Making it rain

Finding the give points

While lining up interesting and viewer appealing applications to use UAS/Drones I have come across those who aren’t in compliance with the FAA, those who are but don’t want the public to be aware they are using the technology and college and universities who want to protect their proprietary technologies. Then there are those who can’t get the FAA to grant them a COA and then those who have current COAs and don’t have a problem obtaining new COAs. Why the inconsistencies?

 I need content

I have been hearing about oil companies using UAS for safety inspections on oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico that I would like to speak with. Then I’ve been hearing about the amphibious, predatory migration with pythons and alligators crawling out of the everglades into residential neighborhoods. The white nose bat disease, I meet this gentleman who knew a researcher and her husband who was a pilot, they would catch a bat and fasten a tracking beacon to it and her husband would fly after it, tracking the signal to the cave and his with would go there and estimate the number of bats in the cave and check to see if any were infected with the white nose bat disease. Then her husband died. The gentleman I talked with believed that UAS/Drone could be used to track the bats in the same ways as her husband did in the plane.

 Making opportunities

I began to analyze how the successful COAs come together. From my research, whenever there is a government entity sponsoring the COA they get approved. That doesn’t include colleges and universities unless the research is also sponsored by a government entity. I became aware of the Ambrosia Symbiosis that is destroying the oleander trees in the everglades. I found Jiri Hulcr and coordinated a conference call with Ted Batkin where they discussed the methodology of the insects that spread the disease and it is very similar to the way palm weevils and nematodes work together to breakdown palm trees, stressing them so the larvae can have a host. That made me think about the ECO-Agri Formula. I talked with Jiri Hulcr and informed him of George Sigler of Sky Warrior Inc. who has been training Naval NFOs since Vietnam and he also gets contracted to fly over the everglades for the Florida Department of Fish and Wildlife and Fly Motion Media and he was intrigued but he told me “My department doesn’t have the funding to pay for UAS/Drones for research”. That made me go after the Florida Avocado Growers Association and I was told that they have a lot of money and that they were given a demonstration on UAV/Drones less than two months ago. I will be speaking with them tomorrow.

The formula

 When there is an entity with a need or use for UAS/Drone, they sponsor research via a college or university through a government entity like the department of forestry or USDA.