China’s Drone Tech Sparks Dreams! | The DroneOn Show Episode 11

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Drone on show. I'm Mike. [00:00:02] Speaker B: And I'm Kevin. [00:00:03] Speaker A: And this week we're going to talk about our trip to China. Of course, we had to get a little political with the FAA stuff, but, yeah, it's going to be an interesting conversation. [00:00:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Robot arms, future of drones, and much, much more. [00:00:16] Speaker A: Some of the things that they're doing in China, we're going to talk about that and how we are held back here because of regulations. [00:00:24] Speaker B: And if you really want to know what Mike thinks about the faa, then just stick around. [00:00:28] Speaker A: All righty. Let's get into it. Inquiring about them. Okay. You know, well, well, we're also getting close to figuring out distribution for our. On our end, so it. It would allow us the margins to sell to retailers like yourself. [00:00:45] Speaker B: Awesome. [00:00:45] Speaker A: That would be great. Yep. But. All righty. Sounds good, Josh. You have a good day. [00:00:50] Speaker B: All right, thanks. [00:00:50] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, yeah. He talks to a lot of people. I don't know why. Probably because he's an applicator himself. [00:01:01] Speaker B: Like, how has he been so successful, do you think? Like, how has he gone up to. [00:01:05] Speaker A: He lives in Kansas. Kansas is one of the biggest states for agriculture. [00:01:09] Speaker B: Did he say 12 rigs? [00:01:10] Speaker A: 12 rigs. [00:01:11] Speaker B: 12 rigs. You guys are rigged. Probably. [00:01:13] Speaker A: But look at the fields like that. He sends me, like, can you imagine pulling up to a field that looks like this? [00:01:20] Speaker C: So are we just getting into it or are we gonna, like, you know. [00:01:23] Speaker A: I would just get right into it. That's how most the fields look like in Kansas. [00:01:27] Speaker B: Oh, man. But not. Not every guy in one year is going to go up to 12 rigs, though. Like, there's no. [00:01:31] Speaker A: No, no, no, no. [00:01:32] Speaker B: It's good about. [00:01:35] Speaker C: Let's get some context. What are we talking about here? [00:01:37] Speaker A: Yep. But we will. Austin, this show doesn't always have to be exactly scripted because oftentimes me and Kevin get fired up and we're talking about all the things that are happening in this drone space, in the drone space that you never know what you're about to talk about when you sit down. [00:01:54] Speaker C: But when these guys sit down, I'm like, pushing buttons to get everything fired up, because it's like, we gotta, you know, get this going. [00:02:01] Speaker B: Like to say, it's. As long as I've been a part of it, it's never been scripted. [00:02:04] Speaker A: No, no, no. [00:02:04] Speaker B: It's always been. [00:02:05] Speaker A: Yeah, well, Austin likes to. Okay, we're gonna talk about. And where's my bubbler? [00:02:12] Speaker B: You don't even have a bubbler. [00:02:13] Speaker A: Oh, no, I didn't Yeah, I didn't even have a bubbler fail anyhow. All right, guys, So I just got off the phone with an applicator in Kansas. I sold him his first T40s three years ago, and he is up to 12 rigs. [00:02:25] Speaker B: That is. [00:02:26] Speaker A: I was just basically giving him some info of some flying I was doing Yesterday with the T60X, which is the. The latest and greatest drone that's available. Flies faster, carries more, Just everything about it. I'm starting to really, really like it. [00:02:39] Speaker B: So I wonder how many acres he's covering in Kansas with 12 rigs. [00:02:44] Speaker A: I for. He told me this stuff, but I don't remember it at, you know, all of it. But what we really should do is we'll talk to him, bring him on the podcast. I should go out there and run with him. [00:02:55] Speaker B: It would be good. [00:02:56] Speaker A: He said, come out anytime and run. So we probably will do that at some point. This. There's a lot. [00:03:02] Speaker B: But you got fired up thinking about how 60s would even help him amp up what he's doing now with 50s, right? [00:03:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, he's doing everything 50s. Well, he had J1 hundreds. For some reason, he was thinking maybe this whole DJI thing, moving away from it and going the, you know, J100 route. And he was one of the first guys that had six of them fall out of sky. And so he quickly got off of that train. [00:03:28] Speaker C: This was this guy. [00:03:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:30] Speaker C: Oh, wow. Yeah, man. [00:03:31] Speaker A: So, yeah, he quickly got off of that train and was like, nope, I am going back to the tried and true tested, and it works. Yeah. So I don't know how much he gets done. I just know he does a lot. I know that he lost a lot of money because of the J1 hundreds going down and then also coming in late. You know, he. He would. I don't know if he sold drones his 50s prior to buying the hundreds, but he. I know he lost money because of the 1/ hundreds falling out of sky, but, yeah, it's unfortunate. You know, we talked about the one hundreds before. It's. We definitely don't want to see some. Somebody fail because of it. But how much things were said about it? People started believing in the product without even using it and having a lot of acres on it. [00:04:17] Speaker B: So, yeah, work in progress. But it's getting better, right? [00:04:21] Speaker A: Yeah, they're. [00:04:21] Speaker B: I mean, figuring stuff out. We're told, like, I think they're figuring stuff out. [00:04:25] Speaker A: Yeah. But will they ever be? There's a reason that DJI has, like, 97% of the world agricultural market. There's a reason for it. I don't know. Does the NDA apply about how many drones were sold in China? Call Ronnie Oscar. Yeah, we're going to get into that. We. We went to China. Yeah. That's the first time I've ever been to China. [00:04:50] Speaker B: It was a fun trip, dude. [00:04:51] Speaker A: I loved everything about it. Like, I had this perspective before I went, and I was like, just everything I've ever heard of China. Like, it's dirty, it's. It's smoggy. They don't like us. Just. Just all these things. Right. That maybe our government tells us or. I don't know. I just had this thing right before I went. I was like, maybe it's not like that. It's actually truly not like that. And they actually like us. Like, they. The people of China, not the governments. Right? Not the US Government, not the China government. The people of China. I got there and it was exactly like I thought that it might be. It's true. Good people, hard workers, grind. Just go, go, go. Like that one kid that we met that picked us up. Well, let's just tell them the story and then. And then we'll get into it. [00:05:52] Speaker B: But he ran a drone repair shop for ag drones. [00:05:55] Speaker A: 25 years old. [00:05:57] Speaker B: And he lived in the city, right? [00:05:59] Speaker A: Yep. [00:05:59] Speaker B: It's like he had a warehouse, but, like, that guy has it going on. [00:06:03] Speaker A: Yeah, dude. We got into his battery SUV in China. I'm telling you guys, there's so many battery vehicles in China. Like, it's not just Tesla. Like, there are some Teslas over there, but a lot of different brands. Yeah, a lot of different brands. But we got into. I just feel like we're just skipping forward so fast. Why did we go to China? [00:06:25] Speaker B: Yeah, well, there was an expo, right? There was. The biggest UAV expo in the world was held in May in China. [00:06:31] Speaker A: Yeah, Shenzhen. [00:06:33] Speaker B: Shenzhen. Yeah. We wanted to see what's up, see what's coming. Like, what's the future? The most depressing thing about that show. Two things, but the most depressing, depressing. [00:06:42] Speaker A: Oh, tell me. [00:06:44] Speaker B: There's so many applications for drones that, like, we can't eat. Like, we could get excited about it, but you can't do it. Can't do it in the U.S. can't do it in the U.S. can't do it in the US and it is, in some ways it's just a battle, like, for agricultural. Agricultural drones. There's already tried and proven. We've been doing that for years, but the whole process still takes three to six months. [00:07:05] Speaker A: Way Too long to get your agricultural stuff. Yeah. [00:07:07] Speaker B: How's our Part 91 application going with drones? Right where we're asking to do heavy transport? [00:07:12] Speaker A: Did you see they requested the third rfi? What more are we going to give you? Faa? We want to use the fly cart to pick up a generator or pick up tools or do this or do that in emergency situations or. I want to do it on my own property anyhow. Jeez. [00:07:29] Speaker B: Is it the same one? Just. [00:07:30] Speaker A: It's the same thing. [00:07:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:31] Speaker A: He. He wants the same stuff again that we've given him two other times. Yeah, it's just. It's a process of slowing technology down in America. [00:07:41] Speaker B: Yep. [00:07:41] Speaker A: You say that there were so many things that we've seen in China that we just can't have. Like what? [00:07:46] Speaker B: Like, like the two big categories. Power washing and fire suppression. Yeah, yeah, those two things. Like to operate drones near high rise buildings in a city environment. [00:07:56] Speaker A: Can do it. [00:07:57] Speaker B: Good luck. Yeah, frickin luck. [00:07:59] Speaker A: Yeah. You can't do it in the, in the United States with the fa Actually, I should say you can't legally, according to the faa, do it. Could you do it? Yeah, you probably could do it. The fly cart setup that was rigged up with its own tank to do like de icing or something. Yeah, that was really, really cool. [00:08:19] Speaker B: Yeah, that's very cool. [00:08:20] Speaker A: Yeah. So it had, it had its own pressure washing com. What is that thing called on a pressure washer? The compressor? [00:08:28] Speaker C: I have no idea. [00:08:29] Speaker B: The thing that creates pressure. [00:08:32] Speaker A: Yeah, the thing that creates pressure. It would have been like carrying its own pressure washer without a hose attached to it. And it would have its own carry load with it. So you could do de icing on like windmills or something like that. Or big towers. Yeah. So you wouldn't actually have to be attached to an actual physical water hose. It would take it with it. [00:08:54] Speaker C: What was your, like, what was your perception? Were these just a bunch of enthusiasts coming up with all kinds of things you could do or were people like actually. [00:09:03] Speaker A: Oh, no, there's. They're totally doing it. Yeah, they are totally doing it in China and probably in the European market. It felt like there were a lot of Europeans. Yeah, a lot of Europeans. [00:09:13] Speaker B: And tens of thousands of buyers or just industry people walking through those shows. [00:09:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:19] Speaker B: One of the other takeaways is it's so startling to see the difference of the Chinese government and how they interact with drones and the American government, the Chinese government, every year they have a different category of innovation that they're trying to award or promote. [00:09:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:33] Speaker B: And so they'll give money to companies that create products in this category. For example, now it's like fire suppression. Whereas here in America, you want to use a somewhat proven drone technology and you have to petition and try. [00:09:48] Speaker A: And yet you have to get on your knees. [00:09:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:50] Speaker A: And beg to the higher powers and then shall. Let me do this. It is. Oh my gosh. [00:09:57] Speaker B: And three months later they come out and say, do a little more begging. Yeah. I'm not going to tell you how to do it differently, but it just, it didn't work for me last time. Do it again. [00:10:04] Speaker A: No, this is true. This is true. Like we take time and we, we try to write our safety manuals and we'll give them the whole spiel of the safety that goes in it. We'll have a vo. We'll, we'll do this, we'll do that, we'll keep it safe now. No, no, no, no, no. Not good enough. Tell me again, how are you going to do this to be safe? How could you be more safe than out in a rural field, trees everywhere, no house around you for. I'm talking about if we do the out west stuff. [00:10:37] Speaker B: Yep. [00:10:37] Speaker A: You know, there might not be a house even close to you for three miles. [00:10:41] Speaker B: Yep. Right. They still won't allow with the ceiling. So you're not interfering with other air traffic. You know, all these things got it through. You know, how are you gonna. They. What app are you going to check the weather on and to check like the notam. Yeah. What app? Like all down to. [00:10:55] Speaker A: So we gave them all that and now they want more. Kevin. [00:10:59] Speaker B: So the next step, we just do. [00:11:00] Speaker A: We just copy and paste the same thing. [00:11:02] Speaker B: I think the next step is I. $10,000 for an FAA attorney to take what we've done. I don't know, do something like. [00:11:11] Speaker A: No, I think it's just a Dr. A drug out process that the government does to give them more time to maybe come up with their own rules. [00:11:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:22] Speaker A: I think that, that that's what it is. [00:11:24] Speaker B: And then on the other end, you have the Chinese government saying, whoever can figure out how to do this kind of thing, we're going to give you a contract for $50,000 per unit. Orders of 50 units each. Hugh wants to come and get it. [00:11:36] Speaker A: Yep. Yeah. For agricultural. Give him a. Tell them what Brian was telling us about. How, how was it? The, The Chinese government really wants farmers in China to adopt new technology. They have an incentive. Right. It's called an incentive. [00:11:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:52] Speaker A: So if a farmer buys a spray drone in China, he Basically gets it for free because the Chinese government wants them to use this technology that is less environmental impact. [00:12:06] Speaker B: Yep. Safer for the environment and it works. [00:12:09] Speaker A: Better on the crops. So the, the Chinese government is saying, hey, farmer, if you are growing rice and you buy a drone, you get this amount of dollars back. [00:12:20] Speaker B: Something like that. Yeah, yeah. [00:12:21] Speaker A: And they produce thousands and thousands of drones because of that reason. [00:12:27] Speaker B: And then to the drone manufacturers, just produce agricultural drones and we're going to give like, we'll buy them from you. Even if nobody else buys them, the government will buy them from you. [00:12:35] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that, that, that I found a little strange. [00:12:38] Speaker B: But how else? [00:12:39] Speaker A: I think that's how EA got started. Sorry, sorry, but I got no proof or data on this. [00:12:45] Speaker B: But. No, but listen, but how else? Like, what better way to foster the private sector to like actually innovate and create and, and give them Runway to go out there and try new things? [00:12:56] Speaker A: No, no, I agree. I mean, what is our government giving? Don't they give like money to other countries to like, do these studies of like gay mice or something? [00:13:05] Speaker B: Yes, a lot of gay mice. And I think I, I think those were partially stopped, but I think also our dear Republican senators are actually not voting to really stop those. So it's still like they have to ratify what Doge did and they're not doing it because they still want to spend it. And so it's all just a big scam. It's kind of the takeaway. [00:13:24] Speaker A: It was shocking to see how far ahead on the technology side of. [00:13:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:29] Speaker A: Things. You know, China, China, on the technology side of things is just further ahead, I feel, because of less regulations in the airspace, I think. Right. I'm sure that China has all kinds of regulations that us free Americans are like, I would never live there because I can't have a gun and go shoot a groundhog. I get it. I'm just saying in this little space of technology, of how to get things done maybe more efficiently or more cost effectively, they're doing it. [00:14:06] Speaker B: Y. The other big takeaway from that show for me was how Shenzhen is actually such a hub for manufacturing of components. [00:14:13] Speaker A: Yeah, well, the first, one of the first big signs that, that we seen when we landed at the Shenzhen airport was a huge. Probably what it was, a 15 by 10 foot sign. And it said that Shenzhen is owned. Or how was it? [00:14:28] Speaker B: I think it was 70% of consumer drones are built in that city. Are built in that city of the whole world in the global consumer drone market. Which means DJI manufacturing is there, which is probably, like, and then a bunch of other little guys. [00:14:40] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, a bunch of other little guys, but 70% of them are in one city. [00:14:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And that, that leads to, like, if you want to go find propellers or, you know, chassis or aluminum or bolts or wiring harness or anything you want to do, there's little companies, medium companies set up to do that one specific thing. [00:14:59] Speaker C: Literally. [00:15:00] Speaker A: Literally, you can build a drone. You could have went to that show and built a drone from nothing to an actual airframe of a drone with propellers and motors and everything for your own brand of drone. And I, you know, we've talked about doing that, but then we've talked to other people and they're like, yeah, I can build a drone and I could build a drone. But just building the drone and getting it to hover or getting it to fly is one thing. It's the whole software that makes a drone great. And that is why DJI will forever lead the industry. They just have so much data. They know what the people want, they know how the software should work together. And you just won't catch up. You just will not. I know I've said it before, Kevin, but let's start building rockets. Will you ever get to where SpaceX is? [00:15:51] Speaker B: Yeah, probably never. [00:15:52] Speaker A: It will just be so hard now if SpaceX, a rocket, comes back down and annihilates their whole thing and everybody dies. Maybe you could. Yeah, but no, it's not gonna happen. [00:16:04] Speaker B: But. Okay, so it's hard to disagree with that because of how advanced they are. [00:16:08] Speaker A: I remember we had this conversation once and then you always want to come back. [00:16:12] Speaker B: I just feel like there is a space though, where. Okay, how about this? Tell me what you think about this. Maybe nobody else will ever catch up and be as good as, but soon other one or two other drone companies will become good enough. That's what I think. Nobody will ever be as good as. But a couple of them will be good enough, I think. [00:16:30] Speaker A: Okay. [00:16:31] Speaker B: Because that's what, that's what you see, I think, in cell phones where it's so much easier to make a good cell phone now than it was 10 years ago. And a lot of little companies are making good cell phones, but depending who you ask, nobody is as good as Samsung or Apple. But there's a lot of other cell phone manufacturers that are good enough. [00:16:45] Speaker A: Okay. We don't know what it actually truly will. [00:16:48] Speaker B: Little yellow drone. Yeah. I mean, surveillance. Yeah. Give me 100 minutes. I'll take it. I'll take 200 minutes, to heck with. [00:16:54] Speaker A: It, but it's like, what are we doing? I mean, they don't show how you use it. [00:16:58] Speaker B: Yeah, what it's for. [00:17:00] Speaker A: All it is to me is it's another crowdfunding type thing where it's like proof of concept. [00:17:06] Speaker B: Let's get the money, let's figure out what we're going to build as we're, as we build it. [00:17:09] Speaker A: 100 minutes. It's great, right? 100 minutes, good. But how do I use it? [00:17:13] Speaker B: That was, you know, one of the booths that we walked by was the flight module booth. There's three big flight modules from what we saw at the booth, three big flight modules. And those companies have, I think they're open source or they're built on open SDKs, something like that. So the flight module, you buy it and they're cheap. They're like 100, 200 bucks for a flight module. And then do you want the one for the enterprise or do you want the one for the agriculture? And she wanted to give us a flight module so that we could come back and test it. And then the only specialization is the kind of software that you write on top of that flight module that runs. But that's the hard part, the software. 100%. 100%. But those little flight modules are so cheap. Yeah, that was amazing to me. [00:17:56] Speaker A: Look, they don't have this figured out. What they're doing is we're going to have a drone that flies for 100 minutes, but they have no concept of how they're going to set up the sprayer. Did you see this? [00:18:05] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. But companies like that will have a hard time getting off their feet in the US Whereas if a company like that gets a contract for $2 million or $20 million, they definitely need a. [00:18:15] Speaker A: Lot more than that. [00:18:16] Speaker B: They can, like in China, they could actually just go build a basic proof of concept, improve on it. Like in our area, there's woodworking. That is the same kind of fractional distributed industry where that guy makes cabinet doors, that guy makes countertops, that guy makes. And if you want to build furniture in this community, Ohio, it is one of the easiest places to do it because you just got to know who does, you know who does each of the different pieces. And then you can actually outsource that component to each of the little factories, the little shops. [00:18:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I just feel like I didn't want to keep bringing up that company. But it's like, you tell us you have these things, but you actually don't because you're showing us AI images and what you're doing Is you're trying to say that you're American built to try to get funding from American people to then go build this thing where the Chinese, it seems they don't do that. They just literally build it. [00:19:09] Speaker B: Yeah, they just build it because it's easy for them because they all just source it there locally. Yes. [00:19:13] Speaker A: But can you imagine what that sucker costs? Oh, dude, like, think about, like what we're already paying for, like a T60X, like $43,000. You know, it hovers, carries 132 pounds, and it'll, you know, in hover, it'll probably be in the air for five and a half, six minutes. I mean, that's not that great, but it actually does something here. You're just showing me AI images that it will fly for 100 minutes, but we have no idea what it's going to cost. Like, it could be 100,000, it could be 200,000. Well, then you are just way outside of the market. [00:19:50] Speaker B: I think your beef is not just with that, but just in general. A lot of companies that bring unproven ag drones. Right. And you know what it's like to fly ag drones for a living. [00:19:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, so unproven ag drones, you remember what it was like when they were starting to talk about Band, DJI Band, how many unproven spray drones that started creeping into the market? Like, we had guys reaching out to us that had no, absolutely no agricultural experience whatsoever, but they had this spray drone that they put together. And it's going to be the biggest and the best thing. But it's like, guys, you actually have to work this stuff and see how it's going to function long term to actually start getting backing. And I just don't know how a company would do that. Putting AI images on their website, like, makes me a little sketched out. Now maybe we invest, Kevin, maybe we put some money in because it might be the next Tesla, I don't know. But it's just. Why, why do we have to do that? [00:20:50] Speaker B: The American drone manufacturing is so far from maturity to where, like, it's just so far all that we're doing right now is proof of concept fundraising. But. [00:20:59] Speaker A: But okay. [00:21:00] Speaker B: It's just how it'll be for the next couple years. [00:21:01] Speaker A: Yeah. The other problem we gotta get figured out is the faa. Like, just because we have these drones can. That can carry, that can fly this far, that can do these things, it's not gonna do us any good unless the FAA loosens up some on their regulations. Because when I go pick up A generator and I gotta fly to the back corner cuz I got a long way to go spray like they're telling me I can't do that. Why? We got a problem. [00:21:25] Speaker B: I think that, that with the FAA is going to be primarily fixed with the release of the part 108. [00:21:30] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll see. But the, the part 108's been talked about for three years. We just got started and they were talking about the. [00:21:36] Speaker B: I feel like we're probably two to three years away yet for that to. [00:21:40] Speaker A: Be with a couple zeros on there. 20 or 30 years or, or 200 years like the FAA. I'm telling you, the FAA is so slow that when you go get your pilot's license right now, you are supposed to learn how to navigate on what's called a V. It's a radio freque that is set on the ground and it has points, literally you can look this up, has points around this radio tower and when you're way over here, you dial this old ruggedy thing that tells you what radial you're on. Like they're obsolete. Like people don't you have to learn. [00:22:15] Speaker B: It to pass the test. [00:22:17] Speaker A: Because the FAA is so slow to adopt new technology that they're like, no, no, you definitely got to know this stuff. But. So that's why I'm saying like it. [00:22:25] Speaker B: Might be a while. [00:22:26] Speaker C: Yes. [00:22:27] Speaker A: Like some of this stuff, dude, their. [00:22:29] Speaker B: Job has got to suck because the only time you hear about them usually is when something goes wrong. And so it feels like the whole organization is built on how do we prevent anything from ever going wrong? And that's good. You need some of that. But how do you mix that with wow, the world's changing and we got to exactly. Keep up. [00:22:47] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah, that. That's going to be the hardest thing you brought up. Fire suppression, something that we've seen in China. Such a great idea. And, and again, it's not going to like replace helicopters or airplanes doing bomb drops or whatever they're called on water, with water on forest fires. But using a drone, what we've seen over there, using a drone, when a small fire starts to quickly boom. Launch the drone and get it up into the mountains. And then has these, they call it a fire bomb. It has a fire suppressant built into it and it has a laser measurer to measure how high the drone is off of the fire. And then as you release it, a timer starts counting down. And the goal is to have the timer detonate at about 10 to 15ft above the fire and then it goes boom. And then all the suppression, like fire suppression material that's in it is to put out the fire. Great idea. Yeah. It's not going to stop, you know, 100,000 acre forest fire. But if a forest fire starts or any type of small fire and this, you know, local fire department gets their flight card out, whoom has it into the air within minutes. Right. And it's 10 acres. I guarantee you could put 10 acres out with that thing. Not needing to get guys up into the timber, hiking up in there. Fire suppression, I think should be something that should be focused on in America. Saves lives. [00:24:17] Speaker B: It's a big issue. I mean we have a lot of that need for. [00:24:21] Speaker A: That's something that I've seen in China. That really got me excited. [00:24:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And the path to it being adopted in those government agencies, it's so slow and difficult. [00:24:30] Speaker A: Yep. Probably won't be for sure on if it's federally funded because of the NDA act or something like that. [00:24:38] Speaker B: Which means you have to use drones. [00:24:40] Speaker A: That are built in America. Yep. Built in America. [00:24:43] Speaker B: And all the components or you know, something it's, it's about not just it was assembled in America, but not. [00:24:49] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be hard. [00:24:51] Speaker B: The other interesting category of drones along the fire suppression line was we saw a couple of those fire trucks with actual drones that would lift off the top. [00:25:00] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. There was literally tell. Tell more. The, the, the, the fire truck was specifically built. Had this huge drone that slid down into the fire truck. [00:25:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:10] Speaker A: Had like six motors, I think. [00:25:11] Speaker B: Had eight. [00:25:12] Speaker A: Eight motors. [00:25:13] Speaker B: Had eight. And they were like some of them ducks. Yeah. Like all kind of like different size. And the main purpose of it is to go straight up with this big old fat, you know, water pipe going up. Shoot it out 100 meters. [00:25:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:24] Speaker B: So if you, if there's a, you know, on the three on the 50th story, there's a fire, just send that thing up, spray right in the window. [00:25:31] Speaker A: What it's supposed to do is to replace the, the ladder truck. Like we have a huge long ladder truck. I mean, seems like a good idea. [00:25:41] Speaker B: Seems like a good idea. Yep. [00:25:43] Speaker A: But I don't know if we'll ever be able to get that. Yeah, yeah. [00:25:47] Speaker B: But again, it was. [00:25:48] Speaker A: This is not an FAA gripe podcast, but it is to say that we need to do something. I mean, it's just that simple. We need to do something. If we're going to keep moving forward with this technology, something has to change and you probably aren't listening to faa, but maybe you are because you do watch the content, clearly. I don't know how you know that. [00:26:10] Speaker C: Say, how do you know that? [00:26:11] Speaker B: Wait, what makes you think that they watch your content, Mike? Why. Why would you? [00:26:15] Speaker A: Well, I don't know if we're allowed to talk about it, but yeah. Anyhow, move on. [00:26:19] Speaker B: So those drones, they have the whole fire truck built in conjunction with the drone itself. It's all one integrated system. So sweet. [00:26:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Looks so cool. You got a video of that, didn't you? [00:26:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:30] Speaker A: Maybe you can throw it up here. [00:26:31] Speaker B: Up on the screen now. Check that out. [00:26:33] Speaker A: It looks so cool. [00:26:34] Speaker B: The other thing is impressive to see, and I don't know if this is depressing or. Or impressive, but you walk along the show and there's this agricultural drone manufacturer. And then there's. You see that one over there? And there's that one. And there's like 20, 30, I don't know how many. There's a ton of them. And you go look at the propellers, and you look at the motors and the ESCs. [00:26:53] Speaker A: They're all from the same company. [00:26:54] Speaker B: And they're all from the same company. [00:26:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So there's one company in China lead the industry as far as building components for the drone. One company called Hobby Wing. They build the motors and the propellers and the wiring harnesses and the flight controllers and most of the electrical system for the drone. And you could tell when you walked into that show, you could see by their booth, like, was a big booth. [00:27:20] Speaker B: Yep. [00:27:21] Speaker A: Anyhow, there's that. You remember that one company, we walked past their booth and we're like, doggone, looks just like dji. Even their font looks like dji. And then we talked to the guy, he was cool to talk to, and we're like, how's your drone different, you know, from all the other off brands of a DJI system? And he's like, not really that much different. It's just we're trying to get into the market because the market is huge. But then he. That salesman said, no, DJI has, like. He said the. The market share that DJI has. And they're not there to outdo dji. They just want to fill in some of the gap. And it's like, it's going to be so hard to do. Just so hard to do. DJI is an awesome company. I. I mean, that's what I say. They build good products. That's what I should say. Yeah, they. They build good, good products. [00:28:07] Speaker B: We walked past, you know, Hobby Wing Yep. Makes all the propellers. They have huge propellers now. I mean huge motors. [00:28:15] Speaker A: Yeah, giants like I'm talking bigger than what's on my airplane. [00:28:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And drone concepts. Like probably stuff you could buy pro production. I mean production line. But like small quantity niche. How much carrying capacity or lifting capacity were some of the bigger ones that we saw? [00:28:30] Speaker A: Oh true. I for, I forget, Weren't they like 200 kilograms? I think 200, 300 kilograms. [00:28:36] Speaker B: I think 300, like 30 or something. [00:28:39] Speaker A: Was the, the biggest one was that kg or pounds? [00:28:42] Speaker B: It was kg. [00:28:43] Speaker A: Yeah. So I, I mean there were some giant. [00:28:46] Speaker B: A lot of hundreds, 150s. That was pretty normal. But then a couple of them were like six seven hundred pound lifting capacity. [00:28:53] Speaker A: Yeah, but they were so big that it's not even convenient. It'd be like a helicopter. [00:28:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:28:59] Speaker A: But yeah, I mean it's coming. Think about it, like think about replacing cranes like that are doing, you know, 600 pound lifts. I mean with the drone. Yeah, with the drone. Yep. I think it'll come. Anyhow, we were at that show for one day, walked through it quickly figured out, you know, this is kind of where the people come to build drones and maybe want to see some of the latest tech. But we were hustling through there and then the next day I was like, let's see if we can go meet an agricultural drone guy in China. We wanted to go see their, how they use drones in China, I think. But then they also have a model that we don't have right now and people know that. Yeah, they have a model that we don't have. [00:29:41] Speaker B: Anyhow, this is normally how DJI does their thing. Right. They release a China made. And that's actually why we get such a good model in the U.S. yeah. Is because it's already been used for. [00:29:50] Speaker A: Six months or 12 months and they fix things. [00:29:53] Speaker B: And again like that. [00:29:55] Speaker A: I knew when we would, when we said let's do a podcast about China is going to be like we got it like tiptoe. Because they had us do an NDA because we can't talk about too much about this model. So let's just talk about the. How kind they were. Right. So we, we reached out. No, no, no, no. What I want to say guys is you're making this funny. Is what I'm saying is the people, right? Random people from the United States of America. [00:30:23] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm not, I'm not laughing at the people. I'm just saying like we have this opportunity to talk about drones and then we have to like shift to be quiet and talk about people. And it's great. [00:30:34] Speaker A: What we're going to talk about is the people in agricultural drones over there. So I got in touch with this guy through Instagram and was like, would you happen to know a farmer or somebody that I could come out to their location and see how they do drones? And this is where me and Kevin were talking about a little bit earlier. This young guy. So he's like literally within, what was it probably like an hour or two. [00:30:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:59] Speaker A: He had given us the contact. Boom. Been in contact with him, told him we're going to take the bullet train. [00:31:03] Speaker B: Can we show up, see what you do, See what it's like to spray, you know, with a drone? [00:31:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Literally they have no idea who. Who we are. And they're like, absolutely. Take the bullet train to this location. I'll have a guy there to pick you up at the train station and then he'll take you to their facility. And then from there we just kind of rolled with it. We get on the bull train. The coolest thing I'm telling you guys, if you have to go to China and just see their. How they move people, how they move people, everything from the roads to the trains, to the planes, to the buildings, it just feels like they literally built it to move people. [00:31:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:40] Speaker A: Have a large area so things don't get congested. Does it get congested on the road? A little bit here and there, but everybody seems to just know when to move. You were saying, Kevin, it's like when you're driving a car or you're driving a moped, scooter thing, you worry only what's in front of you. I didn't even look. Do they check the mirrors? [00:32:02] Speaker B: I think if there is ever an accident in Austin, you can tell me. But my understanding of Asian countries like China, Thailand is if there's an accident, the guy who was in the back is usually the guy who's at fault. So as long as you don't hit the guys in front of you who are all moving and weaving, then the guys who are behind you, they can figure out how to not hit you generally. [00:32:19] Speaker A: Okay. [00:32:19] Speaker B: I mean, you might know, cuz that's. [00:32:20] Speaker A: What it felt like. It was like, okay, if I want to pull out here, I'm pulling out. And this guy better not reckon it. It was just like, they just keep moving. [00:32:30] Speaker B: It works like. That's the crazy thing. It's not like. [00:32:34] Speaker A: Exactly. That's what I was going to bring up. In America, if a dude pulls in front of him, he's like, like. [00:32:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:42] Speaker A: Ticked off. [00:32:43] Speaker B: Yeah. I should, I should not have to break for anyone on the highway. It's kind of how we as Americans drive. [00:32:48] Speaker A: Oh, right. [00:32:49] Speaker B: Like if me break for you, then you are out of line. [00:32:52] Speaker A: Okay. [00:32:53] Speaker C: Like even in Vietnam when people cross the road, people don't have to actually look at traffic to see what's coming. They just walk. And then the traffic just drives around. [00:33:03] Speaker B: And then the way you get killed. [00:33:05] Speaker C: Scary to do that the first time. [00:33:06] Speaker B: Yeah. The way you get killed is like you stop. You don't stop. Yeah. [00:33:09] Speaker C: You can't. [00:33:10] Speaker B: You set a pace and you keep going. [00:33:12] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:33:12] Speaker B: And. And we're talking like what we saw like more like hundreds of motorcycles. Mostly motorcycles, some cars, but like hundreds of motorcycles. Like okay. And it's that you just walk and they all know how to avoid you. But if you stop, then that guy didn't calculate that you're going to stop and now he's going to run over you. [00:33:28] Speaker A: But no. So what I experience is it's really cool how they set up the cities to move people. Got on the bullet train, went up there, Guy picks us up at the airport or at the train station. Have no clue like what we're saying. We're using all our phone, like we talk to our phone and then translate back to them like what we're doing here. But totally cool with it. Right. They're patient. What I was saying, like, because sometimes Google or your translate thing on your phone messes up and then it's like, sorry, one second, that's not what I meant. And then you rewrite it or you retalk to your phone, but then they do it back to you to communicate. It just feels like they're a little more patient, but they're not sitting around. So they're not like just slow with everything. Cause they're getting stuff done. But then when we're communicating it's like, okay, I have time for you. [00:34:18] Speaker B: We should have had a video call of our like the 25 year old business owner or whatever that we kind of went to visit. He's using his auto driving his full self driving. Right. Going down the highway and like a lot of traffic and stuff. And he's on the phone like video calling the guy who's fixing the battery in the generator and like, and I mean hustling but like probably like 10, 15 phone calls like bam, bam, bam, bam. And, and do the way they use WeChat and their version of WhatsApp or whatever. It's like next level to how we use it. Yeah, they're just, like, talking, talking. Next one. Talking, talking. And if you see. It's just like their hands are like, this guy's hand. It's like he could. Like, he. [00:34:55] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like he was on a computer where he had multiple screens, and you flop from this screen to this screen. Like, that's what he was doing. He was 25 years old, had his battery, SUV in autopilot. It would weave and bob and weave in. In the traffic. [00:35:10] Speaker B: Little refrigerator in there with some cold drinks right here built into the suv. [00:35:14] Speaker A: He gave us cold drinks. He pulled it out. I was like, this is cool. [00:35:17] Speaker B: Your car doesn't have a refrigerator. What are you not in 20, 25? What are we doing? [00:35:24] Speaker A: That is funny. [00:35:25] Speaker B: Yeah, but their hospitality, right. Like, the way that they do meals is. Let's spend two hours, order family style. We just share all the food. And for you to feel welcome, there has to be so much food left over. You cannot buy. [00:35:37] Speaker A: Me and Kevin were always 8 and 2 fast. And we're sitting there. [00:35:40] Speaker B: Slow down. What are you doing? This is supposed to take two hours. [00:35:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:35:44] Speaker B: And we were like. I mean, for me, it's like, no, I got 20 minutes. [00:35:49] Speaker A: I got stuff to do. But when they're eating, they're just kind of. They're eating and talking. [00:35:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:53] Speaker A: Although they use their phones at the table just like we do. He's probably fixing drones or something, But I got to give it to him, and I appreciate him picking up, you know, guys he never met out of his day. Right. He was busy. He was doing things. But yet he came, picked us up, took us to his shop. Then I asked him, hey, can we go out in the field with a farmer? And he's on the phone while he's doing all his other things, trying to find a farmer on a Saturday afternoon when they're at home and trying to chill. Then this guy is like, hey, you know, I got these guys. Can we use your drones? Can we tell him that? The guy was. [00:36:27] Speaker B: I'm too hungover. I can't drive. But if you come over and drive the truck to the field, then you can have. I mean, you can have. [00:36:33] Speaker A: And he went with us. He was. But he didn't want to drive. This farmer person, he didn't want to drive, but he was like, yeah, you can take my truck and all my stuff on a Saturday afternoon. And we went out into the field. And I just. I don't know. I just. I had to really think to myself, would I do that? Yeah, I Mean, I don't think you could do that all the time. [00:36:52] Speaker B: It goes against, like, the. Like, we just. We going to work so hard. We have so much to accomplish. Like, we can't stop. We can't. We don't have time for it. And we probably should have time for it. [00:37:02] Speaker A: Yeah. But then I. Hospitality. But then I had to think, Kevin, I also think that there's not that many foreigners that go there and do what we did. There's a ton of foreigners here in America. If I would take every DM that I get from foreigners, because I get, you know, Brazilians, Hispanics, you name it, that want to come here to run with me, I don't think it would work. I just feel like there's less foreigners that get into China. Is that true? [00:37:31] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, we saw some foreigners and Shenzhen, but definitely out in, like, the little town that we were in. Yeah. There's probably not that many foreigners that go there. [00:37:39] Speaker A: I just feel like it's a little harder to get into the country. So not many foreigners. And so then the locals want to cater to the foreigners. Let's just be honest. America is where foreigners have run to everybody, including my own heritage. We weren't born in. I mean, I was born and raised here, but it's like we came from Switzerland. Like, everybody that come to America came from. Actually, that's. That's another thing is, like, we don't really have culture here like they do in China, because they don't have a bunch of mixed different countries. [00:38:10] Speaker B: Would you say their culture is different or what do you mean by. Like, our culture is kind of a hodgepodge. [00:38:14] Speaker A: Yes. [00:38:15] Speaker B: Less defined and specific than what they might have. [00:38:18] Speaker A: Yep, correct. That's what I'm saying. Now. Now here, where we're at in Holmes County, Tuscaravas County, Ohio, we have the Amish. So we have a. We have a culture here. [00:38:26] Speaker B: Subset culture. [00:38:27] Speaker A: Yeah, correct. Correct. But not as a whole country. [00:38:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:38:31] Speaker A: I mean, I would say they're trying to get the whole country to have a culture, and it's probably drinking beer and watching football on Sunday. Great. Culture. [00:38:39] Speaker B: You mean in America? [00:38:40] Speaker A: No. [00:38:41] Speaker B: Or in China. [00:38:41] Speaker A: No. Here in America. [00:38:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Watch football. Yeah, football, definitely. [00:38:45] Speaker A: What would. I mean, were to think of the American culture? What. What would it be? It has to be sports. [00:38:51] Speaker B: And I would think it has to be overextending yourself financially is. And that. [00:39:01] Speaker A: That's a culture. [00:39:02] Speaker B: I think it is. Yeah. I think it is. If I. [00:39:06] Speaker A: No, wait, I'm talking about like that to have fun type of Culture, what. [00:39:11] Speaker B: We do for fun. Yeah, yeah. Sports. Like, sports would be huge. [00:39:15] Speaker C: I would definitely say that what we do for fun takes money. Like, everything is driven by money. Have fun here in America, where I would say a lot of other cultures would necessarily need to spend as much money to and still have a good time. Like, if. [00:39:33] Speaker B: If. [00:39:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:34] Speaker B: I suppose anytime you try to generalize the American culture, you're going to end up offending a lot of people. [00:39:40] Speaker A: But it's just hard. But it is this way, I believe, because of so many different. I don't know, is it race? But, like, you know, you have Hispanics, you have blacks, we have Indians. [00:39:52] Speaker B: A lot of different subcultures. [00:39:53] Speaker A: Yeah. You just have so many different ones. [00:39:55] Speaker B: But it is kind of like that to some degree in China as well. Because I've been out in western China, whole different culture. [00:40:02] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:40:03] Speaker B: So. And even northern, southern provinces, like, they're. [00:40:06] Speaker A: The food is different, but does the hospitality change? [00:40:11] Speaker B: Everywhere I've been in China, it's been incredibly hospitable. [00:40:14] Speaker A: Okay. That's what we're talking about right here. [00:40:16] Speaker B: That's what I say the same thing. [00:40:17] Speaker C: I was always anywhere. Yeah. I mean, maybe not as much like city culture, but definitely when you get out into villages, rural country area, you know, you're going to get invited into somebody's house. Like, even if you're just passing through the village, like, you're going to get invited into somebody's house at tea. And I. I've. That's. [00:40:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Anywhere, maybe. I don't know. I love America. I think it's great. But maybe I just didn't experience this yet in America. [00:40:47] Speaker B: Yeah, well. And I think it's part of just traveling. You see richness and goodness in other cultures, and it makes you a more whole person. Because when you come back and you're like, wow, other people really prioritize hospitality in a way that we don't. [00:40:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:40:59] Speaker B: And it's such a good thing. We should do more of that. [00:41:01] Speaker A: I agree. I should bring up, like, for you guys that are listening or watching or, you know, have watched Drone Day Recovery or New Way Ag. Right. We've built this community. We. We built an audience. And you guys have been very, very kind to me. You come up and talk to me, you would say, hey, come and hunt with me. Come and do this, do that. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about people that have no clue who you are, like, and just randomly want to hang out with you or tell you to come do this. It would be like, that's what I'm. [00:41:34] Speaker B: Talking about, getting a DM that says, hey, I would like to come up to the Akron airport, and I just want to spend a day learning how you guys fly thermal drones. Is there any way that you could tell me how to get down or would you pick me up? Or, like, it would be the equivalent of us going up to Akron airport, you know, 40 minutes away or whatever, picking somebody up and then bringing them down, spending the whole day with them. [00:41:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:53] Speaker B: Like, that's next level hospital. [00:41:54] Speaker A: I know, but then when you start thinking of that, we just couldn't do. Like, we couldn't do that at New Egg, or we can't do that at Drone Deer Recovery, because you. You start building this audience, Right. And then you have people, thousands and thousands of people. But we're trying to say is if you were. You were a name on Instagram, that you had no followers, and this guy reaches out to you, then maybe you would do it. [00:42:22] Speaker B: It's probably, like, you would probably do that for three to five people a year, probably not for 500 a year. Right? That's what you're saying. [00:42:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:28] Speaker B: Like, if this was like, once a quarter, I got to do this and different. Like. Yeah, you're right, because I've done this before. Like, for people who are backpacking through town, it's okay. [00:42:37] Speaker A: Yeah, so, yeah, maybe it is. [00:42:39] Speaker B: Yeah. But it's like, it's. The right amount is like one a month or one every other month, or, you know, it's not like. Like five a week. That's not gonna work. [00:42:47] Speaker A: So you are saying that we do have hospital hospitality. Maybe it's because when you do this Instagram thing, you need to know who to spend your time with. [00:42:59] Speaker B: Maybe that's my problem. And the other thing kind of going on, too, is like, there is potentially a business relationship. Right. Like, this is also, like, we are going to do business with some of these people that we spent time with and that were very hospitable to us. [00:43:09] Speaker A: Yeah, but, I mean, Austin was in China, and he was not doing business with people in random villages. Yeah. [00:43:16] Speaker C: I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think there is something to what you said, is that, you know, some of the villages that I went. Yeah. There wouldn't be very many foreigners that have gone through those villages, like, as you're trekking or hiking and stuff. So. So people are naturally curious, and people have. Yeah. I mean, there. I still say in China, I felt a difference between the interaction with people in a village because people. The village life was more slow and it was. [00:43:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:40] Speaker C: Slower pace. Where in the city you didn't really feel as much. Like when you just go out on the street and stuff, that people are going to be chatting up a storm with you and trying to get to know you. So I think there is something to that as far as if you have the time or whatever. Like that guy, maybe he was like, hey, I haven't had any type of request like this before. So he's going to do everything to make it an interesting connection or experience. [00:44:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Now, now that we're talking this through, I think I. I know where my brain is going on the hospitality side of things. It's like if you are a person that has reach, it is harder to do hospitality randomly because so many people know you. But if nobody knows you, then if somebody randomly calls you or sends you a dm, then it'd be easier to give. Do hospitality. That's probably why the outdoor boy. What he said he quit. He quit YouTube. [00:44:39] Speaker B: His YouTube channel. Wildly successful. But he couldn't go hiking or go out with his family to a restaurant without it being. [00:44:48] Speaker A: So. See, I wonder if that was a problem, like he couldn't do hospitality anymore. [00:44:53] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I mean, even. Even go eat a restaurant at. I mean, even go eat at a restaurant was, I think, difficult for him, based on that video he made. [00:45:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:00] Speaker B: So. And it's like you don't want. Yeah. When it starts affecting your family and. And all that stuff. [00:45:06] Speaker A: I'm not saying that we're successful like that. I'm just trying to figure out the hospitality thing of why. Of why I felt like they were kind, but I think it was maybe because they didn't know us. [00:45:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:20] Speaker C: Yeah. But I think, I think as a general, I think Southeast Asia and China and some of those. I mean, a lot of. Even other countries that I've been to generally are more warm climate cultured as far as meaning as far as just. Just a little bit more. [00:45:36] Speaker A: All right. I'm not being too hard on the American people, am I? [00:45:39] Speaker B: No. But if you go to the south or if you go up to New York State, your experience with the random people you meet will be totally different. [00:45:46] Speaker A: Completely different. I totally agree. The people down south are, you know, that Southern draw. Like they are friendly. Cook some biscuits, have some tea. [00:45:54] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, baby. [00:45:56] Speaker A: No. Anyhow, I liked China. It was really, really cool. I like the scenery. Mountainous. It felt like when we were on the bullet train, any piece of land that was somewhat flat, there was a garden I don't know if that was just me. I think food is a big deal to them. Yeah. [00:46:15] Speaker B: Should we talk about dji? Sky City? For me, what was impressive is. So Sky City is DJI's global headquarters. [00:46:21] Speaker A: This is when we went and met with dji. We had a meeting with dji. Now we got to be soft. We're gonna be pretty vague. Right. [00:46:27] Speaker B: But the experience, man, is so good because they've been in that headquarters for a couple years, three, four years, and you have these two towers. And this helped me understand some of. Some of. I think this just helps bring perspective to dji. And the behemoth it is. [00:46:42] Speaker A: Yep. [00:46:42] Speaker B: Is the One tower. Tower one is all engineers. Full engineers. Research and development with extremely limited access. So there's no meeting rooms. Or maybe there's some meeting rooms. Most meeting rooms are on Tower two, and there's a bridge between the two towers. And when engineers need to come have a meeting with marketing or with sales or with people like us, they walk across the bridge into Tower 2 and then we have a meeting there. There's this whole floor that's just meetings. But we're not bringing sales, not. Not just outsiders. My understanding is we're not really bringing sales or marketing or accounting into Building one. Building one is strict need to know basis, extremely locked down. [00:47:24] Speaker A: And yeah, we would never. We wouldn't be allowed to go into. [00:47:28] Speaker B: Not into building one. Nope. [00:47:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:47:31] Speaker B: And. And 5,000 engineers work in that building, we were told. [00:47:35] Speaker A: Yep. And 5,000 per building, which is 10,000 people. That's not. That's. That. That's not putting the drones together. [00:47:42] Speaker B: Yep. That's just the. [00:47:43] Speaker A: What would that be called? [00:47:44] Speaker B: Like, the corporate office. Like, so people who work in accounting and sales and in after sales and engineering. Yeah, Finance. Engineering. Like, and that's a lot of people. Yeah. [00:47:56] Speaker A: The way you got into the building was so cool. I mean, you can't just go in it. I don't know, maybe there's. I'm sure there's a bunch of other companies that are like this, but, like, you had to have a special imitation. You had to go through a process. Did we take our picture? Like your face? [00:48:12] Speaker B: Yeah. When you got your QR code. [00:48:13] Speaker A: Yeah, they had to take our picture. [00:48:16] Speaker B: Very controlled access. [00:48:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:17] Speaker B: And. But, you know, some of the really awesome things from that trip is we got to talk to some of the people that actually are designing and developing. And it's. It was so good because we talked to people here on the US side, but it was just different to go and be Able to talk directly to some of the people who are making decisions on design functionality. Like you're actually building it. It was so fun to see. [00:48:39] Speaker A: No, I felt like the building on the inside or the portion where we were at the meeting room was the finish was like a DJI drone. When you look at a DJI drone, it just look the curves and the. Yeah, just the complete product looks really good when you get a DJI drone. And the building looked the same way. Obviously there's two big things that they like showing visitors at their headquarters. One is they have like this garden where it kind of is built out from the, the building, 28th floor, little trees, just, just a little garden area where they say that their people go walk if they're, you know, need a break or something. But so that was really nice. And then of course he took us to the bridge and showed us the bridge, which is nice, but I don't know, it's. It's just a bridge. [00:49:34] Speaker B: The other thing that was interesting to me is seeing or hearing more about how different markets, like the American market compares to other Asian markets or South American markets. And this has been a rough year for the American ag market. Oh yeah, so rough. Like so many different things going on. But even just like it was not. [00:49:53] Speaker A: Just ag, it was a rough year for dji, period. [00:49:57] Speaker B: Yeah, true, true. [00:49:59] Speaker A: They couldn't get enterprise tariffs going on. [00:50:02] Speaker B: Enterprise is going on. CBP is blocking not just DJI drones, but different China made drones. And then you have all this, you know, it's been a bad year. And other industries, other markets like South America is just expanding, rocking and rolling. Like these drones are finding their place and they're becoming an implement that is a necessity for a farmer to have. And here in America we're still squabbling about like way back before even the start line, it feels like almost before this really gets started. [00:50:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:33] Speaker B: And it's so frustrating to see and, and I heard frustration from them with like this American market is the toughest. [00:50:40] Speaker A: One because again, it's the biggest one. But it's, it's just, it's not functioning like it should or could. [00:50:48] Speaker B: Yeah, we could talk at length about that and there's a bunch of different reasons, but man, it will function like. [00:50:53] Speaker A: I mean it, it's going to have to figure out how to function better. I mean it has to. [00:50:59] Speaker B: It has to. Yeah. [00:51:00] Speaker A: Like John Deere would not have. [00:51:03] Speaker B: You know how John Deere started? [00:51:04] Speaker A: No. [00:51:05] Speaker B: Selling shovels. And, and then they went and they bought a design for a gangster redneck tractor and. But they first were a dealer that bought and sold shovels and picks and stuff. [00:51:18] Speaker A: Okay. [00:51:19] Speaker B: And then they, they bought the patent for some designs. [00:51:21] Speaker A: Okay. But did they want to be like, big, the biggest tractor dealer, manufacturer, I wonder. [00:51:27] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:51:28] Speaker A: Maybe I shouldn't use them as an example. [00:51:30] Speaker B: What were you gonna say? [00:51:31] Speaker A: I. I just look at it like they have an organized situation where if you buy a tractor, you have somewhere to go get it repaired, it's going to be repaired properly. That people are about customer service. Like, right now, it is hard, I mean, to buy a drone and get the service that you want when you want it. Because there's so many different people selling drones. Because selling drones is easy, but servicing them is a whole different ballgame. And so that's. I think that's probably their biggest gripe. Right. Is, yes, selling drones is one thing, but providing great service is what they're after. [00:52:09] Speaker B: And when it comes to AG drones specifically, selling without service is like, it's just delayed pain. Because everybody will need service. Everybody will have questions. [00:52:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Even like, Jay, like, he's flying. Yesterday, he needs service on his drone because it hit a power line. I mean, shoot, you called me yesterday. Yeah, he, he. What's funny about Jay is he like, he's flew thousands of acres, never put a drone down. He's like, yeah, never. Now he's done it a couple times, like either an ag drone or the thermal drone. Yep. He was bragging one time that he was like, yeah, I was coming back with my thermal drone and flew right in between two power lines because there's one on top and one on bottom. I flew right through there accidentally. And he. But then later he smokes a power line. [00:52:58] Speaker C: But anyhow, that only lasts for so long. [00:53:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:01] Speaker C: Be lucky. [00:53:02] Speaker A: Yeah. But thankfully, these drones. And this is where the FAA is getting it so confused, is they're so worried about safety. Like, they're. And I get it, that's their job. But this is not an airplane that is going 160 miles an hour with 80 gallons of kerosene that when it hits the ground and it goes sliding for 500ft, tearing apart, you know, houses, trees, burning up. Like, this is not that a drone is not that. It's. It's traveling relatively slow. Compare it to an airplane. It's not flying as high. It's going right to the boundary edge. Yes. If there's a power line through your field, you might smoke it. And then your drone falls to the ground with a broken arm, squish and. [00:53:52] Speaker B: It squashes a little bit of corn or soybeans. [00:53:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:53:54] Speaker B: So a little bit of damage. [00:53:55] Speaker A: Yeah. But why should the FA care that this, oh, one bushel of corn got damaged? [00:54:01] Speaker B: Have you heard of shut it down. [00:54:02] Speaker C: Cases where a power line has actually been damaged, where a power line company has to come out? Because in the cases that I know of, the drones just hit the power line. And the power line's like, I'm more boss than you. [00:54:16] Speaker A: I'm sure there is a scenario where a line got cut. Maybe not the high tension power line, but probably like a fiber optic or something like that would get cut. But again, that's not affecting the general public as far as their safety. That's what I'm trying to get at. The FAA is about the. The. The public safety. [00:54:38] Speaker B: Yep. [00:54:39] Speaker A: We're out in farm fields. The problem is this. And quite a few companies went through audits from the FAA this year because of YouTube videos and stuff, and they don't know how it works. They literally were in the shop looking at a drone. Did not know what the drone is, did not know how it operates. They think you push the drone up, you let go of the sticks, and she flies away. It's literally what they think. And so that's why they're concerned. [00:55:04] Speaker B: Wasn't that. I just think anecdotally of the one story I heard of some of a FAA inspector walking into a enterprise like ours and was like, that is a big drone. And it's like, no. You are the person who's supposed to be making the rules for drones. You should not be surprised. [00:55:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:20] Speaker B: By a drone that is commonly used for ag. [00:55:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:24] Speaker B: You write the rules on how to use that drone. So the fact that you're surprised that that's a big drone is not a good sign for whoever's writing the rules. [00:55:32] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. It's crazy that they're like that. Definitely think that if we wouldn't have such strict FA rules, we would be so much further ahead. But you know what? In another way, Kevin, it might be good because we got to get. Get this thing figured out with after sales. Like. [00:55:53] Speaker B: Yeah. There needs to be like. And again, we. We're trying to. The pie could be so much bigger. It could be 20x or 100x what it is now. [00:56:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:02] Speaker B: So our interest is not in growing our business, only our interest is in let's promote agriculture. Drones in America. [00:56:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:10] Speaker B: So for that to work, we need to have much better. A much better network of. Of people selling and servicing drones. And we have to. We have to have education and service happening all around the country. [00:56:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:24] Speaker B: And that the two big challenges right now in our industry is we have the whole thing with tariffs and, you know, the China, US Relationship. How's that going to work? And then you have the faa and the biggest obstacle to this industry growing is the government 100% in those two aspects. [00:56:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:56:40] Speaker B: So. And I would say the first six months of the year, it's been just trying to. I mean, we've been hit from all sides with the tariffs. Like nobody knows. And it's not just us, the whole world, the whole country is like, here's the tariffs this week and then this week and this week. [00:56:52] Speaker A: And I mean, Trump has really affected. He without a doubt has affected drone growth in America just by the tariff circus show that we've seen. [00:57:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:06] Speaker A: I used to never say that a president has that much effect on my personal life, but totally, totally had an effect. [00:57:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:15] Speaker A: I mean, that's why I think we're in the stages that we're in right now is because economic instability or. [00:57:24] Speaker B: Instability. [00:57:25] Speaker A: Instability. It's just. Nobody just don't know. You just don't know. It's. [00:57:30] Speaker B: It's. [00:57:30] Speaker A: I mean, I think he's trying to work for we the people, but it doesn't feel that way at times. [00:57:38] Speaker B: It'll be interesting to see how the second half of the year kind of unfolds. And there's a lot of things that, you know, the much rumored FCCC ban of DJI. [00:57:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:57:46] Speaker B: You know, that's in. That's in play in the next 12 months. [00:57:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:57:49] Speaker B: And a couple, A couple. Like, there's a lot of misinformation and people who don't. Nobody knows for sure. But an FCC ban is. It prevents future filings, future approval of new products. [00:58:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And FCC is, is, is like a license for the radio frequency of something. [00:58:08] Speaker B: That every drone, every remote needs to have licensed. But there's misinformation and there's people out there trying to promote different drones that maybe are not. That couldn't compete by creating fear that DJI is going to get banned and the government's going to come take your drones and all this stuff. [00:58:22] Speaker A: That. [00:58:23] Speaker B: That is not going to happen. [00:58:25] Speaker A: I definitely don't think they're going to come take your drones. That's not what it's about. It's about new technology. [00:58:30] Speaker B: New technology. Yep. [00:58:31] Speaker A: DJI is so big, we maybe want their new technology, because who knows? It's. I don't like it. [00:58:38] Speaker B: So the next six months will be Interesting. But what, what are you doing next month? [00:58:42] Speaker A: I am hoping to be ripping and roaring on corn fungicide. Yep. It's starting to feel like it could happen. Got a call that there's one farmer that has 6,000 acres and we'll see that it. There's a little uncertainty about with corn fungicide, like, if you don't have a bunch of nice contracts lined up, it can just within a week switch from not doing anything to absolutely cranking. So I think we'll be there and in another month we'll probably be cranking, doing a lot of corn fungicide applications with our drones. Some beans, but mostly corn. So that's what I'll be up to. Flying the T60X. I am really starting to like it, obviously. It. We've now released videos actually probably, yeah, on Thursday. So we really release videos on what I don't like about it, but there's a lot of things I do like about it. And the more I fly it, the less I want to fly at T50 just because of maneuverability, how fast it flies, how much more it carries, just everything. You just start to like it more. And Jay was saying the same thing yesterday. We had one more 22 acre piece that we needed to get done and we were like, well, do we want to fly, you know, two T50s or the T60? And it's like, we're, we're flying to T60. It was a long ferry, so, yeah, it flies faster to get there. It carries more. Everything about it when flying it, it just makes sense. [01:00:09] Speaker B: After flying, after flying it like that for hours or doing a couple fields, what is your perspective on the weight of the battery? And would you go heavier than that or is that about where you think? [01:00:19] Speaker A: Honestly, I wasn't feeling it on the battery weight, but I also would say I'm probably more physically in shape than other people are. But yeah, let's not kid ourselves. It sucks that it's 35 pounds. [01:00:33] Speaker B: 35 pounds. [01:00:34] Speaker A: I mean, it sucks. Like, I'd love it to be five pounds, but it's not going to be five pounds. I mean, you're carrying a huge load. You need a big battery or multiple batteries. And in this case it's. It's a one battery system. £35. I don't know. I mean, it's just something you're gonna have to deal with. Yeah. [01:00:57] Speaker B: So way. I mean, at somewhere between 50, 70 pounds, it's like, okay, now we're just in a ballpark. [01:01:03] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. I, I don't think I don't think you can go much heavier and 35, 40 pounds. [01:01:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:08] Speaker A: I just don't think you can like think about picking up a 50 pound dumbbell. [01:01:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:13] Speaker A: All day long and say you're running two drones and you got a ground guy there and he's picking that thing up every five minutes. If you're doing it efficiently every five. [01:01:22] Speaker B: Minutes, isn't it interesting to think then that like, you know, like look into, into the future five years and we now probably have drones that land on a specialized landing pad and the robot swaps the battery because it's too heavy for a human to handle. That that's probably. I think that's. [01:01:39] Speaker A: I know, I know that you bring that up at times, but I just don't know how that's going to work. I mean, is he going to tumble off of the new way trailer? [01:01:46] Speaker B: The drone? [01:01:47] Speaker A: No, the robot. When he makes a wrong stuff. [01:01:49] Speaker B: Oh, no. I know. I think it's like it's built into the landing. [01:01:53] Speaker C: Yeah. It's not like a walking robot. It's like a one that you could have a arm just attached to the side of the trailer that's going to go and find the battery and pull it out. [01:02:01] Speaker B: Like just byd. No, it was a different brand in China that they now have. They're building these like superchargers for electric cars, but they don't. Yeah, they do supercharge the batteries, but they actually just swap your battery packs. So you drive in with this brand of car and the robot comes from underneath. [01:02:18] Speaker A: Make it clear that it's not everywhere doing this. It's like you, Mike, we're gonna see drones everywhere in China. They're just watching us everywhere. [01:02:26] Speaker B: But the. It's actually production. Like it's actually out there. Swap out that battery pack. A robot autonomously does it and you can go with a fully charged in five minutes. That's new. Different technology. [01:02:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:02:39] Speaker B: And that will eventually come over to drones at about the time that like we get drones that are as big then, you know, we, we need to, we needed to go further, we needed to carry more, but we can't with a 35 pound. That's a human limitation. [01:02:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:50] Speaker B: Swap in a robot and let's keep rolling. [01:02:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Put this on the record for five years from now. We'll see back. [01:02:58] Speaker B: And what else will happen in five years, Austin? What else we see in five years in AG drones or thermal drones? [01:03:04] Speaker C: I would just like to keep going on that. I think that the robot thing is going to be totally Thing And I'm not even seeing like a big machine attached to your. Doesn't have to be huge, but something that can just do some, some extra heavy lifting. Like that's totally possible. I was touring a factory a couple months ago where a guy completely built all the machinery that he needed to automatically make fry pies. So it's just like pressing the dough out and then folding it and then filling and then putting it all in packaging and everything like that. Just a complete automated system. And he designed it and came up with it and manufactured like. Like you. [01:03:44] Speaker A: So we. Yeah, so. So we're gonna mount this like robot arm to the new way trailer. [01:03:48] Speaker B: That's a good idea. And it'll be lying down sound effects too. [01:03:53] Speaker C: That'd be great. [01:03:55] Speaker A: I mean it's gonna. [01:03:55] Speaker B: Me. [01:03:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:03:57] Speaker B: And then it'll just come up, go over, use the little eye on it vision. Pick it up, put it over, extend into the charger, do the swap. [01:04:05] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. I could get on board. [01:04:07] Speaker B: Should we do it for 20, 26 or should we do it second quarter or third, fourth quarter of this? [01:04:11] Speaker A: Wait, I bet there's somebody out there that builds these arms and it's like. [01:04:15] Speaker B: Guys, just, just buy our arm. [01:04:17] Speaker A: Yeah, it like we do this all day long actually. Okay. Yeah, that. All right. I. I can see it now. Yeah. [01:04:25] Speaker B: The moment that the Tesla Optimus robot is released for pre purchase, I'm buying one for the shop. [01:04:32] Speaker A: Oh geez, Mike. [01:04:33] Speaker B: We're gonna have that guy walking around, he's gonna be greeting customers, he's gonna be giving drinks to customers, he's gonna be packing boxes. [01:04:41] Speaker A: There's no way you're gonna make that thing greet customers. That would be embarrassing. Oh, I think we just talked about hospitality. And here we go. We're getting robots to do our hospitality. [01:04:52] Speaker B: He's going to come and say do you want a bubbler or water? What can I get you? He might go out and open your car door when you park. [01:04:58] Speaker A: Geez. Yeah man. [01:04:59] Speaker C: Along with the battery swap, you could easily have filled to like. I think that it will get to a point where you're going to have a trailer that has your drones on it. And it's just more of a managing like. Like if you're a manager of a factory line, like you're just going to you know have. [01:05:15] Speaker B: So that same arm should have a hose that you could just like spray. [01:05:20] Speaker C: Is going to also bring into it. Like if somebody gets a hold of this where you'd even just rough boundary your field but. And then your drone goes into that and uses its camera to figure out where the actual boundaries are. Using AI to figure that out. Like, like you just kind of, oh, here's kind of a rough area my field is. And then you're just gonna send it and it's gonna do its thing. [01:05:43] Speaker A: Like I, I, I, I could see that. I mean, right now, the Mavic 4 Pro. Did you see its active tracking? Oh, by the way, kept Landon was filming with that thing yesterday. He said it's sweet. [01:05:54] Speaker B: Okay. I was about ready to hear you say he crashed it yesterday. [01:05:58] Speaker A: No, I mean if you crash that thing, if you, if you have the, the lidar on and the vision. Vision sensing it is hard. Yeah, dude. I was flying it here and it was hard to maneuver because like it was doing it on its own, like going around the tree. And now that you say that like that, that drone could do that probably you just give it a boundary. You say, hey, fly into there. And it will just maneuver around the trees. [01:06:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:24] Speaker C: If you use AI, it's going to get close to the tree as possible. It's going to be better than manually. [01:06:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:30] Speaker C: Doing it. [01:06:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:32] Speaker B: It's exciting times. Yep. We're just at the beginning. [01:06:35] Speaker A: Well, that's. Yeah. Opening up the, the possibility. The brain. Sometimes I get so focused on I just got to get this corn sprayed like hammer down. Oh, yesterday we're parked next to the road. New way trailer right out there ripping with the T60X. Another trailer pulls up. [01:06:52] Speaker B: Nice. Just another new way trailer. [01:06:55] Speaker A: Another customer. We sold a new way trailer to have no idea like they were around. [01:07:00] Speaker B: Out there getting it done. [01:07:01] Speaker A: It was just so crazy to be on this trailer making a video knowing that what I'm doing right now is why that guy has a new way trailer parked behind me is because he watched the videos that are being produced right this moment. And now he. [01:07:20] Speaker B: That's cool. [01:07:21] Speaker A: Has a custom applicating business. [01:07:22] Speaker B: Yep. And he's out there getting the acres. Good for him. [01:07:25] Speaker A: Yeah. He said he has about 1,000 acres under his belt now. And he said now I feel like I know what I'm doing. [01:07:31] Speaker B: Yeah. That's awesome. [01:07:32] Speaker A: Yeah. So crazy. [01:07:33] Speaker C: I was just a couple weeks ago driving. So my house is like hour 20 minutes here. So about an hour away from here along 16, I saw another drone rig passing me coming in the direction. Yeah. It was a new way trailer. Didn't recognize the truck. So somebody else. [01:07:50] Speaker A: What color truck was it? [01:07:52] Speaker C: I think maybe look black. [01:07:53] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. This was a white truck. [01:07:55] Speaker C: Yeah. So just guys out doing it. Drones tied on Top, you know. [01:08:00] Speaker A: Yeah. I think that it will just become common. You will drive down the road and just see drones everywhere. [01:08:06] Speaker B: When DJI was visiting us a couple weeks ago, they said they've seen new way trailers in California. [01:08:11] Speaker A: Yeah, we, when I went out there, met with Talos. He said the same thing. [01:08:17] Speaker C: So DJI like in there, you had conversations about your trailer, your setup, or like, what are people doing over there for efficiency? Like, do they really think about that or is it more? [01:08:27] Speaker A: They build. Yeah, we want to do that. Build a Tesla truck thing. They build stuff on pickup trucks. A lot of pickup truck stuff. Not trailers. [01:08:35] Speaker B: Imagine eliminating the need for a generator because your electric truck, this can for real almost like get you going for a day's worth of. [01:08:45] Speaker A: Can you imagine? No generator. [01:08:47] Speaker C: What? [01:08:48] Speaker A: Yeah, you just charge off of your truck. [01:08:50] Speaker B: Reason 364 that you need to buy a cyber truck. [01:08:53] Speaker C: No way. I thought about that last season when I was spraying in Indiana and about 5,000 acres in. I'm like, man, it would be nice to just fly these and actually hear the drones flying and no hum with the generators. But man, I didn't think about that coming that quickly. [01:09:11] Speaker A: Yeah, well, they're doing it already over there anyhow. [01:09:16] Speaker B: And then the more normal setup from what we saw was a little like box truck. [01:09:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:09:20] Speaker B: Like how would you describe it or what size is it? [01:09:23] Speaker A: Yeah, it'd probably be like a 16 foot box truck. 16 foot little box truck. But they have the trucks that have like the noses cut off. [01:09:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's enclosed. It's enclosed. And there's a palette of chemical in there. Right. It looks like pre mixed chemical. [01:09:38] Speaker A: Yeah. No, I don't know what that was. That was like a homemade situation where they mix up and then. Glad we don't have that. [01:09:46] Speaker B: I think what we saw was like made for one person. And so it had like a lift system to be able to lift the drone without it being so heavy for one person. And it would like swing over and you could drop it or like winch it up and put it into the truck. [01:10:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:10:02] Speaker C: But most people would probably still be spraying off of the ground. [01:10:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:05] Speaker A: Over there. [01:10:05] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:10:06] Speaker A: Yep. [01:10:06] Speaker B: And sometimes off of the main road. [01:10:09] Speaker A: Yep. [01:10:10] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:10:10] Speaker A: Literally. [01:10:11] Speaker B: Why not? If. If again, if somebody crashes into you, it's their fault. So. [01:10:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:10:15] Speaker B: Deal with it. [01:10:17] Speaker A: Yeah, it was fun. China was fun. [01:10:18] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:10:19] Speaker A: No, this was fun. I just feel like. I feel bad like that we can't talk about everything, but we will one day. [01:10:25] Speaker B: We can't talk about everything, but we can say that we're really excited about the future, you know, and it's going. [01:10:30] Speaker A: To be not what's coming, Will. [01:10:34] Speaker B: Yeah, we're really excited. And it is something that will keep. It'll keep transforming how we do AG Yes. And it will push the limits of what you think is possible with drones. [01:10:45] Speaker A: I agree. [01:10:46] Speaker B: And. [01:10:47] Speaker A: And maybe robots will be swatch swapping our batteries. I see that now. [01:10:51] Speaker B: Sweet. [01:10:51] Speaker A: Yeah. All right. [01:10:52] Speaker B: All right. Thanks for watching, guys. This was this week in dronewoods and on the Drone on podcast. [01:10:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't, I don't have more to add other than thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. We'll catch you on the next one.