Drone losers and losers in 2018

I have just jumped out of the bath to jot down some notes before today’s email goes out. A place holder if you will. What has prompted my disd

ain?

Some absolutely ridiculous forecasts for 2018 that I have just read whilst in the bath!

President Trumps drone integration program is not going to make a blind bit of difference, letting local regions decide on the rules they would like is going to sew chaos and confusion. Every team is going to say their way is the best way and won’t want to budge at the end of it.

There are already UAS test sites and they have largely been held to be failures within the industry. You can tell that people in Part 107 land are desperate for work and a future by looking at the requests to join teams for this push. I am not seeing any new ideas coming out of it. Why on earth create another testing layer when the current one is unpopular.

In my opinion the greatest threat facing the American drone industry is not the DJI data breech but UTM and LAANCs.

UTM providers must create and establish digital maps of airspace and find a way to connect with RPA to display them and keep them apart from manned flight. In return they get the keys to all that lovely data. Algorithms will quickly deduce what type of flying is happening where and that information will be sold on.

LAANCs is much the same. Of course people are going to help you get the authorizations for free or a low cost. Again, they have the data of what you were doing and where. How much would a competitor pay for that?

Air Traffic Navigation Service providers must be rigorous in their due diligence when it comes to UTM and LAANC proponents, the slightest sniff of impropriety and they must be dropped like a hot potato.

The rush to digitise airspace below 500, is bought to you by the same people that wanted Net Neutrality gone and stacks of other vested interests.

It has absolutely nothing to do with flight safety.

The real killer for mom and pop Part 107 operations will be airworthy requirements for platforms. These will be pushed by the vested interest crowd as they will be able to afford to write the standards for their platforms and in effect buy the small guy out of the sky. There are strong rumors of that being a Q1 thing in the USA.

I’m going to stop now, the only reason I can really rant is that most of you won’t read the daily email between Christmas and New Years. I am a drone advocate, honest. People have and will be saved by them, dangerous inspection jobs made safe and a whole host of other things.

But lets start working from solid ground rather than the sands of fickle market forecasts, created for the sole purpose of making you click or buy reports.

Now I must resist getting started on online mapping providers and drone shows. Two areas that did not have the best 2017.