drone that you can pop up and good. I don't know, you can, you're technically monitoring it, but still it's, it looks 10 times more effective than what he probably was previously doing.
Paul Rossi (13:37)
Ground. So he talks about ground spraying. Ground spraying is just ineffective when you're doing corn, the height of it, right? The size of a 30 acre soybean field. So then it's an airplane. But then an airplane is so much more costly that you're kind of having to figure out like.
Samuel (13:45)
Hmm.
All right.
Paul Rossi (13:57)
you know, the less acres you have, the more expensive it is, but is the value there. And so if you're having an airplane, you're trying to cover large swaths and put a lot of, of, product on there. So.
And then moving from North Carolina, you know, heading to Florida. It's just funny because it's always a...
Samuel (14:18)
boy. Have you ever heard of local Florida man and then type in your birth year and your birth date and it'll show you a story of what happened in Florida on that day?
Paul Rossi (14:32)
No, but that is.
Samuel (14:32)
Have you heard of that Terry? Is it just me?
Terry Neff (14:35)
I have. I have.
Samuel (14:36)
Okay, cool. Feel validated.
Paul Rossi (14:39)
Because it's, it's always a Florida man and the tags here. It's in so Florida man arrested for shooting down Walmart delivery drone. We've got a drone XL. This is, this is drone up. This was two days ago, 72 year old Florida man.
Samuel (14:42)
It's always the Florida man.
Was this a wing drone?
Terry Neff (14:58)
Drone up, I think.
Samuel (15:00)
Out.
Paul Rossi (15:04)
Got the mug shot up there. Has been arrested for allegedly shooting a Walmart delivery drone out of the sky, causing thousands of dollars in damages. And so the article goes on to say, incident occurred in the Overlook at Lake Lucia neighborhood in Lake County, Florida, two man crew from drone up.
Samuel (15:18)
I guess he didn't like the drone.
Paul Rossi (15:32)
Walmart's drone delivery partner was conducting a proof of concept mock delivery when they heard what sounded like a gunshot. The drone, which was descending from 230 feet to about 75 feet, quickly returned to the nearby Walmart store. The crew inspected it, damaged to the payload system, which
The article says it was about $2 ,500 plus additional business impact due to the aircraft being grounded. Deputies arrested.
when and he allegedly admitted to using a 9mm handgun to shoot the drone.
Samuel (16:21)
So why is it allegedly?
Terry Neff (16:25)
If he admitted, why is it alleged?
Samuel (16:26)
Did I miss a part of the article?
Paul Rossi (16:27)
Well, so he allegedly admitted he allegedly did it, allegedly admitted. And then while waiting, there's there's like a quote here while waiting for a transport vehicle when allegedly yelled out to a neighbor that he was going to jail for shooting a drone. So.
Samuel (16:35)
I might have shot the drone.
Terry Neff (16:39)
I
Samuel (16:53)
So I guess in the court of law that may not.
Paul Rossi (16:55)
If you were getting arrested and your neighbors like what? Yeah, well, if your neighbors like what happened in your like you're being kind of like, I don't know. You're confused. You're like, they're taking me to jail because I shot a drone. And is that a confession? Or is that just you explaining because someone came to your door and is like, well, we're arresting you because we have reason to believe you did this.
Terry Neff (17:13)
you
Paul Rossi (17:25)
and it's allegedly. But it's very interesting.
Samuel (17:27)
Did you I don't know, it was up on the top paragraph? The arrest?
Paul Rossi (17:40)
Yeah, and he had some past experiences. He had some past experiences with drones that he believed were spying on.
Terry Neff (17:41)
What is he doing?
Samuel (17:41)
What a guy.
Terry Neff (17:49)
What is he doing that he thinks he's being spied on? That's my question.
Samuel (17:52)
Yeah.
Paul Rossi (17:53)
It's America. It's America. He can do whatever he wants. Yeah, it's flip.
Samuel (17:55)
It's Florida, Terry. It's specifically Florida.
Terry Neff (18:01)
You would think by now he would have invested in the drone shot shotgun shells. 9mm ain't gonna do it.
Samuel (18:01)
We love Florida.
I was kind of impressed the drone was like hey something's wrong I'm going back to base like I wonder what it said the payload
Terry Neff (18:13)
you
Paul Rossi (18:17)
Yeah, the payload. So I'm not sure if that's like sometimes payload can mean camera, but then because it's delivery drones, you think payload might mean food or the consumer goods inside. Maybe that's the payload. So it's. Wasn't really clear. And then the article.
Samuel (18:18)
Let's see if I can see.
Yeah. I do think that's cool. One of the sensors was like, let's book it. Let's go home. This is not it. You know?
Terry Neff (18:46)
Thank God it didn't go down.
Paul Rossi (18:47)
Shot spotter we were talking about. Remember we were talking about shot spotter I think on another episode and someone was, I don't remember if it was you Terry, like asking if the drone itself like had the technology or if it was something else I was listening to. And someone said maybe like having the sensor on the drone. So it's like.
Samuel (18:48)
Yeah.
Paul Rossi (19:11)
Your drone, if your delivery drone needs shot spotter, then something's going wrong. Like I could understand police using gun detection software, but one wrong area, two in the drone XL article here, it does point out that this incident certainly raises people's...
I don't know about awareness, but like the need for education. Because these operations pop up anywhere like. Traditionally, you move in near the airport, you kind of I think you're supposed to tell people this house is so close to an airport or there's there's like some standards there, whereas with the drone delivery, it's you know, what is the appropriate way to educate? How do you educate? Is it supposed to be like a tick tock campaign that the FAA runs?
Cause how else are you supposed to get people's attention? Especially 72 year old.
Dennis Wynn, right? Like, like, you like putting a door hanger on his, a kid. Yeah. That's a, that's a really good idea. It would probably work. Definitely. I don't know. You might shoot it down, Terry, you know, okay. Anything with wings. I don't know if.
Terry Neff (20:20)
carrier pigeon.
.
Samuel (20:31)
past experiences.
Terry Neff (20:37)
Yeah
Paul Rossi (20:37)
how did they -
Samuel (20:38)
What did out of curiosity, like was this a quadcopter, a fixed wing, a hexcopter? What were they kind of, what are we looking at? Do we know?
Paul Rossi (20:48)
Drone, it's drone up flying for Walmart and I believe they have an, I think they have a quadcopter with stacked motors. I think they're flying, yeah, I think they're flying a Watts innovation.
Terry Neff (20:57)
hahahahah
what I'm seeing on my end.
Samuel (21:08)
And from my understanding, DroneUp will have a wire with the package on the ground and then the drone takes off and it slowly raises the wire with it. Is that still what their operations look like?
Paul Rossi (21:08)
a watch drone or just.
Terry Neff (21:11)
the octocopter.
Paul Rossi (21:12)
Yeah
I think that this system is launched with it attached, but we might see in the video. Yeah, I think it's launched attached.
Samuel (21:25)
Okay.
That's crazy just seeing that the whole package is exposed.
Terry Neff (21:39)
interesting looking hook there.
Paul Rossi (21:41)
industry standards here. Look at this. Like, yeah, you can see how it's stacked motors right here, top and bottom.
Samuel (21:47)
Yeah. Well, it's weird because it looks like there was some PVC piping for a square on the bottom of the landing gear, except there it is, and then it disappears in the next shot, I think. Yeah, where'd it go?
Paul Rossi (22:00)
I think it's a different platform. Come on, Samuel. You know how editing, video editing. You got to look closer. You got to look closer. You'll see the video cuts. Yeah, see? So it's like two different systems.
Samuel (22:05)
I'm trying to educate myself as we're doing this.
Terry Neff (22:07)
you
Paul Rossi (22:23)
Well, one of them took a hit.
Terry Neff (22:26)
And it didn't go down. I mean, that's interesting, I think, that it got shot by a 9mm and it didn't go down. If I got shot by a 9mm, I'm probably going down.
Paul Rossi (22:33)
Nine mil. I wonder what altitude. We see the camera here, so it has a camera, but then here's your payload. Yeah, I mean, you could...
Samuel (22:35)
I just said ouch.
It said in the article the altitude, didn't it?
Terry Neff (22:50)
75 feet I think so probably delivery altitude
Paul Rossi (22:51)
I believe it was descending for a delivery when the person got it.
yeah, but old David went Dennis when this, this I've been, you know, people have been asked, you know, with the background and drone delivery, it's just like, you know, has anyone shot? It's not, it's not if it's just, it was a matter of when, you know, like at what point, so this will go on all, you know, new stations. And then it's not just today that we're going to hear about it. Cause at this point, everything's allegedly, well, if this happened and the evidence is there and they prosecute,
then you become a, it's not allegedly anymore.
I am not a lawyer, nor am I a criminal. Convicted, I don't know what the term is, but the news report changes because then it becomes, the Florida man who shot a drone down in June has been found guilty of this, this, and this, and now is going to be fined.
Samuel (23:38)
Throwing that out there.
Paul Rossi (23:59)
so much dollars or whatever so that's when it will gain even more traction I believe.
And I guess kind of to transition, it kind of makes sense, Terry, like we went from drone to drone and one weapon story to now we're going to talk about the drone as the weapon in Ukraine. So what do we got?
Terry Neff (24:28)
Yeah, drone fights back.
Paul Rossi (24:34)
here that I'm pulling up.
Terry Neff (24:39)
So this is a Ukrainian FPV pilot. I don't exactly know what ace means. I think that means he has like five confirmed no -nos.
Paul Rossi (24:53)
Ace, just like, he's like an ace. Like he's a really good pilot.
Terry Neff (24:58)
Okay, so his name is nicknames Darwin that's his call sign He basically sits in a concrete bunker vapes and Is really good at his job I don't really want to get into it too much because it's kind of disturbing to me and he kind of gets into that but he's
Paul Rossi (25:09)
Ha ha ha.
Yeah.
Terry Neff (25:21)
His mentality is interesting to say the least I would recommend watching the video But you do get a good insight into how these people operate at one point. They found a Russian FPV station. yeah, he's popping that vape left and right man They got caffeine They wake up at 4 a Stay till like 630
Samuel (25:30)
Did he just hit the vape?
hit the vape while he's flying his FPV.
Terry Neff (25:46)
They leave at like 4 a so they can beat the thermal imaging of the Russian drones. So they're harder to spot. It's interesting how drones are landscaping the future of war. This is front line warfare. There used to be trenches, now you got drones flying at you. It's wild.
Paul Rossi (26:05)
And so, yeah, for anyone that's just listening on audio only, not seeing the video, it's like 12 or 13 minute scripts news video where the journalist embedded himself and the team right there with this pilot, Darwin.
and the team and it is really eye -opening. Folks on LinkedIn, YouTube have been seeing these videos of FPV drones being weaponized and flown into tanks and armored vehicles and flown into individual people. You know, warfare technology that
was in video games a decade ago.
and he's 20 years old. Yeah. I say he's 20 years old. He's 20.
Samuel (27:10)
It looked... I just wanted to jump in. Go ahead, Paul. I was just gonna say it's just giving...
Paul Rossi (27:21)
Go ahead, Samuel.
Samuel (27:21)
I have a slow connection, so I apologize about that, but it's just giving Ready Player One militarized with the energy drinks, the goggles, and the vape. And that's all I have to say. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Paul Rossi (27:35)
Yeah. And he's 20 years old, right? So this is just a young, you know, young adult. the country entirely turned upside down years ago. And this is how they've been able to.
defend themselves and maintain a degree of tactical advantage is taking the resources available to them.
Again, this video and the link that we can put into the.
YouTube description here so people can watch it's just really interesting and it shows it adds context to a lot of these videos that have been surfacing on LinkedIn and YouTube where all you're seeing is just the short clip of the of the FPV drone flying into it and when you're seeing this and you're seeing the full picture start to finish Terry mentioned they're getting up at 3 4 a
in order to get into position. And then, you know, they're flying 25, 30, 40, 50 flights in, in a single day and being as covert as possible. And it really shows a lot of, of, you know, how it's not one person doing this. It's one experienced pilot, but then you've got, you know, a navigator, you've got the people.
prepping the aircraft and it's a real military standardized operation.
Terry Neff (29:25)
Yeah, I wasn't aware they use navigators, but he was helping them spot combatives and find where they might be to kind of like telling... He had like his own screen where he could watch what he's seeing and he was trying to help him find the enemy. That's interesting. I think he even had at one point, he had like a pen and he was like kind of marking on what he sees in his FPV goggle, like so he can look in that direction.
Paul Rossi (29:53)
You only have so much time. So you really it's, it's, you know, when you have that location that you know, you're trying to get to you, you, you have minutes, right? With these drones that you're seeing here, you're maximizing the amount you can carry, which reduces your flight time. And so the crazy thing about this is you don't bring the drone back and start over. If you got 30 drones, it's like, it's just like a munitions and a standard fire.
Right? If you shoot and miss the target, you don't get that bullet back. It's spent and it's gone. You can see here, if you're watching video, you've got low battery. So it's going, you know, the drone is not coming back. Whether it gets to that desired location or not, it's...
It's very intriguing and there and you know, it's it certainly is.
graphic. You can see.
Terry Neff (31:09)
It's definitely depressing, I would say. It's coming to the realization that anything can be used for destructive purposes, almost.
Paul Rossi (31:20)
And so the video does go on and it's like, where are you getting these drones? How are these getting made? What is going on? And they sit down with someone in the Ukrainian government and they talk about, Hey, we need a million drones. This is our, this is like, I think it goes back to when you had the American revolution and the European, the British soldiers are coming over with their, with their uniforms on and their
muskets and their standards and their ranks and file and everything was done in a very standard way. And then you had the
You know, the Patriots, the new colonists with their own weapons, not government purchased or funded their own weapons that they used to hunt a year earlier to catch food and feed their families. They were melting down whatever metal they could get their hands on running through, you know, this
jungle warfare, guerrilla warfare, and the British are getting pissed. Like, you guys need to come out and stand in the field and fight us. And it's like, why would we stand in front of you and your cannons and your artillery? And like, we'd be fools. You would just walk through us and they're like, yeah, that's what we came here to do. Stay in your houses, eat your food and walk through the mill. And it's like, no, no, we're going to hide.
We're going to do tactics that people haven't seen before and we'll do anything. So now, you know, the video is really good to see they're, you know, making these drones in their houses. Right. But how long can this go on for? How do you maintain that? Because it's going to kill, you know, 20 year old, 18, 19, 20, 21 to 16 year old. You know, that's not
The way you want to build your country is off nicotine, vape pens, energy drinks, and weapons manufacturing in the kitchen. That's not how you want to raise your families, but it's working.
Samuel (33:36)
future generations coming up to rebuild your country.
Paul Rossi (33:39)
But when the other option is.
Samuel (33:40)
Is that what you meant, Terry, by depressing?
Terry Neff (33:42)
a little bit.
Paul Rossi (33:43)
But when the other option is to just completely lose your country altogether, you're like, hey, well, this might be it. This is what the next step looks like for us. And I would add that it is, we touched on a little, it's like, you know, there's a lot of funding coming into this. These aren't the most expensive drones, but they're not free. You know, who's getting a cut? How is the government just making a million drones all of a sudden?
You know, who's compensating that person who's now not working their job, but is making five drones a week. That's not a lot. I mean, it's, it's more than they were making before, but it's not.
It's a...
It's a very interesting situation going on.
And over here, you know, we don't have to worry about FPV, weaponized FPV drones yet, but space debris, space debris. What are we looking at here? June 25th, four days ago.
Samuel (34:36)
Yeah.
Paul Rossi (34:49)
What do we got? NASA confirms space debris in North Carolina was from SpaceX crew Dragon reentry. What is going on in North Carolina?
Terry Neff (35:01)
It's always North Carolina, man.
Samuel (35:03)
Where the state that's popping off? It's probably, I don't know, I feel like it's also the algorithm that identifies where we are. It's like, let me feed them North Carolinian news, but.
Paul Rossi (35:15)
that makes sense. That could make sense. Canton, North Carolina.
Terry Neff (35:20)
I was trying to find that.
Paul Rossi (35:20)
The Glamping Collective Resort. Yeah, space debris found on a walking trail at the Glamping Collective Resort in Canton, North Carolina, now confirmed to be from the re -entry of a part of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.
Samuel (35:21)
We're looking at a -
some beautiful mountains in the distance with some space debris in the foreground of the photo we're looking at. It looks like a door almost or a hatch, but I can't imagine that's what it is.
Paul Rossi (35:48)
Bye.
It looks fuzzy.
Terry Neff (35:54)
Yeah, it does look very fuzzy. It's the installation.
Samuel (35:54)
It got fuzzed up coming in.
Paul Rossi (35:55)
We meant for that to happen. We were testing out failure. I like it. That's dead.
Terry Neff (36:03)
There's always some weird stuff happening in Nashville, man.
Paul Rossi (36:05)
Yeah, that's definitely. Yeah, I was saying.
Samuel (36:06)
The Asheville. Well, I want to know how many people saw that and thought of the UFO.
Paul Rossi (36:12)
And just went nuts, just like got in their car and just kept driving. They were still driving today. That's definitely North Carolina though. When you look at that, how green and those, those hills, that blue sky, that Carolina blue sky, little Duke blue over here.
Samuel (36:13)
I mean, I guess, yeah.
Terry Neff (36:24)
My grandpa lives there, man. He probably seen it. Just re -entering.
Samuel (36:28)
Hmm.
And I guess if anything, that's the place for Deland is a very secluded, like I know it's not the most secluded, but it's better than a populated city or the suburbs. Like this is a mountain range.
Terry Neff (36:43)
Yeah, it's best at Lanes in the Mountains.
Paul Rossi (36:44)
Well, it always comes back to that flight path. Like it's not just for drones. When you do a drone's flight path, you're looking at, you know, how do we plan this route that's going to mitigate the risk to people and property on the ground? And the same thing is how, when they're launching these rockets, they're really bringing things back in for re -entry and decommission of satellites.
What's the path that we can bring this in on that is going to have the least risk to people on the ground?
Terry Neff (37:20)
well didn't they say that it completely burned up by the time it hit the ground? I mean that's a pretty big piece of hardware you got there. I don't know if they did their math right on that.
Paul Rossi (37:32)
about the size of a standard car hood.
Samuel (37:33)
That seems like various.
Paul Rossi (37:37)
covered in carbon fiber weave. That fuzzy weave.
Terry Neff (37:38)
carbon fiber.
Paul Rossi (37:47)
And then several smaller pieces were found in residence yards.
Samuel (37:55)
I wonder what type of insurance you need for that. Like, if you're a homeowner and space debris hits your house.
Terry Neff (37:55)
Don't they, when they like re - have re -
Hopefully you just sue whoever did it, I guess. That's your insurance. They kind of have to pay you at that point.
Samuel (38:06)
I don't know if that's how that works.
Paul Rossi (38:10)
The trunk. The reentry of Dragon spacecraft trunk hardware to NASA.
part of the trunk or service module.
Terry Neff (38:25)
It's like where they keep the satellites that they bring into orbit.
Paul Rossi (38:27)
Well, when you bring them back, so like the decommissioned, so not only do we take stuff to space, but we also have a need to return things from space and not everything that we return has to be pressurized. It's exactly like an airplane. You know how the bags get loaded into the bottom of the plane? Well, they're not.
pressurizing the baggage compartment the way they're pressurizing the cabin because a human being needs, this is such an interesting piece, a human being needs a certain amount of pressurization to survive. So when a spacecraft comes back to Earth, they're actually now at the point where the spacecraft, the vehicles are so large they have
pressurized return space. So the humans, the astronauts, they're in a pressurized portion of the vehicle coming back. And they also have a trunk like in your car, you know, your trunk, it doesn't have air conditioning. You definitely couldn't put a part. You could, you could put a person in your trunk, but if you drive, you know, through certain heat, don't, don't put anybody in your trunk, please. This is not
You know, we don't, we're not advocating for the use of the trunk. but it'd be very uncomfortable, right? So, so coming back in that trunk space of the, of a spacecraft means it's an unpressurized, it's kind of like a storage space garbage. You know, there, there's some things and, and sometimes you do release these items during reentry, because it's going to burn up.
So it's like you empty the trunk upon reentry.
just
Terry Neff (40:26)
Going down the highway, open up your trunk, let all the trash fly out.
Paul Rossi (40:29)
Yeah, just make sure you don't have any like junk mail with your name and address on it.
Samuel (40:34)
It's something to be jettisoned essentially, right?
Terry Neff (40:35)
you
Paul Rossi (40:38)
Yes, it's a great way.
So yeah, but that's cool. And then like North Carolina, someone's going to take, they're going to be all pissed about it and then take it and sell it to a museum or something.
Terry Neff (40:50)
Also, they said that there was more debris that came up in Saudi Arabia, right? Is that the other place they mentioned?
Paul Rossi (40:59)
I saw, yeah, and I need, I should, ⁓
The path, I know, went through Saudi Arabia.
person posted like a flight profile.
Terry Neff (41:09)
Most recently, the trunks that supported SpaceX's 30th Commercial Services resupply in Crew -7 missions re -entered over Saudi Arabia and North Carolina, respectively. Yeah.
Paul Rossi (41:20)
Jonathan McDowell.
The re -entry path went over Asheville, so you can see this line.
Samuel (41:30)
right over Asheville.
Paul Rossi (41:36)
canton ashfield and then right over canton which is where this
Terry Neff (41:38)
Mm -hmm.
I used to live on that line.
Paul Rossi (41:46)
There you go.
Could have been you.
Terry Neff (41:53)
Could have been me. I had a hot air balloon land in my yard one time when I was there. Just weird stuff happens in Nashville, so.
Paul Rossi (41:58)
Just a hot air balloon just checking in.
Samuel (42:01)
on your toes.
Terry Neff (42:01)
Yep, yep. They apologized. We were like, all right, you can leave now. They took it with them.
Samuel (42:08)
gonna go on.
Paul Rossi (42:09)
Packed it up.
Samuel (42:11)
Seen stranger things though, right?
Paul Rossi (42:11)
What?
Terry Neff (42:12)
you
Paul Rossi (42:13)
Now,
Now we've got some,
Fourth of July coming up, what is usually associated with Fourth of July?
Terry Neff (42:26)
I work.
Samuel (42:26)
Fireworks. Fireworks. No, no, no fireworks? I think of fireworks.
Paul Rossi (42:26)
No, Terry. No, Samuel. This is not the firework part of the show. Yes, fireworks. 100 % we think of fireworks. But now, just like us for the last eight weeks, almost two months, drone light shows coming up constantly.
Samuel (42:35)
Now.
Terry Neff (42:37)
to drones with fireworks.
Paul Rossi (42:55)
So what do we got here, Samuel?
Samuel (42:55)
I think it's funny because the algorithm had me prior to the podcast. I was still getting those before we started the podcast. So it just keeps on coming, I guess.
Paul Rossi (43:07)
And so what do we got here? Where do people need to travel this this holiday?
Samuel (43:12)
I think this is a special shout out to all of our Colorado listeners, which probably right now not any, but in the future when you look back on this, you had Denver's largest ever drone show planned for July the 3rd of 2024. It's going to be down at the Civic Center Conservancy. Planning for the largest ever drone show in Denver. Celebrate Independence Day running from 5 to 10 PM.
I would love to be there. I don't think I'm going to be able to make that though. Featuring over 300 drones at Lincoln Veterans Memorial Park. Sorry, go ahead Paul.
Paul Rossi (43:52)
Dude, July 3rd you could do a fly in and out. Fly in.
Samuel (43:56)
just go, weeeeww, and come right back.
Paul Rossi (44:00)
Yeah, you fly in it like noon, get the first flight out and then I don't know, maybe there's like catch the catch the red on
Samuel (44:06)
I can only imagine the crowds though, like the air traffic.
Terry Neff (44:07)
been $700.
Samuel (44:12)
Yeah, they're red eye, I guess.
Paul Rossi (44:14)
Yeah, you can catch the red eye home.
Samuel (44:17)
Well, I'll think about it. I think I'm going to need to compile a road trip list for each episode we do, because I think the last episode we did the Redwoods, right? Was that last episode? Talked about going there too.
Paul Rossi (44:18)
No hotel, you just pack some snacks.
Yes. Yes. There are also plans for two different light shows that will illuminate the park's iconic structures. Hmm. Hmm. Interesting. Emerging young DJs.
In addition to the drone,
Samuel (45:03)
As a former citizen of Colorado, how does this, do you feel like this will be well accepted or?
Paul Rossi (45:14)
I do. Yeah. No, it makes me want to jump on a plane for a day trip and they're launching a night market that evening with different food options. How about that? And there's going to be a family zone. Hmm. Bring the family.
Samuel (45:33)
Something for everyone to do it seems.
Paul Rossi (45:37)
Yes. Yeah, that's really cool. I mean, what the heck's going on in Raleigh? What's going on in Fayetteville? Even better question. What's going on in Fayetteville? I think I'm going to...
Samuel (45:51)
We gotta get down to Festival Park and pitch them a drone show and show them that we can do it and let them know that, hey, what do you guys want? Do you want a giant American flag over Fayetteville? Because I think that'd be kind of cool. Like a drone light show American flag or even what was that drone light show we saw with the fireworks on it? It was an eagle that was on fire almost or it was shooting the sparks. Do you remember that one? That one was kind of sick.
Paul Rossi (46:21)
Yeah, that was the Texas one, the sky elements, I think.
Samuel (46:26)
You just gotta show them what is possible. And it's honestly though, I still think we're kinda at that point where this is very, very new to people. Like people don't know what a Durham Light Show is until they see it, you know? Or they see it on TikTok or Instagram, but they don't have, sorry, go ahead.
Paul Rossi (46:27)
Yeah.
still, still.
Terry Neff (46:43)
I mean.
Paul Rossi (46:45)
I say just fireworks. I'm looking up in Raleigh, you know, Dix Park, big ol'
Samuel (46:50)
I see a lot of drone people at Dix Park.
Paul Rossi (46:52)
Yeah, well they're just doing fireworks. They're doing...
Samuel (46:53)
I don't know if you've gotten the chance to head there.
Paul Rossi (46:56)
no, I've been there. Yeah. I'm just saying on 4th of July, they're just on Tuesday, July 4th at 6 PM. They're just doing like 40 food trucks and they'll have fireworks at nine o 'clock. No drones. What is not allowed? Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you, I'll tell you the only place there's drones. Dorothea Dix on 4th of July, cause I'm going to bring it up. The only place there's drones is on the
Samuel (47:11)
Not this time.
Terry Neff (47:12)
I mean
Paul Rossi (47:22)
Not allowed list. What is not allowed? Drones. Leave your pets at home. Leave your drones at home. Keep your drug use off property. We don't want your smoking or your vaping. We don't need your weapons. So we don't need, we don't need any, what was his name? The equalizer. Darwin.
Terry Neff (47:25)
you
Samuel (47:39)
vapes.
Dennis, I think? No, I think... Well, we don't want Dennis shooting the drones and we don't want Darwin using drones.
Terry Neff (47:49)
Darwin.
Paul Rossi (47:51)
survival of the fittest. It was.
Terry Neff (47:54)
No, survival of the most adaptable.
Paul Rossi (47:57)
It's going to be a great event. Fourth of July events across the country are going to be great. No, Dennis isn't allowed at any of them. Him and his guns. Can't bring his guns. Darwin can't be there with his weaponized drones. And his excessive vaping.
Samuel (48:01)
Killer combo.
Terry Neff (48:02)
They banned Darwin.
Paul Rossi (48:22)
Goodness, goodness.
Terry Neff (48:23)
Sounds like a terrible event, man. You can't have alcohol, nicotine, drugs, drones. You can't have any of that. Can't even have your own fireworks.
Paul Rossi (48:29)
North Carolina.
Samuel (48:29)
Terry said he's out, he's not going now.
Paul Rossi (48:33)
Yeah, North Carolina farmer can't bring his drone, no spraying, no spraying the the the groups can grow. Well, that's Raleigh and then I don't know, I didn't even look up there's got to be something right at.
Terry Neff (48:37)
Hehehehe
I can't even grill.
Paul Rossi (48:53)
at in Fayetteville.
Samuel (48:54)
What is it? I got to hold on. I feel very un -American not knowing what day the fourth is this year. That's Wednesday, Thursday?
Terry Neff (48:55)
I feel like Charlotte's gonna be the...
Paul Rossi (49:01)
Tuesday Tuesday to Tuesday No Thursday. I don't know why it said Tuesday Thursday Tuesday Thursday same thing Apex downtown apex is doing something
Samuel (49:03)
That's no, no, Paul. That's Thursday.
Thursday? my goodness.
Terry Neff (49:10)
July 3rd? It's Wednesday. July 3rd.
Paul Rossi (49:18)
A parade. They're doing a parade. No nighttime activities.
Samuel (49:22)
Wonder what that entails in Night Market.
Terry Neff (49:25)
lights hung over the street lamps like it's just nothing fancy words for food trucks that are illuminated
Paul Rossi (49:27)
That is crazy.
But, Fayetteville.
Well, you'd wonder, I wonder if, I wonder if AirVision is doing like a, like a drone, you think, you think a drone light show company would find a way to do something like.
Terry Neff (49:38)
I guarantee there's nothing on Fayetteville.
Samuel (49:47)
I've heard this very special event going on. One of the biggest events for Americans throughout the year.
Paul Rossi (49:54)
Yeah, like you'd find someone who would be willing to pay for a show.
Samuel (49:58)
Right.
Paul Rossi (49:58)
Fourth of July Fayetteville. Say again?
Terry Neff (49:59)
I think Utah has one going I think Utah has a drone show as well. Let's see. Found an article.
Paul Rossi (50:06)
John McBride, big ol' Utah.
Fayetteville residents, fireworks can be tough on veterans and your pets. They've like lumped pets and veterans into the, that's something you don't see often.
Samuel (50:18)
I don't know, how do your guys' dogs do with the fourth?
Paul Rossi (50:22)
Hate him.
Dogs hate them. The Cannapolis Cannonballers. So the Fayetteville Woodpeckers play the Cannapolis Cannonballers on July 3rd for a fireworks celebration. Night. Yeah, Sacred Stadium. And then there's some orchestra on July 4th at Festival Park. Not seeing anything about drones. Anyhow.
Terry Neff (50:24)
mine does alright, I think.
be sure to be there.
Paul Rossi (50:44)
yeah, Denver, get out to Denver if you can on July 3rd, 300 drones. Well, it's nowhere near the Guinness book of world records. I think we shared that like on episode three, it was like 5 ,300. It was like 5 ,300 drones or 5 ,273. They'll have 300 out there. still epic. We saw a hundred Samuel and I. Yeah, we saw two, we saw a hundred.
Samuel (51:05)
can still do a good amount with 300.
Paul Rossi (51:11)
Salmon and I did and that was pretty epic. So two or three times, you know 200 more I think would be it's a significant jump It's like going from 50 to 100 100 to 300 Really cool stuff there, but everybody
celebrating, you know, happily and safely. Just a couple things here to kind of end on a regulatory side. We're looking at June 21st. So a little over a week ago, this had come out. We hadn't touched on it. A lot of people just in the past week that I talked to had been, you know, I'd tell...
Robotics even came out with like a statement basically saying, Hey, you know, just, just wanted to remind everyone that this, this legislation is a ban on DJI and we're not DJI. We're a tell, you know, we're the orange drone company. We're the, the dragon fish company. And that was awesome. It was like, okay, cool. You know, it's there's options there's, there's, and then what I've recently seen via this.
is again, just the momentum in the direction of putting Autel in the same category as DJI. So the Department of Commerce actually placed Autel on its blacklist, which prohibits American companies from doing business with Autel. So it doesn't mean Autel can't sell drones in the US. It just means that
A US company is not allowed to do business with Autel directly. So still, I don't fully entirely understand that. I know the product like DJI is still available, but this is just another one of those steps to...
prevent the use and purchase of drones manufactured in China. Dragonfish drone, that's kind of like where Autel's recently separated themselves from DJI and others in the industry is not their quad copters, but they've been producing this fixed wing aircraft. It flies for 90 minutes, takes off vertically and then flies like an airplane. It's got 18 kilometer range, really from a ISR.
standpoint, surveillance, recon, inspection, long distance, this thing is a beast.
I don't know if you guys have any thoughts on the, the Autel here, familiar with Autel. And then also just to kind of piggyback off that recent article in dronelife .com by Miriam that came out a few days ago was on Adam Brey, the CEO of Skydio testifying to the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. So they brought a bunch of folks.
in from the semiconductor space, shipbuilding space, drone industry, and kind of had them sit down and testify about where the American industry is at. And the biggest point I wanted to just kind of make from all this is that, you know,
Since 2014, Skydio has supplied over $40 ,000 drones to more than 2 ,000 enterprise and government customers. So in a decade, 40 ,000 drones, 4 ,000 drones a year, right?
These global companies like DJI, they made 40 ,000 of one drone in the first batch.
in three months.
Samuel (55:22)
You can see how he's highlighting the issue here.
Paul Rossi (55:27)
And so that's where we get back to that onesie, the thing that we talked about last week or the week before, like the onesies and twosies. Like that sounds like a lot to a politician that doesn't, that doesn't have the whole context. Like, you're 40 ,000. Well, how many people were employed? How many, you know, it's, it's such a small drop when we
when we even think automotive, you know, think automotive, think of how Tesla went from selling no cars to selling millions of cars in a couple of years, not a decade, a couple of years, they were manufacturing millions of cars. It's insane.
But we're certainly still in the middle of all of this regulatory, not even regulatory, just political volleying back and forth. Yes, increasing role of small drones on the battlefield. So then this whole thing gets into drones are being used in Ukraine. They're essential and they're required.
That's the one point I didn't make is when you step back and look, you're like, where are all those batteries made? Where are those frames from? Where that, that, that, you know, young woman who's building those drones in Ukraine, she's making five a week. Where is she getting all her components from?
China, the country that is supportive of Russia, who they're fighting. This world is crazy. It's a crazy world.
Terry Neff (57:09)
There's money to be made, there's money to be made.
Paul Rossi (57:12)
And so you've got a company that's made 40 ,000 drones in a decade and has sold them to the government is now, you know, speaking of the importance of, you know, weaponized drones and ISR drones, dual use drones. And it's like, yeah, but what about the folks over here that are just trying to do commercial real estate, spray crops? You don't have a solution for them.
So we need to step back and we need to really rethink what we're doing here with a ban on DJI drones and step back and look at that phased approach that has come up multiple times from politicians to industry manufacturers to end users to everybody. It's this common theme that it's kind of like, you know, if someone's doing something bad and it's become very significant part and they're dependent on it.
What does that sound like? Drug use. when someone's become dependent on a drug, you step back and you go, well, what are the options here to help this person? Cold turkey, we're just going to rip it out of their hand and just force them to stop. Are we going to substitute what they're using, one bad thing for another, right? Or are we going to wean them off?
you know, a little bit at a time and have this like, you know, phased approach. It's, some things work in some cases and in others, and when you're looking at it from that drug use, like human beings in general are different. Everyone's situation is different. So that kind of comparison probably isn't the best. When you're looking at the country as a whole, I think it's a lot, you know,
making an objective decision is a little more straightforward as far as, you know, if this is a security issue and we're really putting our own lives, then we need to just ban it. We need to cut the cancer out. You know, if this is cancer and it's going to kill us, we need to cut it off at whatever cost. But if this is more of a...
we're trying to be self -sufficient in the long term, then we need to do it slowly and do it phased and do it in a way that's not going to destroy the whole market. Yeah, we don't want to implode.
Terry Neff (59:40)
system.
Paul Rossi (59:44)
So.
Thoughts there? If not, it was a great episode. Covered some really neat stuff.
Samuel (59:49)
had Dennis and Darwin in the podcast this week. Pretty awesome. Learned a lot. That was...
Terry Neff (59:50)
Nothing for me, unfortunately.
Paul Rossi (59:53)
Dennis... Darwin's...
SpaceX.
Samuel (59:57)
Follow up next week with some Drone Light shows and CCP ban again probably, yeah. Reoccurring topics.
Terry Neff (59:58)
We'll get to talk about the...
I feel like we're gonna, we'll be talking about that for a while.
Paul Rossi (1:00:10)
Yeah, until November 6th.
Samuel (1:00:11)
ever evolving story.
Paul Rossi (1:00:13)
Yeah, all the way through election cycle, the Chinese drone stuff will be a huge topic of conversation.
Eventually Samuel's going to be coming into an episode talking about how, well, I just got 10 of these light show drones and I'm starting a company. And so instead of telling us the news from around the country and world, we'll be getting the news right from the operator's mouth.
Terry Neff (1:00:30)
you
Samuel (1:00:40)
whole... there you go, there you go.
Paul Rossi (1:00:43)
But yeah, it was awesome. Good episode. We started in North Carolina talking about Mr. Hedrick, you know, soybean, a record holding soybean and coin, corn farmer based here in North Carolina, kind of speaking up about the value DJI's ag spray drones have provided to him in the community and how, you know, it's time for, you know, these senators and
the politicians to just kind of listen and hear what's really going on. Talked about the Florida man. It wasn't a matter of if, but when someone was going to shoot at a delivery drone. So it's happened. So we'll have more to come on that as that case unfolds. I'm sure some articles will be popping up in DroneLife. It'll be intriguing to see how that ends. Additionally, talked about the integration of drones into the front lines, the Ukrainian war.
how this technology is just completely shifting things and what that has the ability to do and how that can change people and an economy. The SpaceX debris circled back here to North Carolina. That was neat, really intriguing. More spacecraft are going to be up there.
how that shapes up and changes the future of launches and recoveries of space vehicles will be neat. Denver, if you're free on July 3rd and you got a couple of airline miles, maybe hop on out to Denver for a day trip and catch a light show. Definitely check the weather first. I'm sure high winds and rain will definitely keep those drones grounded. So maybe get that trip insurance.
And finally, we talked about Autel being blacklisted and developments on the countering and the Chinese Communist Party drones and how are we going to establish a US drone manufacturing base. And hopefully it happens. And I think if things are done appropriately and the right approach is taken, then...
the drone industry will continue to grow in a positive direction as it has. We appreciate everybody tuning in for this week's episode of Weekly Wings by DroneLife .com. As always, if you have any questions or comments, you can leave those at the YouTube channel or you can always email miriam at dronelife .com, paulrossi at 910 drones. Thank you everyone for your time and attention.
And thank you, Samuel and Terry, for being here with us.
Samuel (1:03:33)
Fly safe and happy fourth.
