UAS News Podcast — 2012-12-12
Transcript
Hello and welcome to another installment of the UAS News Podcast Series where we interview experts and discuss the issues and news relevant to the global unmanned technologies community. I'm your program host Patrick Egan and as always let's say a big hello and welcome to our co-host Gene Robinson. Hello Patrick, how are you today?
Things are well here in Bridget, Texas. You're always, I like we get the weather update over there. Okay, well this week's episode number 31 is basically we're going to talk about the early days of SOCOM integration of small unmanned aircraft systems with our guest, small unmanned aircraft system entrepreneur and former Navy SEAL John Sermont. There's a boatload of material to go over here so we're going to go long on this show.
We're going an hour but before we get into it with our guest I want to talk about what Gene was doing last week. Gene, we missed you here on the program. What were you doing last week?
We were testing sensors, sensors and more sensors. We've been working pretty hard trying to identify actual fire and flames from the air and most people don't know, they think sure that's easy, let's go for a clear camera and you know we're done but most people don't know that a clear towel or a photon will actually saturate at 160 degrees because they've been calibrated to look for humans at 100 degrees. So you know when you point them at a fire or you point them at the hood of a black pickup truck here in Texas in August, you get the same signature.
So we've been experimenting with putting neutral density filters in front of our TAY-ZUO lenses and we've gone from a half to a full one, number one neutral density and we've made significant progress on that. We actually did get to a flat fire here in Texas that was controlled by the way and we flew it and we can see the flames really well and it was a big step forward for us and the fire research is going well.
So right in the middle of the podcast I was going to try to call in but we had launched and I was doing my piloting duties and I just couldn't break a break in time to get in on the podcast and executed the flight and managed to land things and keep it all in one piece so we were pretty happy with that.
That was my week, all week last week. Well it sounds interesting and yeah I figured when you didn't call in you had your hands full, no big deal, you know you got to pay the rent as it were. That's good, you come back here you kind of tell us, give us some insight and that is funny that you mention that, you know the white screen. What's wrong here?
So you know that's the type of tips you get here on the UAS News Podcast so you know maybe hopefully you've helped some people in the future with that. Anything else in the news catcher, I.G. Well there's one little bit of news that I'd like to throw out there. You know as you know the book First of the Flood has been out and I've been notified that it's going to be used as the basis for the UAS concentration for Atlanta State University
and they plan to use the book to do their UAS operations test on course which I'm pretty excited about and one of the tasks that they are going to put in their curriculum is that you have to use a small unmanned aircraft in a search and rescue scenario.
So I'm pretty excited about that one, I'm going to work with those guys over there and see if I can help them out and you know obviously we've got a few more scenarios we could go through and we could give them a bunch of different environments to operate in and make it a little bit of a challenge so I'm pretty excited about that. Well that sounds good, that's always a positive thing you know so that's good news, I'm happy we should do a little story about that on the home page I think. I like to hear stuff like that, I like success stories, makes me feel all warm and cozy.
Well I've got some news and it's about we landed a sponsor for the podcast and I'm going to read this now. Today's podcast is sponsored by Hood Technology, experts in advanced EOIR gyro stabilized 4-axis imaging systems for small unmanned aircraft systems. The company offers low swap payloads integrating EO, MWIR and lasers to provide unparalleled long range imaging for moving platforms. I'd like everyone to visit www.hoodtech.com for more information, that's h-o-o-d-t-e-c-h dot com for more info.
And that makes me warm and fuzzy too, hopefully our listeners will go out there and look at that, they've got some good sensors and some other products and an interesting website. Alright, go ahead I'm sorry. I'm just glad to welcome Hood Technologies onto the podcast. Me too, you know I'm glad that we got somebody on here to help you know move things along.
So with that let's move into segment one. Now as usually the case here the guests are known to the hosts on the program and this case is the same. I've known our guest John for a few years and have followed his progress in trying to bring a small UAS product to market. John, I know you but could you please give the audience a little bio about yourself and how you got to where you are today.
Oh sure Patrick and Gene thanks for having me this morning and I'll tell you that the weather here in San Diego, California is as always beautiful. So Gene I feel for you down there in Texas. You know I'll say that the, I'll kind of start from here and I think the reason that I talked to you Patrick and offered to come on and do a podcast with you is because I feel like there's not really a lot of progress right now in the effort to open up the national airspace and integrate these small unmanned systems from a commercial point of view.
I'm talking a true commercial industry being developed and I think that's the interest that I have and the intention around me joining you on your program. I'll actually say that presently I'm running a small company focused on bringing the light of an air system to market and you'll probably want to talk about that a bit later. I'm running a company called Soft Coast but I'll kind of go back and just let
you know that I spent about 14 years in the military as a special operations member specifically with Naval Special Warfare or SEAL team and you know the first period of my career I spent as a not only as a SEAL operator but as a communicator and I can tell you that in that period of time and my career actually spanned pre-911 as well as post-911 so I kind of have a flavor for both eras if you will if
you want to call them that.
What I think is interesting here is when I was working with technology as an end user or SEAL you know communications almost seemed magical to a lot of SEALs and it was kind of like the way you ended up becoming a communicator and SEAL team was hey new guy go get that radio and figure out how to turn it on and so that's basically what happened. It wasn't like hey John has this intelligence quotient or he's a really smart guy and knows what he's doing it's just I happen to be standing next to the radio and I was the newest guy on the team so bam there I am.
So I actually am a pretty curious guy by nature and so I started and basically I didn't want to let anybody down. I didn't want to be that guy that didn't know how to do what I was supposed to be doing and so when you're the guy carrying the phone so to speak when somebody tells you to make a phone call you better make a phone call and it better work because everybody's looking at you at that point.
So I ended up learning about communications and understanding about theory and then as I progressed through my career I began to really understand shortfalls and it wasn't like I had a magic pill in my ruck stack that I could just pull out and solve everybody's problems.
There were moments where the light was on me and I literally was having to you know at the time I actually we did HF or high frequency communications I'm not sure if anybody's doing that anymore we did an old school a PRC 104 right dialing up HF frequencies looking at propagation tables and ionospheric right disturbances and sun spots and solar activity to figure out how to communicate long range to somebody because the access to satellite communications systems or global commercial or military was really limited.
So the point is there's breakdowns or problems as a communicator right where something that I learned and kind of was ingrained in me really early on in my career and I always carried that with me and I also I kind of got patted on the back a little bit every once in a while because I was willing to open the manual RTFM right and just actually see right how the devices work and then I was curious enough to start talking to the engineers
and the companies that built these radio systems and asking questions and I remember them telling me that we never had anybody right as an operator want to talk to us about anything and I said well I think I can wear your pocket protector so we can actually communicate and get along just fine so I don't really have any issue at all and really it was just because I wanted to be good at my job.
Well that passed forward a few years later where you know 9-11 happens and you know I was part of a team that went forward into Afghanistan and one of the problems that we had in Afghanistan was communications and I remember like there was a moment where I remember just like around me we I think this is me guessing trying to figure out how many people were actually supporting my small team on the ground of about 12 guys maybe 16 guys in some part of Afghanistan performing one of the tasks or the missions that we had been assigned
and I think there were probably 150 people right around us to support 16 guys on the ground and I can remember like there were airplanes big heavy you know fixed wing aircraft of all kinds of sizes and speeds that were literally circling overhead and we were literally just sitting in one spot right doing something we were supposed to be doing and I remember thinking good grief that was the only way
I can communicate is talking to these like 15 people flying around in this 40 million dollar aircraft over my head there's got to be a simpler way because this isn't scalable you know I'm tip of the spear I'm with special operations I'm a SEAL what about the average soldier right the average and I don't mean to denigrate or anything I mean I hold them in the highest regard and what about the conventional general purpose force end user he's not going to
you know they just not enough to go around for everybody to get right 150 people supporting them on every operation they're going to be conducting and remember we were very early on so we didn't have the big you know established force on the ground in Afghanistan yet it was really kind of the Wild West and we were kind of there fending for ourselves and doing you know doing our jobs according to the rules
right it was so Wild West yeah it was the Wild West weren't you guys riding horses well I wasn't that was a team that came in earlier and you know I don't comment about other people's stuff but the point is that wasn't my group we actually had vehicles but they were thin skin vehicles we didn't have any armor I can remember actually you know taping you know whatever body armor we had like taping it to our seats
and taping it around us to kind of just you know to provide I think it wasn't going to help us at all it was just going to you know make me feel better about you know driving around there at least I could pretend that I was going to be okay if something happened right sometimes feeling good is half of the deal right there but this is fascinating well false motivation is better than no motivation Patrick that's what
I used to say exactly well you know I mean this is all really this background is really fascinating but you know I mean as you came into this you know I could see you had this communications background and you know integrating new technologies I mean when small unmanned aircraft showed up to you what were your first impressions well first of all we didn't know what it was A and didn't know what to call it B
and it kind of was you know it was it was looked at as oh gosh just another you know get gadget we're going to have to carry around that you know you know you have to have a PhD to figure out how to operate so we ended up you know the way things usually work it's whoever is standing closest to the box basically the tech and I happen to be you know standing near the box and they said hey sir Mike you're kind of you're kind of a smart guy
you kind of got you know the ability to turn on a radio so why don't you figure out how to use that too and you know me being curious I basically said sure but let me take a step back as I started to kind of look at this airplane as it were in a box I started thinking about RC so I immediately associated this small drone with an RC aircraft it was just kind of you try to you try to figure out where to start when
you when you don't know where to begin right and so where I started was okay these little drone areas little small RC aircraft this kind of looks like that too maybe I should learn how to fly an RC aircraft first and so believe it or not my initial drone quote unquote training was actually I went and found a couple of old guys at a local RC airfield and said hey guys you know talk to me about flying an RC airplane
and so then I went to my chain of command and I said hey listen you know this flying this RC aircraft is a lot of work and I'm kind of concerned about it they said well you know try this try this thing over here they say that they've removed all of the all of that stuff you don't have to know how to fly the airplane you just basically throw it in the air and you're okay and so I said fine and so we basically was literally it was like it was like cavemen looking at looking at a fire it's like
okay let's see what we can do with it and believe it or not he just gave me the equipment and I literally was just taking it out to the RC flying field and operating it and learning how to fly it and break it and repair it and there was no I didn't have I didn't know what an FSR was there was no instructor on scene with me it was just a box of stuff and me kind of out there figuring it out and frankly
you know in some ways I just I think what I learned as a SEAL was you know learn to figure it out and be confident in your ability to adapt and overcome and I so I just in my mind I decided that I was going to figure this out no matter what and then committed and went to it and then you know took a lot of a lot of time and a lot of mistakes a lot of breaking stuff but I did Well and that's you know it's kind of interesting because
you know I get I kind of had the same start but you know a little bit different and same deal you know you experiment you see what you can do you learn the system and so like I guess you know the next was it's when you finally took it out in the field you finally you're like okay well I kind of know what this thing can do I know what the cone of view of the camera is and I'm going to take it out in the field
and I'm going to see what I can do with it was you know is it something that paid off straight away or was it something that you had to develop the capability maybe you can speak to that a little bit.
Well so that's that that right there is a great question Patrick and I'll tell you in the beginning I kind of chuckle when I say this because I thought it was going to be just hey figure out how to fly it and everything else will fall into place but what I what I didn't realize was flying it was at the point right and so in the very beginning once I figured out how to actually fly and I started looking through the camera
I started realizing what how powerful it was to be able to get you know in real time an aerial perspective or point of view you can actually start monitoring and observing activity from a point of view that I've never had before and so it was it was actually breathtaking and game changing and I can remember being so excited about it and I was like oh my gosh I'm going to fly it.
I can remember being so excited and I remember bringing it back and I was telling anybody that would listen to me and talk about I was dragging the boxes around hey look at this you guys got to see this I can remember you know and by the way SEALS in the special operations community you're in three states in general you're either getting qualified performing right your tasks operationally or and degrading qualifications or resetting
and so you know everybody's you know working on chasing falls and staying qualified so people have things to do and I'm like stopping them in the compound hey look at this take a look at this guy this is so great people who like Johnny you're so excited about it that's great really don't understand what you're talking about don't have a lot of time but hey man you know catch me later and so I remember almost becoming a little bit of an advocate
right for these small systems and trying to take them to anybody that would pay attention and I do you know I do remember talking with one of my commanders at the time and he basically and I was complaining to him I'm like hey sir nobody will listen to me like this is groundbreaking technology but I can't get anybody's attention he said you know John maybe what we need to do is have an officer like an aviator guy show up
and help you kind of advance this and he can actually go to the meetings instead of these different kinds of meetings and inform people and tell them what to do.
So I said great so long story short they then staffed me with somebody who was scheduling aviation assets for the entire west coast community they call them an air scheduler and so he kind of got involved and then when he started looking at it he started getting really excited and so now you had two guys right and then as he got excited he basically said hey John you just need to go beg, borrow and steal we need to start building a kingdom of aviation assets
and so he said hey John you know what I'm going to do is I'm going to build a company that's going to be a big cadre and start training people up and get some money so we can get some more gear and start making the improvements because they're not quite ready to deploy yet but boy there's a great capability here a great opportunity and so that's bringing that next person on board Patrick was critical because that doubled frankly that doubled our quote on quote organization we weren't official in any way there was no funding line there was no program there was nothing in place except two guys
and a little bit of what we call top cover in the military.
So with some great leaders above us they gave us the opportunity to try right to build something special and that's how it started. That's interesting and you know what as you were going through that and talking about some of that I want to give Gene an opportunity to jump in here because I had a lot of those same parallel feelings and Gene I know that you shared some of those would you like to comment on that?
I had to laugh at some of the things that John was talking about because you're right John you get that next person involved and your force just doubles and you've actually got somebody who will help you promote or actually spread the word so that other people can understand better what these small unmanned aircraft can give them out in the field. So that was you were right on target I thought that was such a good point to make
but it has been a very slow but sure kind of progression to the point where people are finally starting to understand what we really can't do with these small unmanned aircraft doesn't it?
Oh I'm sorry Patrick go ahead. Well no go ahead you can go ahead and I'll have to comment after. All I was going to say Gene was I asked one of my bosses at the time I said hey sir I'm honored because I think this is going to be big and I remember telling that you know this is 03-04 timeframe and I can remember him looking at me and saying it could be big John if the right people are involved. He said it could fall apart
and disappear if they're not and he said we need people with the intelligence but we also need people with that energy right to generate interest and help people become believers in this kind of technology.
So you know the point here is you've got a lot of people involved and stakeholders in these silos is what I like to say there were kind of these silos of influence silos of interest silos of practice and there were kind of three circles and at the time they were kind of loosely orbiting around each other but they weren't really connected to really drive things forward. And I think in some ways it's almost like conception it's a little bit of biology
and chemistry and putting everything together right and physics and then some of it is frankly just luck and it's you know it just kind of it takes form and takes shape and then you have a starting point kind of a spark and an idea in somebody's head and then you put it in somebody else's head and then you actually start putting things in action.
And I'll tell you one of the things that I realized looking back is because you know SEAL Team, Naval Special Warfare and even the Special Operations Community at large I can't speak of any other components because I wasn't a member of the Army or the Air Force or anybody else but I could talk about maybe in SEAL Team there is an entrepreneurial kind of mentality. In other words figure it out, get it done, accomplish the mission, take care of each other along the way and you know and rinse and repeat and keep doing it.
So I think that because of that kind of entrepreneurial mindset and by the way SEALs are trusted by the leadership and so we do have autonomy and you know it's not like we have to report and everybody's checking doing head counts all the time and obviously there's good order and discipline. As a military unit but you do have some flexibility and some latitude and I was given as they say lots and lots of rope and I was told John run as fast as you can, as far as you can, break it, we'll buy more, do what you need to do and if we need to pull you back we will but you need to go.
We don't know how far we can go with this and you need to tell us, you need to show us the way and that was my direction and by golly the leadership continued to show up and support myself and then eventually my boss that came in and then he started to really staff us, work with the vendors, work with the military program manager types, generating requirements, current requirements from current operators.
And then feeding those into the loop and you know there was a point where we as SEALs and our community were essentially kind of driving a lot of the early small and manned systems developmental efforts in the form of articulating requirements, articulating what works, what doesn't work with the different vendors and there was a really great feedback loop where we could immediately come in and say, we can talk to the vendor, they could show us what they're working on, we can take it out
and use it and then we could say whether it's working or not working or things that might need to be changed and I learned later on that we weren't the only people doing that but because there's these different silos at the time, you know the army and some folks out at MADEC were working on some things, some folks on the East Coast were working on some things and eventually right, parochial interests not withstanding
and kind of put aside, there's still a little bit of that, maybe there always will be because we feel very strongly about our quote unquote families but eventually we kind of put those things aside and came together after a heck of a lot of work and a lot of healthy debate.
You know they were controversial, the whole idea of the small and manned system was controversial in the beginning, initially it wasn't taken seriously and then at some point it began to be taken seriously and then it kind of became controversial and the birth of small and manned systems in the military is a fascinating story and I do think at some point in time, you know somebody needs to do what they can to collect all of those true stories
and not polished, you know not cleaned up or filtered, I mean just the individual effort across the military area of practice, there were people that were putting their careers on the line, putting their reputations at stake because they believed in this technology and boy I'm glad they did and it's really a story that's going to be remembered.
It's really a refreshing for me to kind of go back and think about that because there was an energy and interest and optimism and a belief that this would benefit the end user on the ground and I believe history will show us that it does and will continue to and the focus, my focus was small systems. I'm not an expert or a practitioner with large systems and when I say large systems, anything kind of above the 15 to 20 pound range, that's not my bag because I'm focused on guys
and girls that can actually, that are carrying stuff around in a box or a bag and they're out kind of by themselves and they're what I would sort of be a tactical kind of user and they need the lightest weight, smallest stuff and for me I think that that is still the case.
I don't know if that's really important for that end user but I actually think because of the small size, that actually has a great potential and prospect and promise for the commercial market here in the United States. I'm not advocating for a Volkswagen sized thing to be flying around over neighborhoods without any kind of oversight or flight planning, etc., etc. but I do think that there are small technologies. I think it's almost like an overkill to eliminate any possible risk with anything, therefore the small systems are guilty by association and I kind of think that that's misguided.
It may be well-meaning but I definitely think it's caused all kinds of gnashing of teeth as you will. Yeah, now a lot of those points you made, I mean I'm sitting here nodding the head and I know Gene's nodding the head and there are a lot of parallels between the commercial world and the military world. It's kind of funny you say that. It's part of my advocacy work back, I think it was 2004 or 2005, talking to a government guy from DOD and saying, hey, you know, same thing.
This technology, this small unmanned aircraft has a lot of potential at the squad level or for people on the ground and the guy disagreeing with me. Well, Patrick, let me qualify that. In some ways he was right and in some ways you were right. So here's the thing, both positions were right because it was so new that guys were still trying to figure out how to use it.
Let me explain to you as a SEAL, you have to be very careful about what kind of tools you're even going to expend energy to learn to use. Your primary tasks are to shoot, move and communicate. If you've got something else that you need to be worrying about, that means that you're going to have to switch context and you're going to have to add an additional task, which is actually going to degrade your ability to perform the three primary tasks that
you have. That's a long way of saying there were a lot of guys looking at this box of stuff and listening to me talking about how great it was telling me, that's great, John.
So now I've got to take a guy off a gun so they can actually fly the remote control airplane around. Are you kidding me?
So there was a huge debate inside the organization and frankly I understood both sides of it. So my position was, hey, this is worth figuring out how to integrate and incorporate into our organization. Where we started was this small stuff and then small things at the time were limited in their range, in their performance, in their survivability, in actually the payload capability. What I mean by that, when you're talking about activity-based information gathering, you need a certain level of fidelity.
You need to be able to see to a certain extent. And specifics are not important in this case. And I think that you end up having to work with what you can fly around and that's small form factor. And so that means that sometimes you have to fly lower or you're limited by the range of the radio or something.
And so you've got to fly lower and now you're flying lower over an area and you're making some noise. And then people were like, wait a minute, that's not going to work either. So what do you do?
And so that then goes back into the loop, right? You then tell the vendor, here's where we're at. This is the feedback that we're getting. And they continue to work on things.
And then we also, one of our responsibilities was to develop, I think the kind of one generation would call them SOPs, Standard Operating Procedures, and then another generation or era would call them TCPs, or Techniques, Tactics, and Procedures. And it's very important to understand that MFP11, Special Operations Command, and Naval Special Warfare who's underneath the Special Operations Command is funded through MFP11 dollars. And we protect, as an organization, we protect our techniques, tactics, and procedures.
I'm not going to comment about what's happening in the media. That's frankly none of my business and not my purview. But what I will say is it's very bad optics and very dangerous for us to publicly talk about our specific tactics and procedures around anything, and especially how we might employ technology. I agree with that.
Yeah, we agree with that one too. And I'll just say that it's kind of like a professional football team telegraphing a play before they actually call it, right?
And so they're going to get their clock cleaned if they do that. And nobody complains about Bill Belichick, how come he's not telling the world his play, right?
Why do people feel like they need this complete transparency with our special operations professionals and what they're doing? So I think there's a bit of naivety. I think there's a little bit of a kind of fetishization of the military. And seals kind of seem to be the trendy topic of the day, and that will pass, I hope.
And we'll kind of go back to doing what we need to be doing and quietly being the professionals that we are, have been, are, and always will be. So the point here is there's a reason why that person disagreed with you, Patrick, and he may have not been able to get into all the details. And then there's a reason why, you know, you kind of said, wait a minute, and didn't get quite in all these details with him.
And so over time, an enormous amount of effort, and what's really important is there was a point where it became less about technology and more about people and organizations and structure and integration.
And that's a turning point. It's a monumental turning point because people can start to still think, well, I had to build this technology. I got to perfect the technology. If I could just make it do this, if I could just make it do that, and they completely forget about the human being.
And they think it's just about the drone or the robot or the widget. And it really took some discipline and courage and a heck of a lot of effort for leaders inside of the military and even leaders in industry, folks that are program managers and officers for the government itself to actually come together and really kind of walk through lessons learned and kind of own shortfalls. And what really kept showing up was, guys, the technology is on this ridiculous pace. It's just getting better and better and better.
So from a technology perspective, it makes sense for us to continue to invest. But by golly, we don't just want to invest in the technology. We need the capability. So we've got to really get clear on how we can effectively utilize these kinds of technologies.
And then there were questions about, is it the right size? Do we need more capability?
What might that capability look like? And so there's been an enormous amount of thought that's gone into that. It didn't just magically appear. It didn't just magically get fielded.
And it doesn't magically work. Right. But I will say, you know, one of the perspectives that I brought to that conversation and some of the points you hit on about size and everything else, and I think Gene would probably agree possibly with me, I think that even at those times, the technology that was available and the price points that these systems were being sold for, I had this idea then of a, you know, semi-disposable, man-portable system where, you know, if you crashed a big deal, you pulled another one out of the box.
You just kept throwing these things in the air. And a price point to be more at $15,000 or $50,000 for a system instead of $250,000 or $500,000 for a system. And, you know, bring the capabilities along with that that were available from, say, the commercial market are now what people would call cuts. Gene, agree, disagree?
Well, to a point. I mean, to me back in my day, of course, I had to date myself when I started talking about laws of rockets. But, you know, a laws of rockets was six grand. You know, one shot, you threw away the tube, and the enemy, you know, ended up using them and recharging them.
But, I mean, it was still six grand. You and I have discussed the $10,000 UA for the longest time, and I think we're seeing it now. And I think we're going to get to that point. And, John, I'm sure that you've probably seen some of these smaller semi-disposable UA's that are coming out that are going to sit in that category.
Well, and so, Patrick, a good point, Gene. Patrick, the other point here is there was an earnest effort afoot to actually work through that. And actually, the initial concept was let's take a X-diameter PVC, piece of PVC tubing, and then let's build a low-cost, like, cost UAF around that and see what we can come up with. And it was tough because the technology, you know, some of the components just weren't ready.
I mean, the data links were some of the biggest problems with these early small unmanned systems. And you'd have things just literally fly away. You'd be flying, just disappear. It's like, where did it go?
And then we had to start putting Falcon trackers on them, you know, just because of that reason. And so, you know, processor speed and power and energy density for batteries and all of the things that are involved in making these small systems work really, really well. Because let's face it, there's a zero-defect essentially requirement for that military customer. Now, it's impossible to build anything with zero defects.
Everything is going to have some limitations at some extent, but there still is a really tall mountain to climb, right, when you're talking about putting these kinds of technologies into the field. And what I'll also say is, you know, at that time, keep in mind, the era that I'm talking to you guys about was actually before the iPhone, okay?
So some of the listeners need to understand that I'm talking to you before there was an iPhone, right? Before there was a real understanding of what lightweight mobile computing could actually mean. It was still kind of everybody had their own thing, and you're still kind of trying to figure it out. Most of the time, it was based around a Blackberry.
Right. It was kind of a whole system. But it's funny you say that with the iPhone, because I was the first guy to catch an aerial photograph with an iPhone. We put one on a plane, flew it around, and grabbed that photo, and that story went around the world.
So I was there for that. I have to say, again, you know, and I'm not trying to dig my heels in, but I will say, and that's going to kind of lead into the next couple of segments that we're going to have to go into. This is a fascinating conversation, but I believe, John, from what I have seen, too, from coming from the commercial side, working for the Navy, working for the Army, I think what's missing is the competition of the marketplace.
And I think if the FBO process or let's say the military purchasing process was a little bit, let's say, more of a level playing field, innovation would have happened faster with this technology.
And, you know, that's kind of a closed loop that FBO process. Well, that's a good point. You know, I think the step back, you know, it's a fundamental biological truth that, you know, in our brain stem says people, we're wired to, you know, respond to incentives. People will respond when they have an incentive to respond.
Otherwise, they'll conserve energy and they won't. And the point is in that period of time, right, we weren't concerned about budget. Now, there was still a very diligent effort to make sure that every dollar of a taxpayer's money was stewarded correctly. But it really was, we were given permission, right, to run long, to try things, to break stuff, and they would, you know, in our organization would support us on that and they would buy more.
So we weren't necessarily concerned about the low cost. We wanted the best possible capability. And I think the point was that was an incentive, right, economically for the military technology providers in the industry to actually respond. And I think that, you know, they base their, you know, financials and their projections, you know, so they can show that they can be profitable and sustainable and have predictable revenues.
Well, when you talk about the commercial marketplace, it is wildly unpredictable. And there's so much uncertainty that, you know, really all you can do is hope, right, that these existing military technology providers, I think they're hoping for a similar kind of business model, right, that they were working with the military, but the military budgets are shrinking, right?
And, you know, there's a lot of uncertainty right now in the economic, you know, state or health for the United States in present and looking forward. So there's a heck of a lot of fear. And I think there's, on the one hand, I think there's a real desire to actually bring this industry to life and open up, you know, the technology and the needs and the applications for lots of different commercial users. And I love public safety and first responders into that commercial category.
But I think on the one hand, but I think on the other hand, you know, there's a lot of fear, right, to say, well, if these things aren't profitable to produce, you know, what are we going to do? Well, you know, we could argue that. And I definitely, again, you know, coming from the commercial world and working in the military side of things, the amount of money that is, let's say, spent on these more legacy vendors or whatever else, you could set up a pretty good shop with a lot of people and stay in business for a long time.
But I don't, you know, we're going to have to save some of that for another time because we're really running long. And I wanted to get into a couple other, we have a couple other segments I wanted to talk about. And maybe we'll talk a little bit more about these subjects. But I know, you know, you've been working for a while on your own projects since being out of the military.
And when I was at the the Unmanned Systems North America here in Las Vegas, I saw that your your make-o flying in the Lockheed Martin booth. And, you know, I felt good. I like to see people succeed. I like to see when something good happens to people.
So maybe you could you could tell us a little bit about how that happened. And, you know, you're one of the guys that was a little bit successful in moving your product forward. So maybe you can tell us about that. Well, thank you, Patrick.
I really appreciate that. And, you know, first of all, you know, I'm building a what I call a hybrid air system. And I it's a lighter than air system. It's a helium filled tethered aerostat.
It's a rucksack portable or man portable tethered aerostatic system. And really the purpose for this platform is something that you can carry in a box or a rock and be able to elevate lightweight payloads, you know, in the two to four pound category. And, you know, for the purposes of establishing communications, right, in a time of need or disaster, you can fly lightweight ISR or, you know, optical or electro optical imaging systems, whether they're day or night, and then be able to provide that live video down to the ground.
Now, I'm not building a tethered aerostat because I don't know how to build anything else. I'm building it because I see a blatant need for it, a gap right now in the marketplace. And I am working with a military customer to perfect a variant for them to actually take into the field and evaluate here in the spring, hopefully, and so far so good. But I think in the commercial application is really, you know, where I see the need and the opportunity.
I am I'm a realist here. I'm optimistic about many, many things, Patrick, however, I'm a pragmatist when it comes to the Federal Aviation Administration. And I know that lots and lots and lots of people are hopeful for, you know, kind of an unlocking to occur, the quickening, right, as Ardell would say, around integrating small and mid systems in the national airspace. I'm sure, right, that people were hopeful that that would happen in 2012.
It's not happening. I'm sure that there are still people there holding out hope for 2013. There will be some movement there, but it's going to be glacial, right, and it's going to be primarily for first responders, public safety with these emergency COA kind of things, with the smattering of access around kind of controlled environments, you know, in the United States. And that's already happening on the border and other parts.
But, you know, that larger opening or quickening of the marketplace, you know, I'm frankly not particularly optimistic about it. And so that's why I decided to build this product. The product, it actually flies on a tether, right, and therefore it's considered to be a stationary tethered or moored balloon. And so it falls into a different category.
It's not a heavy as an air system that's flying around, you know, wherever it wants to go or wherever the operator sends it. So, you know, in some ways I kind of have put my money where my mouth is, if you will, in that this system is my acknowledgment of the importance of what I call low-altitude access for lightweight payloads and technologies. But my acceptance, right, that there's still going to be a serious set of hurdles and obstacles that we're faced with and confronted with before the market really unlocks.
And what I was leading into earlier is frankly this is the same situation that we're dealing with and trying to unlock the commercial space right now is something that I recognize occurred in the military. And what it is is you need to be able to have the right kind of energy. You need to be able to have the right kind of imagination. You need to be able to have the right kind of advocacy to drive the vision forward so people will eventually catch it.
You know, sometimes just saying the same thing over and over and over is actually what your job is to do. But you have to make sure that what you're saying is credible and is large enough, right, and inclusive enough to incentivize enough people to get involved and help make the changes that need to be made or push the effort forward. That's what I think we need. There's a point right now where the military technology providers and the folks that were doing this, kind of bringing this to life in the military, they did a great job, right?
But I don't think it necessarily just overlays on the domestic space here in the United States like putting a key in a lock and being able to unlock, well, this key works for the military, so we'll just use this key for the domestic market in the U.S. I think that's short-sighted, and I don't think it's big enough. Now, it might be terrifying, right, to think that, well, wait a minute, it's going to be bigger?
Oh, my gosh, I don't know if we can handle this. But I think, you know, unlocking the national airspace for small unmanned systems is akin to putting a man on the moon. Now, some might go, what's this guy talking about?
I think that the industry is representative and is big enough, right, as a byproduct of being able to truly integrate small unmanned systems into the national airspace that it really will create jobs and technologies and benefits in ways we can't even imagine yet, just like the Apollo space program. I concur with that. And, you know, the saddest part of this, though, Patrick, is we had a president that basically put us on notice and charged us that in a certain period of time we're going to do this and that kind of leadership and vision.
And I'm not knocking any particular political legislation at all, but what I'm trying to say is the vision for this needs to be much bigger because the impact is much bigger. And instead of being afraid of it and shying away from it or trying to control it, it must become transparent. And we should actually look at it as an opportunity instead of a threat. Well, and you know what?
You're preaching to the choir over here because I've said for a long time, you know, we need to make the effort, the integration effort, let's say more inclusive, more daylight, public process. And, you know, I get pushback everywhere. I get pushback from the SAA. I get pushback from, let's say, allies or whatever.
And people are afraid of, you know, rattling the cage or, you know, upsetting the apple cart. Personally, I don't really care, man. You know, you were talking about integration in 2012, 2013, yada yada. But me and Gene were back there in 2007 saying, hey, man, 60, 90 days, six months, we're going to be in the air and, you know, that never materialized.
Patrick, if you and I would have talked, then I would have told you you were crazy. I would have said there is no way. You wouldn't have been the first one. I would have told you based on my own experience and knowledge.
So I have one of my roles eventually in Naval Special Warfare and SEAL Team, you know, was as an officer, assistant officer in charge of the UAS program for Naval Special Warfare. And then I actually became kind of the airspace coordinator. So my job, you know, at some point it was, hey, John, the wild west days are over. You can't just take this thing out and fly it anywhere.
You have to put together a curriculum, and now you have to have some processes. Go figure out how to actually fly this thing legally. And so that set me off on a whole other path. And so I have a staff.
I've been responsible for putting COAs in place as a military member, and I've also actually successfully put COAs in place as a civilian. So I've got the firsthand experience with those processes, and it is possible. It's not impossible. It's happening all over the place, but it takes time, and it's not scalable.
It's not something that creates a healthy, vibrant industry. It creates a small niche that has all kinds of issues and is problematic for people trying to enter the niche. The other point that I want to make with you, Patrick, is that I listen to you when I talk, and you're kind of counter, and I can hear it in your voice, Matt. I feel for you.
It sounds like you're frustrated, you're fed up, you're burnt out, you're tired. And I guarantee there are people out there, small business owners, inventors, even investors and entrepreneurs that are scratching their heads going, golly, this is not going the way we thought it was going to go. And all I can say to you guys is now is not the time to, you know, there's an emotional strength that has got to be visible. It's got to happen.
People have to have the courage to keep moving. And what I would say right now is now is not the time for people to entrench themselves, to take these positions and start poking people in the eye. Either there needs to be a clearing, if you will. I think I've got some issues with some of the folks, right, some of these trade associations that have been espousing happy talk, right, for the past couple of years, and I like these people.
I actually respect them, and I appreciate what they're doing, but I do think that it's got to a point where it's kind of a status quo, go along, this whole process will be just laid over this new process, and I completely disagree. And I think that, you know, there needs to be a clearing with those small business owners and those investors in those small businesses and those entrepreneurs and those innovators who are kind of going, what happened?
I thought this was going to work, and I don't know what to do, and I'm going to go find work and this and that and the other. I think there needs to be a resetting. There needs to be a rebalancing in establishing the vision, establishing the mandate, and I think we need to basically agree, right, that, you know, there are some things that everybody's learned here along the way, and we're going to recommit, and we're going to make the vision bigger, and we're going to decide that we are determined to make this work and make it happen.
Well, and you're, you know, Brother John, you're preaching to the choir over here. I'm all in on that. But what I see in the airspace integration effort, and I've seen it for a while, and it makes me popular with lots of folks here, but what I'm seeing is pretty typical, let's say, lawmaking at the federal level, where the consultants are in there, and, you know, it reminds me of a saying about, you know, a good parasite doesn't kill the host, okay?
And you've got some people there. We've moved into a 10-year-plus effort where people are riding this as a career. You just keep pushing the peanut along, we're off-ramping into private sector jobs, we're, you know, consulting, or we're making this something, hey, you know, give me some more money, I can do this, but people are afraid to really address the issues because the issues aren't that big. I mean, there's a...
Well, here's, let me just make a comment. There's a bias orientation right now that, frankly, is not beneficial or healthy for the small in-man systems space. And that bias right now, it's an institutional bias, and I'm frankly not sure how it happened, but there, and I think I can remember back when we started kind of dealing with these small drones when I was in SEAL Team, you know, it was like, hey, John's an operator, he's excited about it, he's using it, but we need to actually bring an aviator in to help him because this thing's flying around.
Right? And I think that's kind of what happened along the way. It's like, hey, this is a small thing flying around. We've got to get the aviation community involved, and I'm not saying they don't need to be involved, but I'm not sure they need that the FAA has to have proponentsy on something that's 4.4 pounds or smaller.
I just don't agree with that, and I think that that institutional bias, right, that's kind of being created here in the commercial market space is putting the same kind of requirements and frankly risk zero, you know, zero tolerance for any kind of risk requirements on top of a small in-man system that, let's face it, Patrick, there is no small in-man system that it can even meet the Airworthiness certification requirements. I'm not even sure if the large in-man system has actually met them. All of them have been waived.
No, no. And, you know, the other thing I keep saying, it was a good point someone else had made, you know, is certified aircraft don't crash, you know. You know, we could go round and round on this, but I will say, you know, that, you know, even the current arc that's going on, there's no small business representation. The FAA doesn't take it serious.
They listen to the same vendors. It's, you know, oh, look, let's get these same vendors in here to tell us what we need to do, you know. The game is rigged. It is really rigged.
And, you know, until we have some accountability and small business get in there, you know, it's going to be an issue because you have banned aviation people. Go ahead. I'm sorry. I was just going to say that I personally, I think this latest basically suspension by the FAA of the six-site selection process for the mass integration effort, I personally believe that, you know, you can't pretty this one up.
Like, you're going to have to put lipstick on this pig. And I think there's a lot of people that are saying, hey, the happy talk ain't working anymore, folks. We've got to have a family meeting, a come to Jesus meeting, as one of my old platoon chiefs used to say, and get clear on this and then figure out what to do forward. Because I do think that there's going to be, I think there's small unmanned systems segment, right, in a space.
And I think they're saying, you know, they're probably asking the question, why are we being lumped into the rest of this mess, right? There might need to be a business as usual process for the large systems, but why are we getting basically lumped into this and being prevented from entering the marketplace?
And I do think there's going to be an accounting that's going to have to be had. I think there are questions that have to be asked. Now, whether or not those questions come to light, whether those issues are brought to light or just covered up or hidden away or tucked away quietly, that's a whole other question. And really, that's going to hinge on not technology, that's going to hinge on people and courage and willingness.
I personally, my belief, Patrick, is there shouldn't be six sites hidden in secrecy of where the heck they are. I don't know where they are. You know, where are these six sites and why is the process being held in secrecy?
I think it needs to be a fully transparent process. And why six?
Why not 50? Why shouldn't every state have its own site?
And if you don't have enough staff at the FAA, then the FAA is not the right organization. Well, and I agree with a lot of that. Look, we've got 15 seconds left. This was a good conversation.
We'll have to have you back next year. I want to thank the podcast episode sponsor, Hoop Technology, the makers of the only launcher I use for the Cracker Barrel. You can check that picture out at our homepage. Anyway, hoodtech.com.
Check them out. Thanks, John. Thanks, Gene. And we'll see everyone next week.
Okay. See you next year. Bye-bye.