UAS News Podcast — 2013-01-01
Transcript
Alright, welcome to the next installment of the UAS News Podcast series where we usually interview subject matter experts and discuss the news relevant to the global unmanned technologies community. I'm your program host Patrick Egan and I want to say hello and welcome to our co-host Gene Robinson. Hello and happy new year out there. And our other co-host Gary Mortimer.
Today and hello from the future. I'm a couple of hours ahead of you and it very nearly is New Year with me. That's right, live from South Africa. This week's episode, number 33 is 2012, the year in UAS.
As always, there's a surplus of material to go over here, so let's keep the show on the road. Usually we do the show live, but getting folks on from overseas makes for some interesting audio. And so we wanted to have Gary on. We got, for the first time, we got executive editor of the SUAS News, Gary Mortimer.
And Gary, before you give folks a bio, let me just say that I reference you on the podcast often. And you're the guy that lives in a hut in the Zulu kingdom. And I usually tell people you're a Spear's throw from Rorke's Drift. You'd have to be a fairly good Olympic standard.
It's about, Rorke's Drift's about 45 miles from here. About 45. You'd be a good spear chucker. Well, you know, if you've been eating your Wheaties and taking vitamins and whatnot, it's a possibility.
Maybe. Well, anyway, why don't you give us the real story, a little bio about yourself and what you're doing. Well, a bio about me, it's not a lot to tell, really. I got into this whole crazy shebang a few years ago when I was working in a game lodge up in Kenya.
And a friend of mine needed to take pictures of some lions. And the lions tended to be on the other side of the river, which is great. But the bridges were about 20 miles north and south of us to get across the river. A little bit less than that.
I'm exaggerating a little bit there. But it's quite a long way. So we just thought, well, how on earth did we get a picture from the other side of the river?
And so I flew model airplanes. It was like, come on, it's got to be easy. We just put a camera on a plane. And then when you start putting a camera on a plane, you think, well, there's got to be another way of keeping it all level and stuff.
And that was back in 2006, 2007, when all this sort of started happening. And I've just had a really great nerdy interest in it all ever since. And it came a time a few years ago when collecting all the news stories together seemed like a good idea. And that was, as you guys know, that was the birth of SUS News.
So that's me. That's who I am. For a living up there, I was flying hot air balloons, taking people for rides over the animals and the Masai Mara over the migration and all that sort of thing. And I also did a little bit of helicopter and glider flying.
So that's me. Very simple. Hey, just a side question on hot air ballooning. How high above the ground were you usually take these people to see the animals?
Just out of curiosity. Oh, well, in that particular place, pull up a sandbag, this is going to be boring. You'd start the flight at about a foot, but and that would get people very, very, if you ever go and fly in the Mara from Governor's Camp and you think, why on earth is this dude flying me a foot off the ground for the first 20 minutes?
The reason for that is it takes you into a flow of wind that goes down the river. And then you get down into the river and then you're staying in and out of the trees. So anywhere between 50 feet and 5,000 feet basically from then on in. And you have a wonderful ride down the river and see the stuff that's there.
So it's a nice way of seeing the ground. So you're actually pretty close to the wildlife then?
Yeah. Yeah, very close. So get very used to it. Very used to it indeed.
Interesting. Interesting. All right. Well, the other thing I want to talk about, because a lot of people have been reading the web page and we'll get more into that as the test progresses, but I'd like to, you know, as the executive editor of the SUS News website and whatever, you know, it's expanding.
I'd like you to, if possible, give the listeners an overview of your editorial ethos, if possible. Well, sort of the wheat from the chaff, isn't it?
I mean, all three of us and everybody, we all are very aware of stories that come out where people claim stuff for systems and, you know, all sorts of, it's a snake oil filled market and people are up for being fleeced at the moment. So the bottom line is, it's twofold. It's to try and get the correct story out and put other stuff out there for people to think about and comments on. We engage people across multiple platforms, many of the social, well, all of the social media sites and we get comments and feedback from that as well and that's great.
It's by, I suppose the ethos, to sum it up, it's buyer beware, I think, at the moment. Well, I like that and I do think that one thing that I really like about the participation in the SUS news and what we're doing is it's very inclusive. You know, people come all the time and say, hey, can I contribute this or people may contribute anonymously, but I think it really gives the community a voice. I think this last year we've certainly seen a shift towards people bringing us stories and stories that other people won't put out there for whatever reason.
The bottom is we don't have a super big agenda. I suppose we suffer from being very enthusiastic about subject. That could be a fault, but at the same time we don't have to hand it to any big corporations or say the right thing at the right time. We can just do it.
Well, there's a little idealism. Gene, would you like to add something in there?
Sure. I think it's real important for us to get outside the military industrial complex and portray what we see is going on in the UAS world. And I think that SUAS news has done a very good job of that. We not only report on the military industrial complex, but we also report on what a lot of the up and coming entrepreneurs are doing.
I hope that we have many more stories to report of that ilk because I think that's where most of the innovation is going to be. And I hope that that continues. So I think it's very important that we continue down the same path as Gary said. It's up to us to separate the wheat from the chaff.
I concur. And we all get caught in that. But I'm also thinking that I'd like to do more investigative journalism. And I think that that's going to happen as we get more funding and whatnot because I think that there's none of that out there.
And we're probably only outlet for that. But I don't want to get too far into that right now. I want to talk about some of the news items and impressions. And for me, one of the big news items is at the end of the world did not happen.
Well, I'll tell you in a couple of hours because my calendar stops tomorrow as well. So it could be tomorrow, couldn't it?
It could be. But you'll have to call me and forewarn me. Yeah, there you go. A few hours ahead.
Yeah. Okay, so segment one here, I want to talk about the overall impressions of 2012. And we kind of glossed over that broad brush with the ethos thing. But let's talk about your impressions of 2012.
And Gary, we'll let you go first. Well, I'm glad that I've not been disappointed by the FAA again, because every year about all this time, we get some pronouncement that something's going to happen at Christmas time, and then it never happens. So that's really cool because we've had that again. So I look forward next year to whatever is not going to happen.
So obviously, that's a great shame. The test sites thing, that's a madness for me that that's not moved forward. Obviously, you've got nowhere in America where nobody lives and nothing happens. So you can't go and set that up.
I don't know. Look, I'm in South Africa now. I spend a lot of time in the UK as well. And I've seen the introduction of a lot of civil aviation authorities done there.
And it's just, you just can't, there's no comparison. It's just, I don't understand it. For an outsider, I just don't understand you people. Why can't you do it?
Well, you know, Gary, you know, we've been kind of wondering the same thing. We sit over here, we want to work with these people. I'm being facetious. I'm going to let Gene speak to a little bit of that.
Gene, do you have any feelings? Do you really want me to start?
I don't think we have enough time on this broadcast to get it all in. But yeah, I think, you know, it's the overarching factor here is that almost, or just about everyone in the FAA management comes from a man background. And I think there's a bias there, to be quite honest with you. And quit laughing, you know, I'm trying to be serious about this.
Oh, you're killing me over here. See, I thought I was going to, you know, save all this cynicism for the last here, but you're beating me to the punch. This is my impression. Now, you know that I did get the opportunity to meet with some FAA officials and speak with them.
And it hasn't turned out exactly as indicated, which is as Gary animated, is not nothing new at this point. But yeah, as far as I'm concerned, that it's gone past the FAA now, we're now into the lawmakers, the congresspeople and stuff like that. And we're visiting things that have been visited back in 2005. You know, the privacy issue, all that stuff has now come back to roost yet again.
And it has taken the forefront as the reason why various agencies are unable to use unmanned aircraft. And it's a load of hockey, as far as I'm concerned. But, you know, there you have it. Indeed.
Well, yeah, I'm sorry if I dragged the conversation down this route, really. I didn't mean to, but it definitely, so you're bringing it back around to what's happened in the earth. There's been some great stories. And it's been some, what blows my mind is just how the technology is coming together.
The, yes, I agree, getting cheaper, you know, it's, you can see it's a perfect storm of technology getting to be the right capability at the right price and right now. And you can see it happening. And this year, it's sharpening and sharpening and sharpening what stuff can do for very little money. It's quite extraordinary.
It really is. It is. And, you know, I want to flash back to the FAA thing, you know, it is pretty funny, but, you know, if nothing else, we have to thank them because I know it's given me purpose for the last eight years and I'll probably have eight more years of purpose. Well, otherwise, they'd have to let you out into the community and that would be a bad thing.
Well, you know, and exactly, you know, you're a loose cannon, you know, I am a loose cannon. I know that I'm, you know, a lot of people find what I have to say and write, kind of interesting. Well, yeah, it could be prickly, but, you know, that's that. And I think maybe this is a nice time to talk about one of the new features I want to do on the podcast next year.
All right. You play ball?
We play ball. I know you want the goodie. Welcome to the goodie room. Maybe, and I wanted to touch on this later, but, you know, you got BPs doing some stuff up there in the Arctic with, and I think it's an Aaron scout, which is a hundred thousand dollar system.
Do you think that's all? Yeah, it's a quiet, but I mean, do you think that's all altruism up there?
Is this another shell game where Shell was up there looking for places to drill, but saying they were counting walruses or are you taking this one at face value? Anybody want to jump in here?
I certainly don't. That's, you know, but of course the cynic is coming out of me yet once again, but again, it's a matter of what you know or who you know, not what you know. And I think that these people are in the right position to be able to get that done. And we've always said, Patrick, you know, follow the paper trail, follow the money.
And BP obviously has a lot of money and energy is obviously a very important issue for us. So under those auspices, it's very easy to see how certain concessions would be made. And suddenly they're okay to fly the pipeline, which is quite surprising to me since it is still considered part of the NAS. And whether they have a COA or not, there's got to be some money being paid somewhere, somehow.
It doesn't happen for free. Even a university doesn't do it for free. They get grants or some sort of funding that will help defray the costs, if you will. And those costs pay investigators, researchers, grad students, you name it.
So to me, it sounds a little commercial. Yeah, well, it does to me too. But I think what we'll do, you know, and maybe one show a quarter or as it rears its double standard head, I think we're going to, you know, I want to do more investigative journalism and talk about these. It is kind of funny.
I did notice that at AUVSI, some of the, let's say, vocal opponents or detractors of the FAA had changed their story such that I thought the body snatchers had got them. But as time rolls on, it's kind of funny, these people that were vocal opponents all of a sudden have gotten, you know, oh, hey, we're doing this thing with BP up here in Alaska, you know. Coincidence?
I don't know. Patrick, I think it's important. Go ahead, Gary. No, no, I'll keep hearing.
I think it's important for us to differentiate that we're not opposed to the FAA. I mean, we're willing to work with them as much as possible. And we want to do that. We have tried to do that since 2007, when this first came out.
We've gone through several iterations, personnel changes, and so on and so forth. But we really want to work with them to work out a solution to this very sticky problem. And I don't want to... I'll give you a sort of, to my mind, a sort of a difference between the CAA and the FAA.
I was lucky enough to attend Farnborough, I think, in 2010. And I flew a very simple flying wing in front of 75,000 people at Farnborough. And it was done and dusted. But the difference is the man, the previous man had been part of setting it all up at the CAA.
He wasn't part of the CAA anymore. But he just displayed a spitfire, leapt out and came across and looked at it. Oh, gee whiz, what's all this?
Was very excited about it all, you know. And it's... I think what you need in your big organization is people that are genuine aviation nuts, not bureaucrats. And I think from the outside, that's what's holding you guys up.
You haven't got aviators, you know, real enthusiastic aviators in there. It just blows my mind. Well, there is that. But, you know, and I think the thing was me, I like to highlight, so I don't think you're going to get anything done doing a secret process, doing a closed-door process, doing backroom deals and giving people special dispensation.
And that double standard, I don't like. So, you know, if you have enough money and you have some political clout, you get to do what everyone else can't get to do, which is really an un-American ideal in my mind. So that's the thing I want to highlight. I mean, again, you know, I don't...
I do want to see people in the NAS. God bless them for making money. The thing is, is I don't like double standards where people are doing commercial operations in the NAS. Meanwhile, if you're a mom-and-pop shop, you can't afford the lobbyists, you can't afford the advocacy groups going to bat for you, and you just languish in the backwaters.
I think that that is one of the big problems why we don't have common-sense regulation. It's because the people that are really driving this thing are getting special dispensation and they're able to make money. You know, am I wrong or, you know, is that... should that be a sticking point?
I think it's a huge sticking point, glaring sticking point for me, and I think it needs to be highlighted. Everyone else is afraid to talk about it. I'm not afraid to talk about it. I got nothing left to lose, you know, except, well, that's not true.
They did even try and, you know, make it hard for me to do anything that I'm doing, but whatever. I got to keep talking about it. It's just not right. I agree with that, Patrick, and it's...
I think we've all experienced some of that, especially since we've become so intimately familiar with the ins and outs and the workings of the agencies that are involved. Yeah, it's kind of a bad deal. But anyway, let's move on from that. Be looking for that for some more investigative journalism over the year.
I think that ought to be interesting. People all the time are like, well, you know, ask questions about it and then I think we can bring some light to it. But I want to talk about some of the bigger stories of 2012. And we've had a whole bunch of them.
I know we just had a couple picked up by major news outlets. And Gary, maybe you can kind of speak to that first. What's your biggest overreaching unmanned aircraft story of 2012?
Well, the biggest one we had was the chap who sent in the... It was the river of blood story and where the chap sent in some images of a stream next to a meat processing plant that was pumping, quite simply, pumping blood into the water. And they recently have received some indictments for that. I'm not sure myself, though, whether that's...
It was a fantastic use of a very, very simple and very simple system indeed to get those images. I think it speaks more to the fact that there wasn't any pollution monitoring downstream. That's what I can't believe. You can get away with pumping blood into a river and nobody picked it up.
You shouldn't need to... Of course, we all love UAS, but you shouldn't need a UAS to find that out. So that was the biggest one. The LEGO one was the very nice...
The LEGO Roger Cogsill was a very, very nice little fun story that's done very well as well indeed. Both those stories have gone over 80,000 years, I think, now. Yeah. And I do believe that it shows another positive use of what you can do with unmanned aircraft and protecting the environment.
And I think we brought that up before. And the LEGO story illustrates how simple it is to copy this technology together, put it together. And Gene, didn't you have something to add with the pig blood story?
Yeah, I was involved with that one fairly early on when it happened. It happened in my home state of Texas. So there you go. I'll admit to that.
It was up Northways, but I was approached very early on because the individual was quite worried about repercussions. And I kind of walked him through the things, the scenarios that could or couldn't happen. And I think it kind of emboldened him and he moved forward with it. And I'm very glad that he did.
And we see the result of it, the indictments, and several of the family that run the meatpacking company have resigned. And there's no telling what's going to happen to that meatpacking plant. But I would imagine that it will continue on and probably operate under a little bit more stringent output parameters. But again, and it was just, it was coincidental.
The guy was out actually just testing an airframe. He wasn't even really trying to do anything. He was just trying to get some shots, popped into a field and got it. But that's the beauty of a small unmanned aircraft.
You can pop into a field like that and you can do the imaging very quickly and very small footprint, very low noise footprint. You can do some good work with it and be done and out. And no one has been threatened and no one has had a significant increase in the danger quotient as that was going on. And I think- I've just remembered, sorry to interrupt you, I've just remembered another story.
The falling down juice has helped me remember it. Didn't you rescue a llama this year?
When you involved in a dramatic llama rescue? As a matter of fact, we did attend a disaster fair with our search and rescue rig. And the one lady that contacted us, the only thing she could remember is that we did searches and she lost her llama in the cedar break. And I can't believe I'm telling this story, but I'll go ahead since you started it, I'll finish it up.
And we actually went out and flew the area in question. And I said, there's no way we're going to find this llama. Myron, my old business partner was with me flying at the time. And as I left to go home and he was at his house, he called me up and said, you're not going to believe this.
He says, I found the llama. And I turned around and it was, we flew twice. We flew exactly two flights and took maybe 50 or 60 photos. And if you've ever looked at the hill country cedar landscape, it looks like a bunch of chopped broccoli on a table.
And right there in the middle of the chopped broccoli was this white llama. And we went out and actually made the recovery and the pregnant llama was back in the pen the next day. And we actually got credit for two saves because she was pregnant. May should take that show to Tibet.
That's another story, isn't it? Yeah, it is another story. But I think this is a good opportunity. And that's a good, that is another good story right there.
But that's another good use. You're saving livestock, whatever else. But I think it's a good time to interject too, that people, if you have a story or if you catch something odd, submit it. I always encourage people, contribute to the SUAS news.
You're contributing to the community. Be a part of the community. If you have something, submit it. That's what we're here for.
And these stories like these, I mean, you may laugh at the llama story, but it's productive and it's an application that makes sense. And so maybe by that example, other people will contribute to stuff that they've done. And we want you to be safe though. It takes a skill set as well.
Don't forget, it takes a skill set as well. Everyone thinks it's quite easy just to pitch up, chuck a wing in the air, take some photos, come home just in time for T and medals. But it's not quite that simple. It's not quite that simple.
No, it's not. It takes a skill set. And planning and yeah, there's a lot to it. And that's, you know, you should read Gene's book.
How's the book going by the way there, Gene? You know, it's been well received. And there's been a couple of universities that have decided that they wanted to use it for their capstone course material for a search and rescue curriculum, which I fully intend to support. And I look forward to doing that in 2013.
I hope that's one of the things that I get to see in the new year is that it does actually become a curriculum. And, you know, we actually did, we used the book here not too long ago with a training session that was held here in Texas by International Rescue III, who is a large search and rescue organization that is worldwide. And they brought in people from eight different countries. And I actually did the training for search and rescue using unmanned aircraft for them.
And they were all very excited about it. So I think that you're going to see a lot more people in the SAR industry, especially, are going to be demanding the use of this tool because it's just so effective. And I think that's one of the positive uses that I think, Patrick, you mentioned that on your slide, I think a while back that it was a Pew poll where John Q. Public was asked what would be acceptable uses that over 80% of the people said that search and rescue was acceptable.
Was that correct? Yeah, the disconnect is definitely spying on people in their yards doing whatever they're doing. The search and rescue thing is very popular. Agriculture, people have no problem with that.
Border Patrol, people have no problem with that. It's just for some reason they have a Orwellian thing that, you know, you're going to have a quadcopter watching you shave. I don't really think that's going to happen, but people are concerned about that. But, you know, one other note I want to talk about that exercise that you were talking about was one of the podcasts where, and I think we called it Search and Rescue, or Exercise or something.
But anyway, that podcast got like 20,000 downloads. Plus. And, you know, so that would indicate to me that there is a big interest in this technology for search and rescue. That one was a big one, and I don't want to jump the gun on that.
But, obviously, 20 plus thousand downloads, there's a little bit of interest there. No, the podcast has been a fantastic success. When you guys said you wanted to start doing it, I thought, well, that's good. Patrick can pretend someone's listening to him when he's doing that.
It'll keep him out of harm's way for a while, having no idea that people would actually listen. Quite substantial numbers. So, well done, guys. I sit here and listen and punch the air with some of the questions you ask.
Sometimes you hit the nail on the head, and it's gone really very, very well. I'm very impressed. I am too. And, you know, I wanted to talk more about that in the end there.
But as far as the, you know, the big technology stories for this year, you know, you kind of alluded to that earlier, Gary, about how things are getting cheaper and everything else. And for myself, I mean, some of these crowd-based projects that, you know, that home-built radar that MIT was doing for 350 bucks. And you had the can tennas with the coffee cans. I was like, man, that's amazing.
Sign me up. I want that. And then I like the, I guess, that open source thermal imager for the cell phone. Yes.
That's a pretty good one. I like that one. I think Moore's Law is going to be firmly in effect from this point forward on unmanned aircraft. I mean, we're going to see a doubling of capabilities every few months.
It'll probably happen a lot sooner than the 18 months that, you know, Moore's Law says. But it definitely is ramping up. I keep trying to define UAS time, you know, what year are we at?
Where are we? Are we in the 20s?
Has the First World War happened? Has aviation just started?
Is it the First World War? We're in the 20s. I think we're moving, I think we're getting into the 40s now. And it's only going to accelerate away, you know, or maybe it's about 1990 in computer speak.
Who knows? Right. Well, yeah, it's hard to gauge. I mean, when you see what people are doing and the miniaturization of things and what can be carried by, you know, a Lego quadcopter, you know, the sky's the limit on that one.
And really the sky is the limit over here, you know, because we're not really leading the way. It is very limited. The other thing, it was a big news story, but well, I don't know, I kind of found it weird as I found a copy of the May 14th issue of the New Yorker magazine at the Busy Bee Laundry Mat in Alamogordo. That's the issue that I was in.
And I don't know what is weirder, that the coincidence, the coincidence itself, or that someone in Alamogordo takes the New Yorker. And the jury's still out on that one. We'll see. But I was surprised.
It was a big story. Didn't we?
We had mad, mad mentions this year. CNN, the BBC, all sorts of places. And back to that neat pollution story, I don't know, I think people were going to come and find me and beat me up if I didn't tell them who it was. But we didn't.
But my word, people were after who it was. I tell you, it was quite the thing. But yeah, we've been mentioned right across, all around the world, all sorts of places, which is just, it's fantastic. It really is.
Oh yeah. And we're getting a lot of traction. I mean, even last year I did Huffington Post twice. I did the New Yorker, New York Times, Fact Check.
I mean, now when the New Yorker is going to do an unmanned aircraft story, they call me up, hey, you know, could you fact check this? I think next time I'm going to ask for a subscription. Where are you going?
It's like, I don't even get to read the stories. I don't take the New Yorker. Maybe I should. And also fact checked for a story that's coming out in the March National Geographic.
So people are definitely gravitating to the site, which I want to get into too. But actually, maybe we could just, you know, segue right into that. So people are listening and checking out the SUS news. People contact me all the time.
They call me, hey, I want to do this. What's going on with this?
And I think that does segue into the next thing. And I want to talk about the overarching, the news. I don't even know what to call the brand here, but I've been looking at the numbers myself, Gary, and I got to say we are killing it. And what do you attribute that to, Gary?
Well, I think we have been, well, we've been putting all the stories we can find out there, and plus adding some original content as well. And we're engaged. If someone asks me a question, or you a question, or Gene a question, we will come back to them and give them a response. And we'll do it from a level and measured sort of perspective, not just, you know, buy this from me.
This will make it work, whatever it is. I think that's quite important. I think because we've been in a lot of the sort of communities and forums online, we've attracted quite a, I was just just before I came, I sat down, I was looking at the age groups. And it's interesting, there's another fairly large American outlet that operates that you all know.
And their demographics speaks to people in the 55 to 64 year old age bracket. And that's what all sort of web people tell me. And the bulk of our audience is between 25 and 44. And the way I mean, that blows my mind a bit, because it means I'm not in it anymore.
But I'm not the bulk of our audience. So we need younger people. But the thing is, those 25 to 35 year olds, let's say regulations take 10 years to happen over there in the state, they're going to be in the industry. The bulk of other places that you might get their stuff from are going to be retired.
So we're speaking to the right people at the right time. I concur, Gene. Inside. I totally agree with that.
One of the things that I think we do well is that we just do get the facts as much as we can and try to put them out there as unbiased as we can. And I think that's important. I mean, it's neither good nor bad. It is what it is.
And I think Gary has done a fantastic job with keeping the format of SUAS News clean and readable. You can select the stories that you want to go read very quickly and easily. I think the format has worked out extremely well. Even though I had some little misgivings when it first started, I thought it was a little busy.
But now I've gotten used to it. And it's very intuitive to me to be able to scan through and pick the stories out that I want to see. And it doesn't make any difference whether it's the military industrial complex or whether it's innovation or technology. There's always a good byline up there and a picture that tells the story very quickly.
And I've got to say kudos to Gary as far as putting that together and getting that out. Yeah, and I know it's a big job. I mean, I look at some of the statistics out there. And I don't think people really realize how many registered websites, domain names there are worldwide.
There's something like 225 million registered domain names. And when you look at our numbers and where we're at, I looked at them the other day. I was pretty impressed. And some people may say, well, you still got a long ways to go.
But this is kind of a niche industry. And the other thing with that is we beat both of our closest competitors combined. I mean, that's how on fire we are. I didn't even realize that until just even recently how we were killing it.
I mean, we're just knocking them dead. I can't even close my mind. I think you can attribute that though to, let's look at our audience, so that are 25 to 44. They're the people that know how to use the technology.
We reach out across all the social media means. We reach about 10,000 people a day by various things. But that age group are the people that know how to use this stuff. They get their news.
It's the way they work. They're working, they're playing. They're looking at the same device. So I think that's really helped our figures.
And it's also good that the others haven't noticed that. And I've just given it away down. I don't think it's that. I mean, I do think that 10,000 people a day is pretty impressive.
But I don't think it's only that. I do think that the other thing across the brand, and I've said this for a while, and even people from other, let's say marketing and whatever else really like, is that the people that contribute and the principals with the SUS News brand have done all this stuff before. We've done commercial. We've done military.
We're doing military. We're doing civil. We've done most of this stuff. So when you come here, you're going to get that kind of, let's say, filter, that acumen filter that people know what this technology can do, or is that snake oil, or yeah, they can do that, but we did this too.
And you can add to that and use this, blah, blah, blah. So what you're getting is the kind of the wheat from the chaff again. It's distilled down. You don't have to waste all your time looking and reading through things.
Here it is right here. It's been filtered for you, and this is what's relevant. And there's nobody that can touch it. It's totally a filter.
And I talked to other people about the podcast, and again, it's totally blown me away how popular it is. Again, I did think it was something we'd have 500 downloads a week and mildly popular or something, but we've hit 165,000 mark. Impressive. That's very impressive.
Those are engaged people. They're engaged people. They made a 10 megabyte download. Well, thank you.
Whoever's listening now, you've just made a 10 megabyte download, so you're engaged. And people say they really like the on-demand part of it. Most of the people I talk to listen to it on air right home from work. So that's great.
We're on track to hit a quarter of a million downloads. We should have that on the scoreboard by the year anniversary. It's a very distinct possibility. And if that happens, well, we're going to have to have a party or something.
I bet it happens before the year anniversary. I bet it happens before because so many devices were purchased and went out over Christmas that it's just ridiculous. And I think you're going to see an upswing. I hope so.
Well, thanks for mentioning that, Gene, because remember, guys, if you click the top right hand corner at the front page of SES News under the little reveal there, that's a link through to the tablet and smartphone version of SES News. Completely free. There's another thing we haven't mentioned. You're never going to get SES News behind a paywall.
It's always going to be completely free. We're not going to charge you to find out what's going on out there. But yeah, Gene's right. Tablets galore this Christmas.
And it's another great way of reading it. I'm very pleased with the way that one's going. Yeah, that's good too. And the other thing is these advertisers are starting to take notice.
We have more people coming on board. I will say the feedback from people that have advertised with us, they cannot believe how many views they've gotten or how many click-throughs or impressions. So it's all on the upswing. We're definitely hitting the right chords with the community.
The podcast thing to me, I do think it takes a lot of time and people probably notice I don't really write as many stories as I used to, but it's hard to just sit down and peck out a story. And it's also hard to kind of put together a podcast. You have to find guests and everything else. And we do have some good guests, hopefully lined up for next year.
I've talked to some people and then possibly people have been talking about we need to get a couple of people on here and we're going to see if we can do that. I think it is something that people want to hear, obviously. I think that NASA show, the RFA science show, has almost 27,000 downloads on its own. Mind-boggling to me.
And the live shows, don't forget the live shows we're going to try to do. Of course, we're going to do the live show with Eugene. That was another big show. The RPA, the one that you mentioned where you did the SAR exercise, that was over 20,000 downloads and you get that wonderful audio from the satellite phone from White Sands.
I'll be back there next year. I'll also be in Alabama working on some projects. So we'll be doing some more live stuff from the field, which seems to be very popular. But I think that the one thing I want to say about that, though, is when you think that you get 26,000 downloads, that's 26,000 man hours or women hours, I don't know who's listening, of people that are listening to these shows.
And it's like, are there even that many people in this community worldwide? Are they interested?
They may not actually be in the community, but there are that many people interested. And it may not be the UA pilot. It may be a lawmaker. It may be a municipality, someone, a city planner.
It could be all those folks that are listening in to try to get a little bit more information on how they can effectively use the tool. I would agree with that. It's just, you know, talking about that, I did invite Mr. Williams on from the FAA, the new head of the UASIO, and I had to go through the public relations channels and they declined.
So surprised. I know. Well, they were kind of thinking it was a little peanut wiffle, but when I was telling them, we regularly get, you know, five, 10, 15, 20,000 downloads. You could hear the crickets chirping on the other end of the phone.
But I said, you know, it'd be an excellent opportunity for the FAA to come on and kind of tell their side of the story. Because that's another thing, is I think, you know, I know, you know, you're going to beat up on them here, but, you know, they're not really that forthcoming with the information or their, let's say, the high points that they hit. And this is a perfect opportunity to come on, talk about it. You know, we're very respectful to the guests.
I mean, I don't, you know, I don't believe in having guests on the show and then start attacking them. I don't really think that that's good radio. So, you know, I invited them. They didn't come on.
I did submit some questions for an end of the year piece. It doesn't look like it's going to happen because they're out on vacation until after the first. I also was writing a story and maybe we'll have to wait until next holiday season about Santa Claus, Hanukkah Harry and Kwanzaa Bot and their efforts to fly around in the nest. But I didn't finish that either.
I got caught up with end of the world and whatnot. Anyway, I think that, you know, that is something, and maybe it's a little horn tooting. I know there's a little with the brand, but with the numbers with the website and the numbers with the podcast, I'm definitely taking it back. And we're finishing out on getting on for a million and a half page views, which is for a little thing from a grass in Africa is not too bad.
Well, no, but I do definitely think it has a worldwide appeal. And I don't think that, you know, other people can really hit that. I've talked to other groups that do, let's say, forecasts that sell reports that sell some other items. And, you know, they would talk to me and said, well, you know, wow, we really wanted to do a podcast.
And, you know, and I said, well, you know, we're doing, I tell them the numbers and they're just smoked, blown away. And they're like, wow, you know, you're only doing that on small and manned aircraft. And I think that, you know, people have a misconception. It's like, well, first off the bat, when our version of the small and small unmanned aircraft is the European version of 150 kilos and under, which is actually sizable aircraft.
And I think that, you know, personally, I believe that 90 to 95% of the future of this industry is going to be that under that 150 kilos. I'll put money on it being under 10 kilos. I'm with Gary on that one. I'd agree.
I think 90 will probably be under that, you know, percent. But so I think people need to think of that. And then the other thing is, is that we can also speak to, if you look at some of the shows that we did on the podcast, we talked about driverless cars, we talked about engineering, we've talked about some other ancillary type of systems, we've talked about technology, we've talked about education. So we can speak to all of these different, you know, subjects that are kind of also contained in say, the unmanned space robotics, and they all kind of go together.
I really think that the space thing, there's a lot of opportunity for unmanned in space, got a lot of big issues to overcome, one of them being radiation. It's a long time out there to get to Mars and being radiated. And, you know, so all of these kind of come together. And it's the same with the web page, you know, I mean, again, you know, we talked about some of those stories with the cantennas and the radars and the IR and all the rest of that stuff.
You know, all of those, I think, feed into the bubble, you know, it's kind of a holistic thing here, the aircraft, here are some of the payloads they can carry, here are some of the applications. And I think that is what makes the brand popular myself. Comments, Gary?
Yeah, I think so. And you guys, everybody's in here, the FM and knowledge, you know, you are getting it from people that have done it. That's the difference. No one's ever going to be involved with SES News that hasn't flown a system like I will not let that happen.
It just makes sense. You know what you're talking about then. But there's a great hunger for information about unmanned aircraft. There's an awful lot of ball dust out there.
And there's great hunger for the more accurate knowledge, I think. Many, many, you know, look, there's 130 licensed entities in the UK flying commercially now. There's 130 businesses interested in what's happening in the industry straight away. And some are numbers in France and the rest of Europe.
Some of you guys have nothing flying over there because, of course, nobody would dare do it. Well, that's not... I got another video in my mailbox today from some guys doing an aerial tour of Las Vegas. And it was on Vimeo.
And then, you know, you play the one video and you watch it. And there was probably another 350 videos up there of the same type of thing, of different areas. So, you know, there are a lot of people doing it. Unfortunately, it's in the closet and the FAA denies it and all the rest of that.
But that's a whole other story. I do say that there's a lot of interest. There's a lot of people that are in this. That is another appeal, I think, of this group is we are still out in the field doing this.
I mean, I'm doing the future warfare projects with the Army. Gene's out there doing some of that NIST work and the searches. And Gary, I know you're still out there tinkering. Are you not?
Yeah, I've got an animal tracking project on the go at the moment. And that's pretty cool. But I can't say too much about it. But there we are.
That's kind of what it is. That's one of the deals over here. I mean, you can't really talk about any of this stuff. Right.
Right. It's all generality. So, you know, but we are part of it. We're on the cutting edge of it.
And we're doing it. And there's nobody else that's got that. There's nobody that's got that history. And there's nobody that's got the ongoing application as we do.
And it's spare time to put all this out there for people to read, which is light on spare time. You know, the other thing, we're going to be out there. Again, we're going to offer some shows from the road and some live broadcasts. And some of them from Sandy and exotic locales and others may not be so Sandy and exotic.
And that ought to be interesting. And I would definitely tell people to stay tuned for that. I'll also be speaking at UAS West in San Diego this March. And I'll be probably talking about that a little bit more if anyone wants to come out and say hi.
And I think I'm going to be talking more about opportunities and the SUS news as an outlet for people to understand those opportunities. Because I think that there's a, there are a lot of people that are interested in this kind of like, you know, Gene alluded to, and I don't even think they know which way to turn to get started. So, you know, that's what we're here for. But, and so, you know, one thing I wanted to kind of close, you know, the today's program with maybe someone wants to take a crack at the crystal ball for 2013.
Gary. Gary I think 32 bit processes for all. I think cameras, I think cameras and collision detection will, computer vision will become quite a big thing I think in the next year. Already detect sense and avoid.
We've seen, we've seen the guys having it working in Europe and it works very, very well using cameras. So that'll come to the party. And the last year I said the X8 was going to rule the world and then Gene proved that it didn't as well. So I think we're at a point where autopilots are getting clever and that stuff's getting ahead.
And airframes, perhaps, perhaps this year needs to be a little bit of a year for airframes to catch up on the smaller side. I'd take care of that, Gene. Along the lines of what Gary said with the cameras, I'm going to go a little bit further into the technical side of it and talk about the sensors. I think you're going to see more and more people paying attention to payload.
Two reasons. One, they don't have to worry about flying anything. That's up to somebody else. And two, there is a huge demand for miniaturization of sensors that we need very badly in the unmanned aircraft industry.
So I think you're going to see a lot of folks like the Texas Instruments, the chip manufacturers and stuff like that are going to be working with other firms to produce some really, really great sensors for us to use in smaller and smaller unmanned aircraft. I'd concur with that. And I think that kind of proves that point is if you look at some of the advertisers on the site, you know, sensors, sensors, sensors, sensors. And I think the competition is going to only get a little bit better, bigger.
I think more people will produce and I think that's going to be good for the community. Let's look at some, sorry, Patrick, just a sensor sort of example or that sort of thing. Look what we put up yesterday about Easter Island and the work done there with a flying wing using JP software from DroneMapper. They've got 15 centimeter resolution images.
Now imagine us talking about this five years ago. That would have been, how on earth are we going to do that?
And there you go, you can chuck a wing, domestic camera on board, 15 centimeter imagery, it's simple, you know, amazing, really amazing. Well, here's my prediction for 2013. The FAA is going to give me clearance to map Never Neverland. Are you okay?
That's about all we... You know where that is, that's in Scotland. Anyway, that's another story. Well, you know, I'll probably get some of the authority to fly there, you know, for the whole thing.
I'll talk to my friends over there at ATF. I got some. I think besides that, I agree with both of you guys. I think there's lots of room for airframes.
I think that the quadcopters are extremely popular. And then I wanted to flash back on that too. I totally got taken by the Iranians, Gary, your Photoshop story. And Gene kind of called me on that.
He's like, I don't know. You know, they had some technical information in there about flying and heat and whatever else. And of course the air density. And I was like, well, you know, sounds like they're nailing it here.
Gene's like, I don't know. And then the next thing Gary throws up a story, oh, you know, I've seen this before. Well, I had. I thought, I've not seen that before.
I don't know where. And the only thing that's throwing me was the lack of windmills. Well, good eye on that one. You know, my hat's off to you.
I'm like, damn it. You know, he caught that one. So, you know, but that's kind of what you get here, you know, and shows that we're on the ball and checking it out. And things are definitely, that's why people are coming here.
That's why we're popular. Well, you know, I think we've pretty much covered 2012, but I don't know. Is there anything that I missed, Gary?
Anything you missed? Well, no, it was a year of consolidation for the industry. I think definitely also pilots, as we've said, have got better. I tell you what we've missed.
We've missed the open source autopilot getting funding in a big way. 3DR, Chris Anderson, I mean, they've got the potential of being game changers. If you were making autopilots for the military in the small world, you might be worrying. They've only got to start testing those things and getting them up to mil-spec and they're away. I don't know.
What do you guys think about that? Go ahead, Gene. I don't know that that's going to be their market. Open source, I have a real bias against open source when it comes to doing anything of any special or very specific nature.
Proprietary software is encoding and stuff like that are going to be necessary to really monetize it. That's the only way it can happen, to be quite honest with you. We've discovered that Airframes is probably not where it's going to be at because the Chinese are copying them like mad and they're going to be out here. Patrick has already predicted the sub-$1,000 unmanned aircraft and it's there.
I don't know. That's going to be a tough one to call. Well, you're hitting on another thing. That's another guest I'm going to have on.
I've got a buddy of mine that works at Intel here. His thing is security. Security with networks, security with software. I want to have him on the podcast and we're going to talk about that because even the military now is starting to pick up this.
They love the COTS thing, although I don't think that they really understood that perfectly. Oh, the cloud. We're all moving to the cloud and oh, it's open source. You really may want to rethink that.
The only problem I have with the open source thing is somebody could put a line of malicious code in there. What are the vetting processes?
There are vetting processes for using open source code, but then that kind of, let's say, takes away the advantage of the open source code, which is basically it's free and people are making it. If you go back and you cross the T's, dot the I's and vet the software, it takes a lot of time. They definitely have to version it, but maybe you need to get Chris Anderson on here and find out. I didn't mean that they go for the military market, but I think certainly in the civil market, if you at least make your autopilot the same spec, then you'd feel a little bit happier with it.
It was quite a big news story. Also, the other one was the Roomba people. I forgot the name of the lady. They came out with their tethered hovering platform, didn't they?
They've got a lot of money behind them. I'm sorry, I've forgotten the names now, but that was another quite a big story, I think. That was big. A lot of people are going the tethered routine.
I don't know if they'll get a lot of traction or not with that. Any open source thing, I'm not beating it up. You have to think, the United States is a very litigious, let's say, society. If you're a municipality and you don't vet that code and you use it, you could stand to get sued.
I think that it's going to be very hard to certify that for a flight and whatever else. Now, if you're doing it for the amateur thing, that's fine. I think that's great. I've talked to other people who are like, yeah, I'm going to use it and I'm going to have some smart kids write some code and I'm going to put it in my unmanned aircraft system that I'm offering to police departments or fire departments.
Okay, sounds good. I think that was, again, I want to beat the drum, but the product liability part of the Driverless Cars podcast, you want to go back and listen to because as soon as you start making stuff that you're selling for use by municipalities or commercial and it crashes, you're going to be looking for people to sue. The manned model is more of a deal where usually the pilot dies in the crash and they go, oh, it's a pilot error. It's going to be harder to pull off with unmanned aircraft.
So just something to think about for potential manufacturers, but that's kind of the stuff that you get here, things to think about. But I do think that we're still upward and onward. I still think that the sub four pound people, there's a real market there. It's too bad we didn't get that into the HR 658 about having that frangible with the community based standards.
It's unfortunate. I wrote up some good language for that, but unfortunately, people from the community would not support that. And it's too bad because I think just as you were saying, 90% of it will be under 10 pounds. I think if there was something like that based on community based standards, we had the four pounds frangible under 25 miles an hour, you would see 80% of the market gravitate right towards that.
I think unfortunately, I think one thing that's happened while all that shenanigans is going on was the rise, I'm going to get blamed and shot down for saying this, but the rise of first person view has put a lot of videos in front of regulators that in 2007 didn't exist, 2005, 2006, 2007. And they've changed their mind on stuff. And I think the community shot itself in the foot to a large degree right at the time that they shouldn't have done flying in places they shouldn't be and look how high, how fast, how far I can go.
And I don't think that's helped at all. Sorry, I threw a bit of a curve ball in there, but just my thought. I agree with that. There has been instance after instance where it was a wrong turn got shot in the foot.
And that's because there's, you know, the one thing over here is the way our political system works. So there hasn't been a concerted like say effort kind of like the space commercial space people did where they all kind of, they knew they were competitors, but they all kind of came into that same circus tent. And it's paying off in spades now. We have never had that.
Basically, what we have is you have the DOD vendors, they've got the money, you got everybody carrying the water for them. They're trying to, I mean, even now, the thing that's cracked me up, and maybe Gene, you can speak to this is, you know, we say, oh, okay, well, we got to get the small stuff first. We got to crack the door open. We got to get her foot in the door.
We got to start somewhere. We got to do this. And it is always almost secondary with the smalls because they're always talking about the big sense and avoid this. And how are we going to get these big aircraft going to fly here?
And here's the commercial case for Global Hawk. And here's the, you know, Gene. Concur totally have seen that trend start from the very beginning. And again, you have to follow the money.
You know, the predator at $12 million a copy is obviously going to carry more clout than, you know, a $10,000 small UA. But it's been a situation where this community, you know, has just like crawled all over themselves to shoot themselves in the foot. Sure. I mean, it's because of the rise of the small RPA.
And as Gary alluded to, the RPV, our first person view, the FPV view has just exploded. And it's certainly contributed. There is no two ways about it. It contributed to what lawmakers and people who are actually influencing the way the UA industry goes, how they think.
And unfortunately, there have been a few pretty bad ones and they've flown in areas where they shouldn't have flown and had something gone wrong. It could have been horribly, horribly wrong for us. Right. So, and I think people realize that.
I think the people that are in the industry know that. And if you have any intentions of continuing in the industry, you would probably safeguard against that. The other folks are doing it out there as a hobby. Don't really care.
Just kind of go for the big wow picture or the big wow video and boom, there you have it. I would concur with that. But I also think that, you know, most of the, let's say standards money and the work and everything else keeps focusing on the big aircraft. And, you know, when people start talking about collision problems or issues with that and sensitive void and all the rest of these and integration issues.
Yeah. When you have an aircraft that's as big as the 737, wingspan wise, you have, let's say, something that you really have to concern yourself with. Again, you know, you get down to something that's made of wooden foam and it's under four pounds and rangeable, it's going to balance off of that. And then you have to balance off.
And if we started there, we'd already be capturing the data and yada, yada, yada. I think that the American public is looking at the industry as a DOD, you know, terminator drone industry that has these congresspeople on the payroll. And, you know, all of this was brought to the people, attention of the people who were running the show or carrying the water for the DOD and whatever else. They just weren't interested in hearing it.
They're still not interested in hearing it. And they're still not. I can remember in the UK when the CAA just sent out a little letter and said, what would you like to do?
And we all submitted our responses and they collated them. They said, well, all right, this is how we'll start then. That's how complicated the process was. You know, but, you know, Dodson, Mr.
Dodson and Mr. Whitaker were definitely, they were pragmatic guys and they were approachable people. You know, I met them at, I want to say that was either UAS 2009 or 2008. And they were approachable.
You could go to them, you could talk to them. I was showing them stuff on my computer. I said, hey, this is kind of what people are, oh, you know, this is interesting. Well, what do you think about this?
And what do you think about that? Okay, well, okay. And they came away from that. They weren't, you know, let's say cocky or they weren't, you know, this guy's crazy or, well, you know, that makes sense.
He's got this little aircraft and kind of wants to do something small. Great. You know, you can start off, we will give you a little bit of rope and you can go and start and do something, which is a totally pragmatic approach. I think a lot of the, let's say, government people in Europe are definitely more approachable, more down to earth.
And you can talk to them. You can have a conversation about what they're doing. And the funny one other thing, you know, the FAA, we're leading the way, they just laugh. They think it's absurd, but we'll see.
Maybe they have something in their bag of tricks for us in 2013. We'll see the, what other mandate, are you going to slap up there on the Mismatic this year, Gary?
Is there anything? Yeah, I got so bored changing the dates on that that I took that down. And in the end, it's just got so far. I had to go back up again, but I can remember there was a time when we were changing it every couple of weeks because there was some, some or other reason.
So to the layman from the outside that really can't understand you guys, even though you seem to speak roughly the same language, what's the deal with 2015? What's really going to happen then?
Gene, do you want to, do you want to give a swing at that one? Well, 2015 at the rate they're going could be another big miss. You know, we've, we've heard everything since 2007, everything from six months to 12 months tops to 2010. Here we are five years, six years later, and we still have nothing conclusive.
Nothing really is moving toward resolution to this, this problem at the moment. The COA process that was in place back then is still in process now and in place now. And it's, it's not gotten significantly better from what I understand, although there are some people who can get COAs quite easily. Again, that's not what you know, but who you know.
So, you know, it's 2015. I just, I'm not holding my breath because we've heard already heard mentioned 2017. Yeah, I would, here's, here's my prediction for 2015 because people are like, oh, any day with the S-FAR, any day with the S-FAR 107 for the small UAS recommendations, which is the arc that I was on. And this is another deal, you know, those recommendations were published on April 1st of 2009.
And I don't know if they have April Fool's Day over there in Africa, Gary, but you know, it's, it's contemptible. I got a picture somewhere. I threw that. I went over to the bird or the pet store and threw it in the bottom of a bird cage and snapped a picture of it.
And even the guy that owned the store was laughing because, you know, here it is. It's two, that was 2009. We're 2012. I think if we're lucky, if we're lucky, you see some leadership over there at the FAA.
You see someone grow some stones and decide that they're going to get this thing rolling. 2015, you may see the S-FAR for small unmanned aircraft. That's what I think. I think the, the COA thing is smoking mirrors. You know, we can, we could even do a whole other show on, you know, the, the expedited thing.
They got, they picked 85 people over there to come and fly, over there at Fort Sill, right? In Oklahoma, Gene?
Well, that's, they haven't gone through the selection process yet that has been made public, but we do know a couple of the DOD larger contractors have been flying since before Christmas. Yeah. I think I read something somewhere not too long ago here, actually. Maybe even today or last night where they talked about, they got about 85 folks picked out.
Now let me ask you, did, were you invited? As a matter of fact, I was probably one of the first submitters of white papers and spoke with some folks up there at the DHS and they haven't given me my invitation yet. Really?
Cause they did not mention in this story that there was about 85 people that have been picked. It's going to expedite things for the COA process, you know?
And I don't even know if anybody really knew the expedite thing for the COA process was. And maybe it was you that brought that to life. Moved to Alaska, wasn't it?
Moved to Alaska. That was the expedite, wasn't it?
Or either that or, you know, up there within, you can do the in situ thing or there's a couple other places where you're able to fly. But it's a drop down menu and the aircraft will already be in there. So like say you want to fly that, the trash can, it'll have, it has the parameters in there, the flight parameters, the glide path if the engine quits, things like that. So you don't have to fill that into your paperwork.
That's already there for you. You just click on it and that's part of the COA expedite that they've got together. To me, it's contemptible. I don't know if people read the cake eater story that I wrote for the webpage, but, you know, I mean, I don't know who they're fooling.
I mean, that's just contempt for Congress. And if Congress sits back and takes that, I guess, you know, that's what they're doing these days. If I was Congressman, man, I'd be like, we need some accountability down there or you got to go. I don't think that, and as people that read that story, I put in a letter that I cc'd to the acting administrators, you know, if that guy ever comes up for confirmation as administrator of the FAA, then we got to go total grassroots
and write to every congressperson and senator in this country and tell them why that man should not be confirmed as administrator for the FAA.
And one of them is contempt. You know?
Wow. Heavy stuff. Now, if you rub your balls hard there, Patrick, what about the NPRN, National Public Rulemaking?
How do your balls see that? Well, like I said, I don't think that that's going to happen. That's probably what will roll out in 2015, if we get lucky. We'll see the small UAS regs.
That's what I think. Now, you got to understand the process, too. The FAA says that they are done with that particular part of it, and they have it is out of their office. It is now with the NTSB, the National Transportation Safety Board, and they need to go through their process now.
It's out of their hands. Yeah, but the problem that I have with this is, okay, so you have that they've made the recommendations or whatever. Again, this is like a public rulemaking process. Probably about, last time I checked, 10 people had seen that within, like, say, the FAA and whatnot.
And, you know, we don't even know what's in there, so what, are they going to fight it out or go through something that totally doesn't make any sense? I will tell you that on the small Unmanned Aircraft Systems arc, and I want to do a reunion show this year, there were very, very few people that had any unmanned aircraft experience on that arc. It was Ted McGeer, and it was myself. There was Fred Marks from FMA Direct, and you had Rich Hansen from the AMA and whatever else.
But, boy, the people that were really moving and shaking there and making the rules and talking about what we were going to do, AOPA, ALPA, you know, the big dogs in the group. So, even what's going to come out in that, I wasn't, I think it's a killer myself. It's an industry killer. And so, to me, to see, you know, oh, now the NTSB's got a hold of it, and they don't, they probably have unqualified people in there looking at it, and they don't know what we're going to do.
They're not bringing anybody in. Nobody's talking about this. There's no daylight on the subject, and there's no telling what type of sausage we're going to get at the end of the day. So, when you get to that point at the end of the day, when it comes up, I believe, is it for 90 days of comments, something like that?
Can people, I'm not knowing the American system, can people make a difference when a rule is made in the comment period? You can. You can, you, as a citizen, you have the right to comment. That's part of it being published in the National Registry.
But, you know, and here's the rub for me is, okay, you're a citizen, taxpayer guy, you know, the NAS, I view as a natural resource, and I can, I could sit down and write the most sagacious comments, pragmatic, whatever. I could write everything up for them and send them in. The FAA is under no obligation. They don't have to change one letter in what they write.
So, you could comment all day long, and it was the same thing that happened with the model rocketry over here, and that's how I got involved in this. They clamped down on model rocketry. There were some of the big groups made comments. There were no changes.
There were no changes at all, and the people that made those changes had no knowledge of model rocketry. So, you know, that hobby was hobbled, and I think you're going to have the same deal here. You know, I mean, I could go totally Debbie Downer on you and talk about what I think is going to be in that NPRM, but I think we'll save that for another show. It's unfortunate, but the, we had missed the boat, really, to tell people we weren't going to take this crap long ago, and we kind of sat back as a community.
There were, there was a lot of pushback from within the community that if we let the sleeping dog lie, then we'd get the FAA, we wouldn't even be on the radar, and nothing would happen. You remember all that, Gene?
I do. Very, very well, and it is. It's unfortunate, because we trusted that something was going to be done. We were told that things were going to move forward, and we tried to trust it as far as we could, and every time we got a new answer, we tried to trust it, and, you know, here we are like frogs in a pot.
The water, the heat keeps getting turned up, and it's too late to get out now. It is too late to get out. We definitely languished in that pot when we should have been doing other stuff, but, you know, again, another podcast for another time. I'd like to wrap the show up on a happy note.
That's where we're at about an hour. An hour and a bit, but, you know, it's a good conversation, and Emma's really glad that we got a chance to have you on, Gary, and I think that, you know, we usually do the show live, but I think from now on all overseas guests will be, we're going to just put them in the can as the audio is decent, and I enjoyed having your insight on today's program, and I mean, it's good to have you on there, and I think people could get a better idea who Gary is, and like I said, there's the picture that I paint.
Even when you got the high speed internet, you know, it was like, and they parted the thatch on the round hut and brought the cable in. So, Gary, what they did. They did. That's what they did.
I don't know, but it's a funny picture to conjure up. So, in closing, did you have anything that you would like to say, Gary?
Well, just thanks for all the support from anybody out there in the community this year, the people that have sent us stories and given us tips, the little things that's going on. Please keep them coming. Thanks very much. I hope everybody has, I'm going to be back from the adult beverages now, and in about two and a half hours time I'll be seeing into 2013.
So, everybody has a very, very safe and happy New Year's, and I'm really looking forward to seeing some exciting stuff coming out of universities and clever minds around the world next year. I concur with that, Gene. Looking forward to 2013 and continuing flying. Of course, that's what we do.
We do it best in going out and doing the searches and flying the fires and doing some really, really cool science, and looking forward to that. Echoing Gary's sentiment, I hope everyone has a healthy and prosperous 2013. We'll see what happens when we stumble over the fiscal curb here, and it's all going to be good if we just keep the faith, right?
I agree and concur with all of that, and I wish everyone a healthy and happy and prosperous New Year. I know it's going to be exciting. I've got a lot of stuff coming up in my future that I'm excited about, and I hope to share that with the podcast listeners, and I hope that the readers, listeners, and followers of the SUS News brand continue to contribute and follow what we're doing on all of the various social networks on the web page, the podcast. Please, if
you have anything you want to hear about, see, talk about, guests you want on, you can email gary at susnews.com, gene at susnews.com, or patrick at susnews.com, or if you have a news tip or whatever else, come on, become part of the community.
Get on in here. We want to bring everybody in the circus tent, and until next year, or next week, we'll see you then. Bye.