UAS News Podcast — 2012-06-27
Transcript
Hey, hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the SUAS news podcast series where we're out scouring the world for news stories and uses and applications that highlight the possibilities for unmanned aircraft systems globally. Today's installment is basically we're going to talk about unmanned aircraft systems applications for public safety and I'm your host of course Patrick Egan and we have our series co-host and native son of Texas Gene first to deploy Robinson. Boy, I really muffed that one.
How's it going Gene? Good, good. Well, other than the 109 degree heat that we had yesterday, everything is cool out here. Yeah, I hear that Texas can be pretty hot.
So I guess we'll just talk about some current events real quick. You know, it looks like we have a few off of the front page and one of them being, as you brought up this morning, that Aeroenvironment issues an upbeat outlook for their fiscal fourth quarter which is kind of surprising in light of what's going on with the regulation and everything else but I guess, you know, business is good and it pays the bills
and whatever else. I also wanted to talk about a little bit about I have an upcoming series that we're going to do about basically calls back to school and we're going to do about the schools that are offering different unmanned aircraft systems programs.
That ought to be pretty insightful and I think, you know, anybody who's looking to invest education dollars may want to listen in on that show. What do you got Gene?
Yeah, there's been a big uptick in the number of folks who want to train us and how to use our unmanned aircraft and I think that's probably a good thing. I reckon it's a lot like the PC revolution from years ago. You know, it was there are many times that people thought that PCs were going to take away all sorts of jobs and there was all sorts of fear and clamor over that too but as we discovered, personal computers didn't do anything but create more jobs and I think that there's going to be a market in the United States that's very similar to that.
We're going to end up with a lot of support positions. There's going to be a lot of folks doing data analysis and I think there's going to be a need for folks out there, colleges especially, to turn out good data analysts and support people for unmanned aircraft systems. As they get simpler, that's going to take away from some of that but you never get away from someone who has to look at the data. Oh yeah and you know, I think that that feels wide open for training.
I know in my own experience, fielding teams do go to Afghanistan and collect ISR. There's so much to learn but other skill sets can apply to that. It's not like we've come up with something from Mars or Venus. A lot of the students that I had were let's say security people and security people, skill set that overlaid onto that was they were very adept at recognizing what I call threat behaviors.
Most of us in civilian life, in our everyday life, don't encounter these types of threat behaviors but if you are in a situation in a crowd where someone has a knife or a gun or anything life-threatening, there's a certain way that people react and I guess it's an inherent survival mechanism or whatever but being able to recognize those types of behaviors is a good skill set and there are a lot of other skill sets that are going to overlay into this into the future and I do think that people are going to need training.
Basically, sometimes going to have to be sussed out as far as standards are concerned. I still, you know, I hate to beat the tired old drum of there not being any regulation to point to but it really is a stumbling block for this community and this industry everywhere. Training, you know, I'm writing a position paper about privacy and the community or industry. We don't have any regulations to point to to go
well here's the flight envelope that we're going to be able to fly in so don't freak out and it's kind of along the same lines the ACLU would come and talk to COA holders and say oh my god, you know, we have these privacy issues but then they realize how limited the flight envelope was, you know, they went away with no problems and I know I kind of sag-wait into a couple of different subjects but
I mean do you agree with that?
I mean have you heard the same thing? Well, absolutely the lack of regulation and standards. You know, of course we know what the ASTM has been working on for what appears to be an eternity is a standard, an industry standard for some more UA and that's really not gotten as much of anything. It's always falling back on the mil-spec and those are all these pretty draconian because they tend to be in a pretty harsh environment which I don't think we're going to be running into out here in the civilian end of it.
Well, you know that and the program of record, you know, what the trappings that come with that are plenty of money to develop manuals and standards and you know it also affords you the the opportunity to hire the staff and you know do the printing and all the rest of that. I agree with you. I don't think that we're gonna have to get that crazy but unfortunately the standards groups are treading water in the doldrums
and you know again I've worked with them over the years as you have and you know it just seems like the DOD mindset they just figure well we just keep rewriting this eventually one day the FAA is going to go oh holy moly this is it this is you found the touchdown you know which I don't think is really going to happen.
Now on that we'll go ahead and then we'll continue. I believe that that lack of standard that lack of civilian standard is and and the pressure to get UA's out into accepted roles such as search and rescue law enforcement and that sort of thing that lack of standard is going to force people toward the mil spectrum that's already there and it's in use so it's more from the pressure of not having someone doing something progressive
and showing progress in the civilian side. Right well and you know this is the name of the game I you know I didn't really realize this in the beginning and slow learner and all that basically this process is tracking the FBO process you know that federal business opportunity thing and you know what's going to happen here you know finally they threw these mandates in here you know I've likened it to giving instructions to a teenager to clean their room
you know unsupervised and that's basically what Congress gave you say hey we want you to you know clean this mess up but we're not going to give you any guidance here's some deadlines get cracking and then you know when it doesn't happen then what and we know that there's no accountability over there that's a joke so what's going to happen in my estimation and if I'm going to use the FBO process again as a guide is there's going to be a lot of Hail Mary when these mandates hit
I mean I was looking at the FAA site yesterday and you know remember the mandate to streamline the co-op process we talked about that and it go over there and look at the date that it was posted on the website the rah-rah piece whoa you know we've implemented this streamlined co-op process sys boom bah rah rah yeah and then you know what we learned what last week that that's still not really happening it's not really happening
and the surprising thing is that there was an effort to slow it down even further well that's good you know I'd make Bill Slosky proud I don't know if you know who Bill Slosky is but he's a tortoise that advertises for Comcast cable he likes everything very slow I think they should be pretty happy over that situation then because they're really it's a notice there hasn't been very much press or there hasn't been any announcements from the FAA concerning moving forward on this that that 90-day deadline was something that they had to address
and they had to get something out on and for the most part it was misinformation I hate to say that but that was actually what we ended up with it appears that way I mean you know I don't know that you know to the casual observer you know getting back to the ASTM and our TCA and there are a couple other groups you know but I had heard that the the ASTM made overtures to reach out to me and you know it's just kind of news to me
I did talk to some people involved and had some correspondents and kind of got the update and then you know it's just people feel things are moving along and that's great I don't really feel like anybody reached out to me they're not I don't think they really want to reach out to me beyond I know that they were very hot to try to have our Kappa on board you know you have the small business community to love hate thing they don't they want to hear what
I have to say but they'd love me to sign off on that so I guess why don't we had everybody in here we don't have anybody in here we don't have it we don't have anybody in there besides a certain groups that have an actual end game you know my end game is not a selling a product my end game is advocating for a small business to have a future in this realm and in this technology and I think that sometimes people get lost in that
I don't know I mean I don't I can't tell you how many times that people sidebar and say you know but what's Patrick Egan's angle what's his deal why is he involved in this why is he even here they can't figure it out my thing with it is is it's simple to figure out nothing to sell I'm not selling a product you know all I'm trying to sell is an avenue for a small business in academia to use this low cost low risk technology
and bring this this this error aerial remote viewing to the masses that's it in a nutshell and my work with the ASTM that's it in a nutshell I'm not asking for anything I'm not saying you know you got to give me money I'm not saying you got to give me a plaque you know honorable mention I don't want a trophy I don't care you know and and and that's my goal and to some people that's pretty strange
you know why would I want to do that the same thing with rtca now I they have rtca has reached out and I have been invited to one of the meetings that is going to be out here and I think it's Silicon Valley and it's coming up here in the early fall late summer early fall and you know I'm going to go into that with an open mind and I told them that I'd be interested in coming they may not be happy with the result because
you know again it's one of those efforts that I was a part of I you know when I look back on this stuff jean it uh all you can do is laugh but 2005 you know 2005 2006 was involved um and now it's 2012 and I know that they've pared down the scope of the work that they're looking at but if I go to the meeting and I don't see anything I'm going to have no choice but to uh voice my reservations and uh critique the process
and not only in the meeting but publicly because that's what I do I figure you know truth doesn't uh you know fear investigation you know and that's it in a nutshell yeah and I've always appreciated that about you I mean some people have called you a bit acerbic but that's okay you've always among other things yeah well we won't go into name calling but uh that's one of the things that people don't understand is that this path is
so circuitous it's very difficult especially from a small business standpoint is to pick that path that you want to proceed down to go into the industry on I've very broad brushed said I was going to design a manufacturer unmanned aircraft that's all well and good but as we look at the regulations as they're starting to formulate you know the the path that I chose could be wrong and I could have to adapt
and move towards something completely different and when you're out there doing your advocacy work that you're doing again you create the avenue once you create the avenues you can decide where you're going in the industry and how you perceive uh your solution will benefit the industry and and I think that from a small business standpoint people need to look at that and say you know right now you could go in 10 different directions in the UA industry
and nine of them could be wrong based on the regulations that's about to come out well and I've always contended that I mean you can't you know the the American business model is something that's looking to the next quarter or maybe you know two quarters the outside three quarters and it's made it very difficult in this field to find venture capital or anything else even though all along and now this is going back to 2006
and the way back machine uh oh you know it's going to be three months it's going to it's going to be six months it's going to be eight months um it'll be within a year and here we are 2012 you know supposedly the the as far as out of the faa's hands and it's kind of funny is now they they you know look to dot like they're dragging their butt which is kind of comical because uh the faa's dragged its butt for
you know seven years so uh very hard to find venture capital now I know even talking myself to venture capitalists they they say they're very interested in this technology everybody realizes that the the unmanned aircraft thing is here to stay some people thought it was a fed that's over it's here to stay um and they want in on it but just like you're talking about you know there's there's people moving in a multitude of directions nobody really understands where this thing's going to go where the uh let's say the the pot of gold is under wet rainbow
and uh you know it's difficult to discern because of that and you know it's not only um I don't think anybody's I think a lot of people are grasping at where it's going to go or visionaries are looking at where it's going to go but but again it's very fluid it's dynamic and as you know as a manufacturer you know and and you can speak to this uh I'm sure is is where you've seen the technology go since
you started manufacturing uh suas so that's that's been incredible the the main reason that we even fly suas because of the sensors that we can carry and the development and the miniaturization of the sensors has taken a quantum leap from 2005 up to 2012 if you'll recall we were flying bga cameras in 2005 and thought we were getting this amazing amount of data yeah and now I understand there are two pound mass spectrometers that uh my little wing could carry
and when you get up into the 10 12 pound range of the aircraft still staying in tier one there are some incredible sensors that you can put in the air for a very long period of time and in this particular field more of his law is definitely in effect every 18 months you know you're going to have this this turnover and as we are allowed to fly in the naps you're going to see that accelerate even more
I that's my opinion oh and and I think you're dead on um you know because right now it's kind of funny is you know on a lot of the the different let's say social media type sites like even linkedin I saw somebody posted a story and about these guys that were over here in Dublin or England and you know they're violating people's privacy publicly you know they're just doing some stuff to show people what can be done
and you know I mean you want to talk about the barn door being left open I mean the barn's been burnt down and gone for years uh the the the guy over at Chris Anderson at do-it-yourself drones has sold over 14 000 systems himself you know you can buy parrot drone and that's what I think they were using uh you know brookstone fries boutique shops all over the internet um then you got all the homebrew people the rc groups folks
I mean there's you know what 50 000 60 000 100 000 150 000 of these systems already out here people operating weekends weekdays whatever some of them do it professionally some are weekenders some are just out there having fun um you know and and you're going to try and regulate that the the faa and the caa's missed the boat they could have came out with common sense regulation like we suggested back in 2007 2008 2009
and you know could have had community-based um you know regulation for the again iko definition of frangible under four pounds but oh no you know we can't have that that would make too much sense instead we want to try and you know wrap around or wrap our heads around something we totally uh don't understand so you know in the future and and it's you know I guess it's a whistling past the graveyard thing because you'll remember
you know oh safety of the nest we can't do no harm which somebody got off of a bumper sticker which is great but uh you know what where's this giant menace you know one and they set themselves up I mean it's like running out in the minefield because they also set themselves up when the first accident does happen I'm going to lay the blame you know right at the regulator's feet they know this is going on they've known it's been going on there's no denying it they used to try
and deny it but I mean you can't and where can you go and not hear or look and see one of these stories the other one that's a kicker on that was you know did you see the video the guys flying the fpv around the statue of liberty's head I did see that I did yeah that was pretty amazing video and uh I think that there was some other video done in New York by this individual as well and uh I think he got contacted oh did he
well because you know I didn't uh you know there were there was that flight and I know people stepped forward from the community and gave the faa you know name address phone number contact info told them that they were going to do more video it was for commercial purposes and I hadn't seen I haven't seen anything personally no investigation no reprimand no sightings nothing so you know I think that would have been a case where
you know they could have come out and clearly there's there's got to be stuff on the in the far aim books where they could um you know take some sort of action with that I've heard of nothing so you know I think that demonstrates uh where the faa is I don't see how they are going to be able to police this thing especially with the numbers that we're talking about I mean they can't even you know we get that uh the nappy air traffic controllers
you think they're a little easier to find you know where you're going to find air traffic controllers right yep a little difficult to find guys flying little airplanes you know and especially even the proliferation of what's coming out of China you know as far as uh consumer planes or you know 79 quadcopters or even the peregrine you know I mean these guys demonstrated what you could do with it so that's correct
you know and it's going to be more and more difficult they're going to have to improve their systems to be able to keep up with something that doesn't give the radar signature of a sparrow you know or a bumblebee or something else you know so that's more appropriate I think yeah there's there's no way that party's over and it just goes to show you know it's talking to somebody else about that about uh
you know the people in DC are a lot like the people in Hollywood but everybody thinks in DC that they're they're on the cutting edge and they're running the world and I think they just missed a boat they're treading the water swimming in the wake um it's you know more that uh let's say DOD mentality or even big government mentality that we're going to move at a certain pace and you know technology is going to jump in line to what we have to say in our regulation
and that's just being proven uh more and more that that's that's just not the case and they're just farther and farther from the reality of the that Moore's law and technology it's that simple you just you're sitting at the station you're sitting in a station where the train doesn't run down that spur anymore and uh you know it does for some folks um you know it does for for those that have already have established pipelines
and products and places to off-ramp those products but for for new people now I don't think so much um well you know I'm going to use on you a little bit there Patrick when we're talking about technology I don't know if you uh were aware yesterday that someone one of our brethren here at the University of Texas demonstrated very easily how it was to spoof an unmanned aircraft and give them new GPS coordinates to go elsewhere
I thought that was an interesting little development that was put forth in the news and I think it's probably going to be after the privacy issue the spoofing thing is going to be the the next issue you yeah well I mean you know the gift as I like to call um the the the new uh unmanned aircraft system we gave to um Iran yeah yeah uh you know I mean the S.U.S.
news has a man inside Iran if people have read those stories there were a couple of stories that came out of Iran and we had actually got information that basically that's what happened that they um you know spoofed this thing and you know you can see by the condition that it landed in um it wasn't destroyed and they captured it I think it's it's again part of our technological mindset that that you know they got were untouchable we're not untouchable
and they proved it you know we gave them a very expensive uh taxpayer funded gift and I think you know what did this guy say what did the most sophisticated spoof we've seen was a thousand bucks that's what this individual reported yesterday he said he did it with a thousand dollars worth of equipment but uh from what I understood there was in Iran there were people spoofing GPS with $26 worth of parts
I wouldn't doubt it you know um you know these people are um very crafty there's a lot of information on the internet and that's another thing I think that that's the the partial explosion you know you have uh the crowdsourcing of knowledge you know even talking to another gentleman in Europe he was asking me some questions for uh the paper he was doing and there's just like you know just think even 20 years ago
you know you do there have to be an expensive phone call or you'd be writing me letters back and forth and weeks in between yada yada now it's just like I can go to a multitude of different sites ask questions um and they will be answered within minutes regardless of my nationality or whatever else I used to have a real problem with that you know people were basically giving information and secrets to people that were let's say didn't have the United States's best interest in mind especially with boots on the ground um
you know again that's one of my quirks is I'm an idealist and uh but you know I lost that battle very early there were people just telling me we don't care we're doing whatever we want to do and if it's giving the Chinese or Iranians or whatever information and details and how to do things we're just doing it no one's going to tell us what to do so you know I'm only one guy but I don't I do think that that's going to be an issue
I also believe that um the other issue is going to be is that the air dominance air superiority uh thing is is over you know and the swarming technology you can see in the do-it-yourself community that they're going to do an exercise where they're going to have 50 to 100 planes flying around you know together so again this is done you know on a couple hundred dollar level you know um DARPA is still spending millions of dollars DOD is spending
you know half a billion dollars to develop a system that out there and the uh say internet world or or basic do-it-yourself community or hobby community is going to be done for a couple hundred bucks how are you going to combat that I you know I don't think that it's really necessary to combat it and on the flip side of the coin this individual at UT that that could spoof UA I think that that's going to drive the technology
and and even drive Moore's law into more of a compressed state because these people are making this sort of progress with off-the-shelf equipment so if if you if you look at it from that standpoint they're going to drive the technology further and farther so that it's more secure well they have to I mean you know even from my experience I know you know this COTS deal it's another uh white paper I'm working on is the COTS industrial complex
and COTS is good you know there are some real advantages to COTS it's just that from my experience you know some of the some of the vendors uh let's say go for the lowest dollar or price point COTS stuff that's not really meant to work in let's say hot and dusty environments and when you have a $30 part shuts down a $10 million system you know is that is that an effective use of of commercial off-the-shelf stuff
well I don't know in a particular instance it would be an effective use of COTS but again there are you needed to to define what environment you're going to be in so that you can select the COTS part properly uh yeah I you know that's a that's a whole other issue that we need to wrap our heads around but it's something it's a pitfall that we have to look out for I mean and I guess in contrast when
you think of let's say other countries that are using more of an asymmetrical model um their COTS products are in several hundred dollar systems and if that COTS product doesn't work it's no big deal kind of a bigger deal for us you know something something for us to think about moving into the future and I think that that's one of the things with the mindset here that has to change in our DOD culture
but that's my personal feeling on the deal I do think that as time goes by and the parts get cheaper and that the hobby community grows you know more and more of this technology is going to be in every high school kid's hands you know and then you'd agree with that I have to agree with that because uh this is going to this is the future and schools are going to need to teach that and again we go back to some of our original discussions about the schools
and colleges trying to meet the need of the technology the man technology high school kids back when I was programming you can see high school kids that were programming in really complex languages and doing very well at it so you're going to see the same thing coming out of high school with unmanned aircraft because it's a cool thing to do these days yeah and I and I don't think it's beyond the junior high level either
you know I eighth grade seventh grade you know I used to take the boy out I think he was 10 and we you know fly the plane and do all that it's not really that difficult and so some more and more as the technology gets out there the proliferation and what people can do with it I mean you know and you know it's exciting times even wrote Gary an email last night talking about you know where we're going to be in 50 years
and if people will look back at this time and look at the pictures and go oh my god what were they thinking you know kind of like the uh you know even like the old old timey aircraft photos you know where you saw the plane that had 10 wings high or the one with the funnel on it that jumped up and down yeah yeah yeah I think we'll we'll have definitely have more of that in the uh in the distant or not too distant future
but people will be looking back going oh my god what were they thinking you know this thing here you go out and you pay you know 75 dollars and it does all kinds of crazy stuff and uh you know it should be uh good for a chuck out in the future the other thing you know we talked about all the different jobs and uh future jobs and people kind of grasping at those you know it's that's another thing with this community
I think the community has kind of taken a let's sit back and kind of see what happens and for me that's kind of frustrating you know because uh you know for me being involved as long as I have there's been a lot of people sitting back just watching and waiting and I definitely believe that we have a situation that was that was kind of um we find ourselves in now was kind of developed through apathy
and I do believe that early on if there wasn't so many I mean I'm sure you remember all the in-fighting and the people oh you're doing it wrong and blah blah blah if we would have bound all together in 2006 and said uh hell no we're not we're not taking this um you know I think we'd be in a very very different situation uh than we are today regulatory wise and you know that also that that's uh also let's say overlays on the rest of the world
and that's going to be some more uh podcasts in this series we're going to have Peter von Bleinberg on from uh UBS international and he's agreed to come on and talk about uh the IKO effort the euro K effort what's going on in Europe Russia China South America Central America India uh UBS international is very active in most of the world uh besides just united not really too involved in the United States
but the rest of the world very much so that ought to be interesting we're also getting wind of um a group in Australia who has basically came up with a report of their own on what CASA proposes and they're not happy about it they see it as a business stifling uh regulatory program which I've thought all along you know the the CASA stuff and I'm sure you've looked at that and you've looked at that stuff yes
and I think it's rather funny that they're following very much a parallel path that we've been on but again the CAA looks to the FAA for guidance many times and they do collaborate well a lot of people do look to the FAA for leadership and I think that that might be a misguided idealism because maybe one at one time they were doing something but I just you know the the federal at the federal level in the United States the regulatory process has broken down it's just it's convoluted there's the
you know the old uh you know Mr.
Smith goes to Washington you know uh people out in the daylight and doing things and it's just over that is over and it's like pulling teeth to you know be part of the public process which you know segues into another deal I mean I did get the job descriptions for the manager of the UAPO and I'm working on a story for that now and it looks like we'll be uh fully requesting a lot of information there's supposed to be reports
and updates from UAPO on progress that they had been making and and those went to the associate administrator for aviation safety and she would in turn um report to the administrator and there's some people in between and you know whatever else and I think we're going to delve into that process and I think we're going to delve into that process and we're going to go back you know in some cases to 2005 in some cases to 2009
and we're going to see you know what the process was and you know where I want to kind of peel back the onion to the arc 2.0 start there and see you know how that was put together and who put it together I mean I already know the answers to that but officially who put it together how it was put together who decided who would be on there you know the the how that the mechanics of that all worked I think that'll be interesting
you know what was presented to the associate administrator for aviation safety and what she signed off on which you know what we thought we were getting and then also you know go back to 2005 as far as the progress reports that were you know given up the chain to the associate administrator for aviation safety and then again to the administrator I'd be very interested to see what these progress reports contain should be all public data
and it should be interesting to see what directions and the changes of tact and all the rest of that would you agree with that or these any other comments yeah I think that the the FOIA request that you put out for the job descriptions is going to reveal some pretty interesting responsibilities well I did get them back and I did read through there and I think some of them are a little they're a little light in description as far as the
you know I mean they talk about the capacity their common theme that they're supposed to interface with the public represent the FAA and interface with the public and news media which not so much I mean I've I've had a very difficult time getting a return of correspondence on anything from the FAA phone call email nothing you know I've had to go through federal representation office to get answers to anything
I still had that I had that FOIA request in from 2008 on who had the COAs and you know the one company the Electronic Frontier Foundation sued and got a list of who had COAs you think that since that list came out anybody over at the FAA sent me anything nada no and you know I've had other inquiries made through congressional channels about you know certain processes and you know the edict of 2007
and I had the congressional liaison person on the phone with everyone from the Unmanned Program Office they basically made my point that that was an edict and that the T's were not crossed and the I's were not dotted they had legal representation on there for the office and for the FAA and basically those gentlemen made my point that you know they changed basically changed FAA policy some might disagree
but as far as I was concerned it was a nail-chut and even the congressional person was like well I'm gonna have to dig deeper into this find out what's going on talk to some other people and get back to you still waiting on the get back and I know you probably find that hard to believe I find it rather interesting that one of the FAA's mandates is to promote and not hinder commerce that's one of the little known responsibilities that they have
and wow I don't know what happened on that one either oh yeah no I you know I don't know they're not really and they don't really I think think that way they think more along the lines of safety and you know that's good we all want a safe thing you know I mean nobody nobody's against safety but you know I do think that you know we're all in the kind of the waka together and we have to row together
and as a country you know there's there's a lot of things that you can look at that are that are that are wrong with the economic climate and moving forward and this type of let's say public service that we're getting out of this federal agency runs counter to a productive United States of America in my estimation yeah and you know that's not a hard one to find anywhere I go and if I go out and talk to people in the community
and say hey here's the situation we want to get to work we want to do business we want to you know develop technology we want to help these different industries everybody is yeah let's do it let's go what do we do how can we do this what do we do you know there's like a collective frustration and no one knows how to move forward but I think there's a lot of power in the grassroots effort and you know a lot of people have written letters to their federally elected representatives
and governors and everything else but you would think even with the upswell of support and all the people that have contacted the FAA and the different levels and even the administrator and all the rest of that that you know someone would stand up and take notice and say hey you know maybe these guys have a valid complaint if they've been here for the last eight years they've tried to interface they've tried to impart their knowledge
and expertise and basically we've just shut them down at every turn why is that and I think that that's one of the questions that needs to be asked and I think that will go hand in glove with the FOIA requests of of kind of the paper trail of how all of this stuff transpired and what happened and who knew what you know I mean somebody had a sign off on this so we got to find out who that is and kind of sift through that
and find out where things might have gotten off track that should prove to be pretty interesting I think you'll find that the shield is is going to be safety for the NAS and regardless of who was in the position at the time I think that's going to be the the overriding impetus in this whole thing and sharing it's a good one you know remember they wrote data for how many years we're still riding that one if
you don't start collecting data and they could have started collecting data I brought up the oh god the 10 the I forget what it is off the top of my head but the the the survey that they use for manned aircraft would work for unmanned aircraft and it was already there matrix available blah blah blah it's been a it's been a stumbling block anyway believe it or not we are under a minute here before it's over our uh our guest was a no show
but we had I thought was a pretty lively and enlightening conversation I agree and I hope we uh can get our guest in for another show I think he would be a very good uh good person to talk to you about the co-op process and how the military but the law enforcement are using unmanned aircraft I would agree uh be enlightening and informative maybe something came up I mean he is in law enforcement maybe uh something came up that he had to go do
so you know I'll give him a pass on that one and we'll bring him in next time anyway gene till next week um you know have fun down there in Texas and uh stay safe okay everyone take care and we'll see you next week