Get in the game!
This whole domestic UAS industry is very fragmented and all
over the board. The FAA is like the poker player who comes to the game late and
trying to learn on the fly, trying to implement their own rules and holding up
the game. The big players let them do this because it is making everyone else
frustrated enough to fold. If you have enough chips it isn’t hard to figure out
what’s in every ones hand but everyone is waiting on the new guy to deal and
that is the FAA. The chips are out there but they are not on the table. Everyone
is waiting for the FAA to deal. There are not only investors sitting on the
sidelines but end users that don’t even know they are in the game. The backend
game for the high rollers is setting the FAA up so everyone can play. I am not
a conspiracy theorist but it is plain to see that this game is “Favorites”
right now.
While the high rollers are coaching the FAA to deal them the
high cards, the real players who don’t even know they are in the game yet need
coaching because they are really holding the high cards. The high rollers have
week hands and they know it. I have been saying “It’s like the story of the emperor’s
new clothes” but it is really just like a poker game. The established players
are bluffing and if they can keep everyone else from getting in the game until
they get the high cards from the FAA, they will win. The established UAS professionals
are playing penny ante when they have the skills to beat the high rollers. The one
guy who can break the game loose is attorney Brendan Schulman but he knows that
what he has the ability to do is going to make a lot of people a lot of money
and I assume that he wants to make sure that he is adequately compensated for
it.
We need to turn this
game into a team sport
If this case were to be turned into a class action law suit
that is where Mr. Schulman would get the compensation he is looking for. I am
going to recommend that the members of RCAPA file a class action law suit and
have Brendan Schulman do the filing. I recommend that every UAS and drone pilot
and professional become a member of RCAPA and for RCAPA to join forces with the
MAPPS organization. MAPPS is the hub of disciplines that commercial UAS operations
is perfect for. They have photogrammetry and geospatial professionals and
experts who may not know it yet but they want commercial UAS operations to in
the National Airspace and they want it at a competitive rate. This is where the
high rollers hand is week. They know they are overpriced for the market. Just
one example is the Scan Eagle vs the Cyclops. They both have about the same
5lbs technology payload capability and four hours duration of flight but the
Scan Eagle system is over a million dollars with the base price for the airframe
at $175,000. The Cyclops’ base price is $5,400. This is where the “Emperors’
new clothes” analogy fits. The domestic market isn’t going to pay those
inflated rates. These high rollers are jumping over dollars to get to quarters
anyway. The money is in “The law of large numbers” the cellular companies have
it figured out, give away the cell phones and charge for the service. Oh, these
service providers aren’t going to pay for overpriced technologies either and
they are more likely to buy a UAS/Drone company like Google did with Titan or
lease the services. The FAA will make a lot of money through UAS pilot and
airframe certifications, a subscribership to a web-site porthole for commercial
UAS pilots to upload their mission tasking. They just need to make sure that
they don’t use the same web-master that worked on the Affordable Care web-site.
IPS/NexGen has the right management system to do exactly this as well as the
situational awareness solution that solves the sense and avoid dilemma.
Everything is easy
when you know the answers
The Unmanned industry is going to be a boon once the FAA lets
the game get started. Everyone is so head down in their own technology’s they
are missing the big picture. I hope this post clear some of the fog.
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