Stories from 400 Feet

At Energy Drone Robotics Coalition Summit (EDRS) in Houston, I sat down with Craig Husselby, VP of Business Development for Synergy Aviation to talk about oil and gas pipeline inspections and their recent expansion into the U.S.

Jacob Taylor - CEO Indigenous Aerospace; Darian Edwards,  Indigenous Air Mobility Specialist, Canadian Advanced Air Mobility; Kimble McComb, Drone Advisor, Moose Cree First Nation; and Jo-Anne Tabobandung Dean of Aviation, First Nation Technical Institute join us this week to discuss how the usage of drones is an important tool in the process of empowering indigenous communities.

Justin Simkins, a Technical Specialist from Emesent, joins us this week on how Hovermap is creating a new industry standard in autonomous lidar mapping. Justin discusses Emesent's SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) based lidar system and how it can be utilized for autonomous navigation on drone platforms. He also explores how this technology has been particularly useful in the mining industry, where it can provide safe, efficient, and accurate data collection. 

What are the current trends in the drone market? What do investors think about the drone industry? How do the answers to these questions impact the drone industry and how do we bridge the gap between positive market trends and investor confidence? We spoke with the CEO of Drone Industry Insights, Kay Wackwitz and CFO of Volatus Aerospace, Abhinav Singhvi, to get answers to these questions and address some of the current trends, concerns and common misconceptions about the drone industry. 

Richard Podolski, VP of Flight Operations, talks in-depth about the recent SFOC granted to Volatus Aerospace by Transport Canada to remotely pilot a drone using Remote Flight Control System (RFCS) software and optical Detect and Avoid (DAA) within an active aerodrome traffic zone. This is the first step toward commercializing their nesting station AeriePort.

While at CanSec, we sat down with Nigel Waterhouse, Delegate for Transport Canada, to discuss the challenges and nuances between autonomous passenger flight, remotely piloted passenger flight, and uncrewed cargo delivery when it comes to integrating them into the National Airspace safely. 

Designed by Dr. Tad McGeer, the inventor of the ScanEagle (a UAV that defined a  whole new group of military aircraft), the Flexrotor from Aerovel is a vertical takeoff and landing autonomous aircraft with a pedigree that predates most commercial UAVs. In this podcast, we speak with Aerovel's CEO, Ali Dian to dive into the dual-use applications and capabilities of the Flexrotor.  To learn more about Dr. McGeer check out a recent interview with him here.

Colonel (ret'd) Michel Latouche, leader of the Veteran Training Program, Task Force Drone, speaks about the challenges veterans face when retiring from the military and how becoming a drone pilot can be a fulfilling second career that leverages their military skills. 

We speak with Lieutenant Colonel Melanie Lake about what it has been like witnessing the Russian invasion of Ukraine after serving with Ukrainian soldiers as a commander during Operation UNIFIER from March to October of 2021 and how that experience led her and many others to establish Mriya Aid, a Not-for-Profit designed to provide non-lethal military aid to Ukraine.  

What does it take to evacuate a family from Ukraine? What are the dangers involved? We spoke with a gentleman, who in order to keep his family safe has asked to remain anonymous, about what it took to not only get his family out of Ukraine but to provide six weeks of humanitarian aid throughout Ukraine. 

Divy Shrivastava, Founder and CEO of Paladin, joins us again on Stories from 400 Feet to talk about working with the Elizabeth Police Department in New Jersey to obtain one of the first Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) waivers in Class B airspace for a Drone as a First Responder (DFR) Program. To provide some context on what this means: The FAA defines class B airspace as: "Generally, that airspace from the surface to 10,000 feet MSL (mean sea level) surrounding the nation's busiest airports in terms of IFR (instrumental flight rules) operations or passenger enplanements." This is among the riskiest and most congested parts of the National Airspace (NAS) to get a waiver here is a significant achievement for autonomous UAVs. 

Latin America is an important emerging market for drone applications, but to understand its needs, culture, and regulations across many different countries requires a combination of demonstrated experience and local knowledge. We spoke with Bruno Leoni, CEO of EOLO Drones about his joint venture with Volatus Aerospace and how they will bring sophisticated drone solutions to Latin America. 

What determines when an earthquake will happen or not? Slow-Slip Events are relatively minor movements that don't cause massive disruption like earthquakes despite having similar elements. Subduction, the process of a plate sliding under another plate, is still a key factor with slow-slip events. With the help of Pacific Triangle, Iowa State University's Geology Department is using drones for the first time to gather data on slow-slip events along the coast of California to learn more about how they happen. This research project will hopefully help us better understand its more violent cousin, the earthquake, so that we can better predict major events in the future.

Andy Lacher is currently the Chief Technologist for Future Airspace Operations in the Intelligent Flight Systems organization at NASA's Langley Research Center where he works on the safe operational integration of new aviation technologies. His deep knowledge and experience made him the ideal person to talk to about defining and standardizing autonomy and automation in aviation. In this not-to-be-missed podcast, we talk about his  work on ASTM's AC377 Technical Reports (1 through 3), M to N operations, the BVLOS ARC, public acceptance and adoption, and more. Highlights from his extensive career are below:Lacher is a subject matter expert on the safe and secure operations of unmanned and autonomous systems.  He was the Director of the Aerospace Systems Research Center at Noblis and was the Senior Manager for Autonomous Aircraft Integration at Boeing working with the NeXT team.  Before that, he was the Autonomous Systems Integration and Adoption Lead for The MITRE Corporation where he worked for 30 years.   In his MITRE career in addition to his unmanned and autonomous systems work, he was a founding member of the Collaborative Decision-Making working group; supported the Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO); and worked on a variety of ATM research projects.  Mr. Lacher took a break from his MITRE career and was an information technology consultant for small airlines and worked on satellite-based asset tracking.  He has experience with unmanned vehicles, technical standards development, software assurance, trustworthy autonomy, research planning, modeling and simulation, aviation rulemaking, safety risk assessment, ATM operations, airline operations, and operational decision-making.  Mr. Lacher has served on a number of research advisory boards and standards bodies including the National Academy of Sciences' Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board and the Federal Aviation Administration's RE&D Advisory Committee.  He has contributed to Aviation Rulemaking Committee recommendations and several National Academy of Science studies related to aerospace.   He has over 35 published papers, studies, and reports in the public domain.  Mr. Lacher is an Associate Fellow of the AIAA where he is active on the Intelligence Systems Technical Committee.  He has a BS in Electrical Engineering and an MS in Operations Research both from The George Washington University.  

By embedding a position sensor inside their propulsion system, IQ Motion Control is enabling better position control  and safety protocols and advanced health monitoring that eliminates the need for a swashplate.  We spoke with Co-Founders Jon Broome and Matthew Piccoli to learn more about their technology and what benefits this can provide OEMs looking to build next generation drone platforms. 

We spoke with Dan O'Toole about drone delivery infrastructure and how reimagining secure mailboxes is an essential element to scaling autonomous package delivery.

If your drone crashed, would you be covered? This is a question every end user and drone pilot should be asking before starting a mission, because finding out afterward is too late. Crashes can be costly and dangerous, and you want to be protected if the unforeseen happens. But, the answer on whether you are covered or not are not always simple, which is why an Insurance Broker that specializes in aviation can help you sort it out. We spoke with helicopter pilot, UAV insurance specialist and Account Executive at James A. Gardner Co., Joni Schultz, about the importance of getting the right UAV insurance and more. To contact Joni you can reach her at Joni.Schultz@jagardner.com  or on her direct line at (832)585-4110

We asked Troy Hittle, Managing Director of North America for Elistair, what can you do with a tethered drone? More than you think. Tethered drone solutions are starting to get more traction as industries look for 24/7 overwatch solutions, but, as Troy points out in this episode, there are more ways to leverage the power of a tethered drone. 

You've inspected one bridge with a drone, you can inspect them all, right? If only that were true! Unfortunately for inspectors, engineers and architects have deployed multiple designs and materials in the building of bridges all over the world. This is the story of one particular bridge in California that needed its O-rings inspected. The only problem? They were inside concrete pillars. Sky Ladder was called in by ConnexiCore to tackle the job. We spoke with Steven Katz, founder of Sky Ladder, about this challenging inspection and how they eventually were able to conquer the mission impossible bridge. 

In this episode, Adam Bilmes, Director of Sales at Inspired Flight, talks about Blue sUAS and their American-made drone, being prepared to handle supply chain disruptions, the growing maturity and savvy of end users, and what this all means for the industry. 

Back in 2019, Dawn Zoldi, Founder and CEO of P3 Tech Consulting LLC, had a vision to bring attorneys and the drone industry together to network and share knowledge. In 2022 at AUVSI XPONENTIAL, she finally got to realize that dream. After attending this groundbreaking event, we spoke with Dawn about the event's highlights, content, and lessons; the inspiring connections and opportunities that came out of that event; and more. 

We spoke with Pietro Lapiana, President of EuroLink Systems, about the inspiration and applications of their elegantly engineered Beluga Drone. Built for both defense and commercial applications, the Beluga is capable of taking off and landing from the water and has cut noise pollution in half when compared to comparable drone models, making it a unique system for applications in drone delivery, agriculture, inspections, ISR, and more. 

David Krause, Co-Founder of Influential Drones, has been working in technology for over 25 years. Influential Drones is a sales, training and aerial service provider.  Dave provides consulting and the company is a volunteer Industry Member with the FAA Safety Team (FAAST). He travels the country as a volunteer promoting a drone and aviation safety culture through the FAAST program. We spoke with Krause about his deep industry knowledge both in technology and in aviation safety, how we can work with regulators while continuing to move innovation forward, why communication is such an important element to achieving industry success, and more. 

Chris Corgnati, President of MissionGO, speaks about the current status of Type Certification for uncrewed systems and how this ties into the work they are doing with MediGo delivering life-saving organs and other critical medical supplies. 

Drones are considerably smaller than most crewed aircraft. This means that in order to fly, they can't be weighed down by multiple redundant components, making it more likely to have single-point failures - a component/system that, should it fail, would render the system inoperable. We all know that safety is paramount for advanced regulations and today's commercial operations. So, what is being done to address the risk of single-point failures?  Tony Pucciarella, Founder and CEO of AlarisPro, speaks with us about this challenge and how AlarisPro is leveraging a systems of systems approach to track component parts and identify single point failures before they become a hazard to build a safer fleet management system for drones.

Omer Sharar, CEO of InfiniDome, has been working with Honeywell for the past several years on building solutions that address some of the biggest threats to drone security and safety - loss of GPS signal due to jamming or other interferences. We spoke with Sharar to learn how his technology works, how this is impacting current events in places like Ukraine and Israel, and why it is a critical component to have for all drone OEMs, regardless of use case. 

We often talk about a "drone industry" but really there are a number of industries that leverage drones to make operations faster, safer, cheaper, and better.  But finding the right platforms and sensors, getting the right talent to conduct missions, understanding what drones can do for your business, or scaling up can be a significant challenge. Steve Coulson, Founder, Director, and CCO of COPTRZ, talks about how his company is helping industries leverage the power of drones, the increasing demand for integrated air/ground/maritime solutions, and more. 

In our second episode from AUVSI, we spoke with Michael Healander, CEO of Airspace Link, about what it takes to build a safe, sustainable, and scalable drone infrastructure that can enable advanced operations, the need for outside funding and support, and more. 

When  a childhood friend's house burned down in his tight knit Indian immigrant community, Divy Shrivastava began asking questions. What did fire fighters and other first responders need to ensure better outcomes in emergencies? He kept hearing the same things: first responders needed more information before arriving on scene. From here, he built Paladin, a drone as a first responder system that can be deployed the second a 911 call is placed. For our third podcast in the AUVSI series, we spoke with Divy to learn more . 

Kickstarting our 17-part series of short podcasts taken from the show floor at XPONENTIAL 2022 in Orlando Florida is none other than President and CEO of AUVSI, Brian Wynne. It was an honor to talk with him about his vision for the future of uncrewed systems (ground, sea, and air),  his insights from being on the FAA BVLOS Advisory and Rulemaking Committee (ARC), and more. 

Glen Lynch, CEO of Volatus, explores the ethics and moral obligations we face when supporting the defense of Ukraine with guests Ret. Maj. Gen. Glynne Hines, Ret. Lt. Col. Leon Jensen, and Mriya Aid's Lubomyr Chabursky.The call to provide humanitarian aid and support to those in need can be a complex decision for businesses.  When there is a crisis, like what is happening in Ukraine, businesses may want to help but it isn't as simple as that. No one wants to be seen as profiting from a tragedy yet they also have an obligation to their stakeholders, so they have to tread carefully. Lt. Col. (Ret.) and former President of the The Royal Canadian Artillery Association Leon Jensen, Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Glynne Hines, Lubomyr Chabursky of Mriya Aid, and Glen Lynch, CEO of Volatus Aerospace explore the challenges that come with decisions to provide aid in times of war,  the positive impact that proper support can bring to those in need, the role governments should take to support efforts, and the impact on veterans and ways they can help. 

As DRONERESPONDERS is poised to kickstart its next set of educational forums with AUVSI XPONENTIAL in Orlando Florida on April 25th to 28th, we sat down with Christopher Todd, Executive Director of AIRT (Airborne International Response Team and home to DRONERESPONDERS) to talk about the challenges, trends, and future of drones in Emergency Response, as well as what topics will be discussed over the course of this year's programming,  including blue sUAS, hazmat applications, integrating ground and air robotics, drones as a first responder, and more. 

In the first installation of our special special podcast series on Ukraine, we speak with Retired  U.S. Air Force Major General, James Poss, CEO of ISR ideas and Founder and Former Executive Director of Assure,  Lubomyr Chabursky from Mriya Aid, Dean Attridge, VP Solutions Engineering at Volatus Aerospace, and Glen Lynch, CEO of Volatus Aerospace about how drones are supporting military efforts in Ukraine, specifically drones used for intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, reconnaissance, and resupply, and what everyone in the drone industry and beyond can do to support. 

Building façade inspections are time consuming and dangerous jobs often requiring dangling an inspector off the side of a building or constructing scaffolding. The process can take months if not longer for your usual building project. So, what do you do when you are working against the clock and have a million square feet of building façade and 8 acres of roof top to inspect in just 5 days in Seattle? You hire a drone team.  In this episode, Kirk Floyd, Owner of Kdrone Services, talks about how his team of drone pilots captured that data in less than 5 days and why conducting façade inspections with drones is a game changer for the AEC industry.

Getting the permission to take off is often one of the first challenges you'll encounter when conducting a drone operation. You may run up against regulations, state and local laws, or unexpected temporary flight restrictions (TFRs). What the industry doesn't realize is how often those rules, regulations, and laws are being built by people who don't understand what drones can do and what pilots need to do. The Law-Tech Connect Workshop, being held on April 25th at AUVSI 2022 in Orlando, Florida,  is a much needed platform to bring attorneys and industry stakeholders to the table to educate, network, and have important conversations to determine the future of the drone industry. In this podcast, we talk with Dawn Zoldi, the founder of Law-Tech Connect, about the details of the workshop, who will benefit from attending, and why it is important to the industry. Listen in for a special promotional code! 

In our first episode of Stories from 400 Feet, we talk with Frank Segarra, CEO and Founder of ConnexiCore a Volatus Aerospace Company, about the capacity drones have to be a workforce multiplier.  A foundational episode that will support everything that is to come, Frank talks us through the many ways drones are bringing value to society and why. 

We need to share more real-life drone stories. This podcast is designed to highlight everything that is going on in the drone industry. Listen to our introductory podcast to learn more.