[00:00:00] Speaker A: They do FDA testing with like, sugar pills. Half the test group gets sugar pills, half the test group gets the actual thing. Because if you believe that you're getting the thing, it might actually.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Oh, dude, they should do that to me with a DJI drone because I love the, like the Matrice 4T. Like, give me one. Or this one. Give me one. That kind of basically looks like the same thing. And just tell me it's the same thing and let's see if. If I'll know.
[00:00:23] Speaker C: I mean, it'd be hard to find something that looks.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: You're not going to be able to keep that in your mouth.
[00:00:27] Speaker C: Yeah, I'll eat it, I'll chew it.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: Isn't. Isn't.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: Get rid of it, cuz. Already.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: Yeah, the J150 and the T100.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Like, oh my gosh, Kevin, if it
[00:00:37] Speaker A: weren't for the color, you'd have no idea.
[00:00:42] Speaker C: No comment.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that. Yeah, that just wouldn't work. How'd the meeting go?
[00:00:54] Speaker C: Good.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Did you get it?
[00:00:55] Speaker C: I think we're 98.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Oh, we're not 100 there yet. That was an hour.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: What's the 2% left?
[00:01:01] Speaker C: I don't know. I wasn't quite sure if we're complete.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: I think it's as complete as what we know.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Yep. It's about as complete as us going to Las Vegas and looking at NDAA compliant drones.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: A lot of good.
[00:01:15] Speaker C: What was funny, Almost every one, like every person that you went up and talked to, their sales pitch is not. This is a sweet drone.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: No, no, no, no, no.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: It's.
[00:01:25] Speaker C: This drone's NDA approved. It's on the group.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Green list, blue list, blacklist, white list.
[00:01:30] Speaker C: Like, it's not how good the product is.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: It's just all the list. Just not the covered list. Yeah, yeah, not the FCC covered list.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: That is the, the biggest marketing. Like, if you're gonna have four things that describes your drone, NDAA and blue list should be two of those four.
It also flies, it also has thermal.
[00:01:48] Speaker C: It doesn't matter.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: But you know, did you. Did you know that consumers do not care about that?
Because the.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: The blue list.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Yeah, the blue list, the. The yellow list, the whatever list. We're kind of poking fun because there's so many lists that it's.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: There's now a green list.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: I heard about the green.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: What is the green list?
[00:02:08] Speaker B: But I don't know what the.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: I don't know what it is either.
[00:02:10] Speaker C: I actually don't know either.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: Yeah, thoughts. Like, just like the first night Walk me through how you guys were feeling when we walked out of there of the Expo, because the first night it was from 5:30 to 7:30.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: And we were there till 7:45. So we were trying to get every minute of it.
[00:02:27] Speaker C: Discouraging is the way I would describe it, I guess. Yeah.
Everything you see, it does not look. It does not look as nice.
Most of the products there, I don't feel like they were finished products.
A lot of them were still 3D printed. 3D printed, or that's what it looked like. Definitely not refined like the DJI drone.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: And then also the price, I mean, that was the case with even talking to people is like, yes, this is what we're gonna have, but we're not gonna be ramped up or not ready for it.
[00:02:57] Speaker C: Yeah. Some of them don't even have prices for them yet because they don't. They don't know. They're not done with it.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: And one of the most impressive drone companies that we saw that actually has something that may come into production at some time in the future that will be good.
They've been four years.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: Four years.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: They've been going at it four years. And they have, like, you know, they have deployment. Like, they have actual equipment in what I think he said 80 of them out, you know, docks and autonomous, like thermal drones. Like, they have 80 of them and they still don't have anything for sale. And they've been doing it for four years.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:03:28] Speaker A: And so all of these.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: But they're also not building a drone that you can manually fly. It's fully autonomous.
[00:03:35] Speaker A: Yeah. But they're building a platform that actually looks somewhat refined and somewhat good. And the specs are like. I don't know, they seem like they're. Because what I think of when I walked into that store is how. How much it's grown from last year and how many startups there are. How many people are there that were not there last year? Yeah, there is money. There is truckloads of money going into the industry, but if you only have six or 12 months of doing this, you have nothing that's even close to ready to sell.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: Well, and the truckloads of money is the US Government is what most.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: Back her up, lift it up, dump it.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Right out of our pockets, into the government's pockets, and then out to the other people. Even though we're 40 trillion in, probably 41 by now. Oh, yeah. It goes up that path.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: So it was interesting talking to the people that they understand that there is.
There's a need for commercial drones. There's a need for consumer drones.
Zero focus. Yeah, zero focus on it.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: And it makes, I think it makes sense.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Like it don't make no sense for
[00:04:39] Speaker A: me, but it does it for the business.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: Oh, 100.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: Because yes, you can get a 50 million dollar contract by only making a prototype.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: And I, I get it from a business standpoint. But for we, the people that listen and watch, that have a spray drone business, that has a search and rescue business, that have a mapping business. Dude, there's so many businesses that actually exist because of these drones right here. Commercial drones. Not military drones, commercial drones. Nobody's focusing on these people. The people that are listening to us.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: You are right. You're 100%.
[00:05:11] Speaker C: Everybody's focusing on search and rescue and what they can sell to the government.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: So tell me if you think I'm wrong. I would almost suggest there's no pathway.
[00:05:18] Speaker B: No.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: To get to that commercial drone without first going through the military. Well, because if I was building a thermal drone, I would say I need to figure out how to make something good enough to get a $50 million US government contract.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: And then.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: Yeah, well, then I need to be able to make 100 of these at $140,000 each or whatever.
[00:05:36] Speaker B: I just, I just don't see that.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: And that's the funding I'm going to need in the experience and the R
[00:05:40] Speaker B: and D that I'm going to need. I don't think that that's how it's going to go. Because once you get into that line of business, then you get even bigger contracts to produce more equipment. It's like Andrew, I agree. Could he produce this?
[00:05:51] Speaker A: I do not disagree. I just think, show me a pathway to getting to a commercially viable drone that is not military funded. Show me that pathway. Because I don't think it exists. It is so much harder to make a 15 or $20,000 drone that I, an outdoorsman might go use and hunt or you know, use for recovery or for thermal inspections or lidar map checking on your cows. That is so much harder.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: They're, they're used for a lot more than we think. But yeah, I understand what you're saying,
[00:06:19] Speaker A: but I just don't think it's going to happen. The only people that's going to happen is they're successful. So the military. But, but you're right then if you're selling that that much. The pie is so small.
[00:06:29] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: And it takes so much work.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: I agree.
But we're just supposed to like slowly die these These people like us that have a service based business, I mean, we did talk to people there. Now they might be able to pivot to these NDA compliant drones that are mid-30s, probably with payload.
They can pivot because they have a big commercial fleet.
But for the most part, if you have one to two drones, like an enterprise drone.
[00:06:59] Speaker C: Yeah, the hobbyists that can afford this drone here and it can go out making money, that. That's gone away, dude.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: I was just the guy that was doing my treatment this morning. He's 41 and he just bought a DJI Mini 5 Pro. I recommended it to him yesterday and he.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: 4 or 5 Pro.
[00:07:19] Speaker B: 5 Pro, 5 Pro. He bought it last night and I told him, are you aware you have a military grade drone now? He's like.
I said, yeah, it has a lidar on it. So it's military grade, like according to the proposal that the, you know, fcc. And I told him, you, you won't be able to buy those drones, nor will anybody ever even start making them in America. The little drones like the, the just get cool video shots drones, we. We still think there's a market here for them to build, you know, thermal enterprise drones, because that's a business. But what about the. The people that take photos of real estate? Landon, you probably shot many houses, farms, homesteads.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I wonder.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: Nobody's making that.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: The Mini 4 without lidar might.
[00:08:10] Speaker C: But what's it gonna cost?
[00:08:12] Speaker A: Well.
[00:08:12] Speaker B: Well, no, it is what it is. That one can still come.
[00:08:15] Speaker A: Is it. Won't that be the best picture drone that money can buy?
[00:08:17] Speaker C: Oh, you're saying like, what?
[00:08:19] Speaker A: Hey, and it's only 6.99 or whatever.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: What if we just go to China and we rip all the lighters out of the, like the Mavic 4 Pro or the DJI Mini 5 or this
[00:08:31] Speaker A: thing has like this.
[00:08:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it wouldn't be as valuable.
[00:08:36] Speaker A: Okay, so matrice 4 without thermal, it has lidar, right? It has to have lighter for obstacle avoidance.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: No, no. Vision sensors.
[00:08:43] Speaker C: Vision. The. The newer. The five.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: Okay, so the, like. Wait, are we saying like the Matrice 4?
[00:08:48] Speaker B: The Matrice 4e is not gonna be thermal and it does not have lidar.
It has vision sensors.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: That one will not be military grade and can still continue to be sold.
[00:08:58] Speaker B: That is correct.
[00:08:59] Speaker A: The Matrice 400 has lighter?
[00:09:01] Speaker C: We think so right now.
[00:09:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: Yeah, we think so.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: The Matrice.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: Everything we're saying is just speculation. Like, there's no room.
[00:09:09] Speaker C: It's. It's not necessarily speculation. It's. It's based off the Information we have
[00:09:13] Speaker A: today, which is what has been proposed.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:15] Speaker C: Right. But that can change tomorrow if it would.
[00:09:17] Speaker B: Yes, that is correct. If it were to go through as is one.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: One random thing about this, that there's misconceptions out there is the six months. You know, the proposed rule is six months. But that actually went into effect when the proposed rule was made, not when the final rule was finalized. So that 180 days has a countdown for February 2nd. Something like that.
[00:09:36] Speaker C: Like that.
[00:09:37] Speaker A: Which means that the FC, like people ask me. I was explaining this to somebody yesterday. He has a mini 3 or 4 that he uses for his paving business to take photos so they can do estimation, manual flying, nothing automated or. But just put the drone up, take an aerial.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: That must be King's way. Yeah, yeah.
[00:09:58] Speaker A: He was here and he was telling me that.
I totally forgot. I totally forgot. I was gonna talk about.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: So he has this drone for estimating and he was probably wondering if his drone's gonna be banned.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know where I was going with that.
[00:10:14] Speaker C: That's all right.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: That. That happens when you got a lot of information.
Like all I seen was a computer over there.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: It was gonna. It was like
[00:10:23] Speaker C: loading
[00:10:26] Speaker A: failed.
It's like my API is timing out.
[00:10:32] Speaker C: It's like your.
Your AI ran out of tokens.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
And I don't have any bubblers. That's really what it is.
[00:10:41] Speaker B: Go get one back there.
Oh, geez. So Kevin was talking about the fcc.
How it's proposed is basically it's a countdown to. I think it's around February. What I was telling people. You know what is nuts is the FCC would not have to respond to our comments.
[00:10:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: Whatsoever.
Zero response by them. And then it's final.
Which is the same freaking footprint as it was to ban dji. But then it came out that it was all form.
[00:11:11] Speaker A: Yeah. That is actually what the point I was making is. The FCC gets to propose a rule, propose new definitions.
And. And. And what Nick was asking me is like, okay, but there's some kind of. Like, who actually makes the judgment on whether it's military grade? Well, the same people proposing it in the same timeline that they want with absolutely nothing other than a mandatory review comment.
But what they do from that.
And what's the legal like. Like, how do you request for them to. Basically they have all the power.
[00:11:44] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:11:45] Speaker B: They don't give 2 sh.
[00:11:46] Speaker C: T what you or me say.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: It's just the process.
[00:11:49] Speaker A: There was one dude at the show who thought 10% that it's going to pass. And 90% that the FCC will realize that they've made a horrible mistake. They will listen to us and they will.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: I know. Hats off to that guy. He's probably listening. Dude, I love positivity like that.
[00:12:05] Speaker A: It's good.
[00:12:06] Speaker B: Love it.
[00:12:07] Speaker A: I'd say what you felt when you're in that conference is not overwhelming positivity. No, it's a lot of like, holy cow, our government is totally inept. They have no idea what they're doing.
[00:12:18] Speaker C: They.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: This is going to screw everybody 15 ways over.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: The only people that are actually going to, like, exit this. Okay. For the next three years while this chaos happens are actual service providers.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: Oh, I was going to say the manufacturers that get the contracts.
[00:12:33] Speaker C: Manufacturers and service providers.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: Existing service providers. Like the guy that said, I just bought two years of supply and if you don't have extra, like, replacement batteries and then replacements for those batteries and replacements for those, you are dumb. Those guys are going to make bank because there's.
[00:12:49] Speaker B: Because they have the supply and they have the best equipment. Yeah.
[00:12:52] Speaker A: And they're allowed to keep using it.
[00:12:53] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: But what are they going to do when they actually, like, when they lease, Are they leasing it under FCC definitions? When. When a construction site says, I need three docs to do, you know, surveys daily, Are they leasing it to them or are they just providing a service
[00:13:09] Speaker B: definition of leasing and renting? The same thing.
[00:13:11] Speaker C: I imagine it sounded that one guy has all the equipment and he was just basically running a service for those people.
[00:13:16] Speaker A: Yeah. And then what about renting? Like, would you be able to rent under the SEC guidelines? That's another cool business that I saw down there. Sunbelt Rentals, actually, no shout out to them.
But it's interesting what they're doing.
[00:13:29] Speaker B: I know. Because they are renting a drone that people don't like to fly, but they have to fly it on these commercial business or.
[00:13:37] Speaker C: Got to give the dude credit. It was really smart. He's renting a drone that nobody wants to buy but that people have to
[00:13:43] Speaker B: use to be compliant.
[00:13:44] Speaker C: Brilliant. It is brilliant.
[00:13:46] Speaker B: No, it's a smart business move. Yes. But he knows that he. He can only rent him because people don't buy them.
[00:13:53] Speaker C: Yes. Is that not crazy? Does that not tell you how crappy
[00:13:57] Speaker B: that the drone is, what that program is?
[00:14:00] Speaker A: We should tell. I mean, what, what, what is.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: It's basically you rent a.
[00:14:04] Speaker C: You rent a skydio.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: Skydio for a thousand bucks a week.
[00:14:06] Speaker C: Thousand bucks a week.
[00:14:07] Speaker A: Which you need to do government contract government work. You can't use your Drones that you
[00:14:12] Speaker C: own, which people aren't going to buy it because it's not a good drone. 35.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: And you only need it for this one job. And you're not going to ever use this drone for any other job because it's actually pretty crappy.
[00:14:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: Your whole fleet is DJI's. That's what he said. Most of his customers are have DJI fleets, but for this one specific project, that might be for the DOT Department of Transportation, they need this place scanned and then. So they call this dude up. Hey, sent me one of those skyos. I need it for three days and I'm shipping it back because they don't want to use it. That's.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: It's.
[00:14:45] Speaker C: It's pretty brilliant for the guy, honestly.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: And yeah, walking around that showroom, there's so many. Like the industry is exponentially growing. You can just feel it.
[00:14:57] Speaker C: The guy was like, yeah, people aren't going to rent this drone from me because they want to buy it.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: That's what they said.
[00:15:01] Speaker C: And it's cheap enough, they can buy it. But the Skydio X10, they don't want to buy that drone, but they are forced to use it.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:15:07] Speaker C: So they're going to run it from me.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:08] Speaker A: What a good system.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: Dude, we should check into skydio. Do you think the government owns some of them? Because that. That could make sense.
[00:15:14] Speaker C: It doesn't matter.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: Well, I'm just saying it makes sense. On this whole push, it's like Stefanic
[00:15:20] Speaker A: or whatever associated with Skydia or.
[00:15:22] Speaker B: No, supposedly. But it's just an interesting thought to think, oh, we can't sell our units, so let's ban them. So then maybe they'll buy it.
[00:15:31] Speaker A: Yeah, it does feel like it is more than like, I don't know, that lobby. Like, you'd have to be very successful to be a lobbyist that has done this amount of movement to ban drones. It feels like it's. It's bipartisan, it's across the board. Every. It's hating on China, it's securing, you know, emerging technology. It feels like it's.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: Yeah. What was the coolest drone you've seen there?
[00:15:55] Speaker C: Coolest drone I've seen there was the Brink drone.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that drone tells about the Brink drone. The problem is the people that are listening to this will never buy a Brink drone.
[00:16:04] Speaker C: No. It's too expensive.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: So they carved out a tiny niche market very, very specific for police departments only. That's what their drones are for. First responders strictly for police departments, pretty much.
[00:16:19] Speaker C: I mean, that's yeah, that's what it's built for.
[00:16:21] Speaker B: Yep, yep.
[00:16:22] Speaker C: Police department search and rescue, they have a.
[00:16:25] Speaker B: They have a little one and a big one.
[00:16:26] Speaker C: The big one is cool. It literally has a starlink, a mini starlink built into the top of this thing. It's about. I don't know what is it, three feet?
[00:16:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:34] Speaker C: Three feet long, two feet, two and a half feet wide, something like that.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: I thought I.
[00:16:37] Speaker C: Flowers.
[00:16:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I thought I understood the dude did fly for five hours but I, I may have been.
[00:16:42] Speaker C: I don't think if. Yeah, I can't remember exactly what to fly but.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: But again that's not something for us.
[00:16:48] Speaker C: Yeah. I did not see one exciting drone there that is going to take the place of this drone.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: Don't say that.
[00:16:57] Speaker A: One new thing though. Like the moat that DJI has in large part is transmission, like video transmission. The link, you know, all that stuff and then the camera. Yeah, there's more moats than that. But that's a big one. Very hard to overcome.
[00:17:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: And you see the starlink, that's how people are going to fix it.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: Well, well, they're already overcoming that in our drones that have to be NDA compliant with 4G.
DJI just doesn't allow this to be operated on 4G in the United States because they all. They know how good their stuff is and they don't want somebody flying for.
[00:17:32] Speaker A: I think it's probably regulations.
[00:17:33] Speaker C: It's regulation.
It's because everybody's required to have a bvlos to fly beyond.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: But that don't make no sense because like EA allows them to, you know, do the 4G.
[00:17:44] Speaker C: I guarantee you, I think EA doesn't care as much.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: I think if their operators are breaking
[00:17:48] Speaker C: the law or not.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And there's very. EA doesn't have a category that says if there's an incident like my multi billion dollar business is going to get shut down, let's play it safe. I think they're just like.
[00:17:59] Speaker C: I think they're.
[00:18:00] Speaker A: We got to do this a lot more.
[00:18:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: Okay. So if Brink is able to do the little starlink already the size of these spray drones like a helio.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Yeah, you could do it.
[00:18:10] Speaker B: Stick one in there.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: Stick one in there. That's what I'm saying.
[00:18:13] Speaker C: Jeez.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: You're already deeply invested in trying to figure out how much Internet speed you need for the video that we want to do with a live stre gaming. Surely we could figure out how to run one like a spray drone on that thing.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know what it seems like
[00:18:29] Speaker B: problem is operating on a big old laptop.
[00:18:32] Speaker C: Yeah guys, but it is cheered up. Come on.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: It is figureoutable.
I think Mike, you might disagree with this but I think that from this year to next year, like what I saw from the year before to this year, so many new contenders in the marketplace. So many new. Most of them will be dead next year but I think next year you're going to see significant progress.
Like drones that are actually like we went from nothing to first year for a lot of them.
First year to second year for the top five are actually going to be.
[00:19:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
What industry?
[00:19:10] Speaker C: At what price point?
[00:19:11] Speaker A: I think you're going to see a lot of lidar and mapping. What I, what I saw when I walked through that show, tons of mapping. Like that is the biggest thing people use drones for.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: You know what we built our company on.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: Oh I know it's not going to be for us. I'm just saying the whole or them. Oh, there's plenty of light. Our pilots that listen to drone on.
[00:19:29] Speaker B: I don't think it's as much as you think.
[00:19:31] Speaker A: Thermal drones is a like the way that we use them very small niche compared to like that show.
[00:19:37] Speaker B: So I agree but I think that lighter is even a smaller niche then thermal drone. Yes.
[00:19:43] Speaker A: Oh, I disagree totally.
[00:19:46] Speaker B: I'm talking about little baby businesses. Those lidars are like those big companies like the one that does the mapping. Yeah, like they are those types of
[00:19:55] Speaker A: companies but they actually use a ton of service providers that a lot of them are part 107 pilots that have some kind of a drone.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Did you hear how they do it?
[00:20:05] Speaker C: They don't have. They have.
[00:20:06] Speaker A: I know how that company does it but there are plenty of. I guarantee there's plenty of signed up
[00:20:10] Speaker B: for one of those. And I never got a job. No, I like I did get one job. I was supposed to go take Pictures of a Dollar General. It was like 200 bucks.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: Did you do it?
[00:20:20] Speaker B: No. Oh, I just, I don't, I don't, I don't see that many people doing lidar but I see big companies doing lidar. But I just think of how many little people we helped start a business that will make them 20,000 bucks, 50,000 bucks. A hundred thousand bucks. That's what I'm talking about. The real like little mom PA shop businesses. Not these big survey companies that have hundred percent, 50 employees.
[00:20:53] Speaker C: This up to this point has been an easy entry level gig that somebody can get into good money that is going away. You're not going to be able to
[00:21:03] Speaker A: get into this, it's going to be so much more expensive.
[00:21:05] Speaker C: 20,000 bucks. Yeah, yeah, it's going to be way more expensive.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yes, there's going to be LIDAR work 100%. There's all kinds of lidar work going on. But it's the bigger companies. There's a company up in Downton that does all just lidar stuff, but it are big engineering firm.
That's what they do. They're an engineering firm. It's hard for that company to call little Mike Yoder down in Dundee, Ohio and say, hey, go scan this lighter for. They're not going to do it. They keep it in house.
[00:21:38] Speaker A: I do think though, we learn like we talked to the one gentleman who they do orthomosaic mapping of crops at a scale that blew my mind. Yeah, totally different like than what we thought possible. So I'm just saying there's a possibility that there's more small mom PA lidar stuff than what we know could be that there's not. I don't know. But we just Learned that almost 4 million acres got scanned by one company this year.
Crops. 4 million acres of crop.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: Explain what it means when you say one company. Because it.
[00:22:10] Speaker A: Yeah, so. So I think agronomists or co ops hire one company to do, I think he said six weekly snapshots of fields. And then the agronomy or the co op, the agronomist or the co op subsidized the cost of it to the farmers so that they're like 50, 50 in or something.
And then they sub that work out. They, they buy the equipment, they send the drone and everything you need to do the mission.
18 batteries for the M400.
But they send all that to the pilot who then flies around a thousand acres a day. And the pilot gets a small portion of it, but he has a relatively easy job of just autonomous, like autonomously flying the orthomosaic mission above crops. And they do it on the same fields six consecutive weeks is what I understood.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: Okay, so I just did a quick search for lidar drone scanning near me. Big companies that show up because you can't. I just don't think you are a little business in that those lidar scanners outside of like the zenmu, you know, cameras, they're like a hundred thousand bucks strapped on top of a $30,000 drone.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: You should ask Rock how many drone lidar, which.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: What companies do you think pops up first? And of course it's sponsored because they're A big company, fly guys, which is just a sub leasing type of.
[00:23:32] Speaker C: Yeah, they just sub sub it out to other people.
[00:23:35] Speaker A: I think they'd be a drone service provider.
[00:23:37] Speaker C: No, they wouldn't. They hire the drone service provider.
[00:23:40] Speaker B: That is correct.
[00:23:41] Speaker C: They're a platform.
[00:23:43] Speaker B: I have a job.
[00:23:44] Speaker C: I hire them and then they will hire the pilot.
[00:23:47] Speaker A: So the drone service provider actually owns the equipment and has the pilots.
[00:23:50] Speaker C: I think most of the time. I think. Yeah.
[00:23:52] Speaker A: I think a lot of drone service providers are like fly guys though that they don't like. They say I have 15 guys but they're all contractors and those 15 guys have their individual drones.
[00:24:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:02] Speaker B: Any help? Maybe we check into, check into lidar and we can just help a bunch of people get into LIDAR with you know, free fly drones that are going to cost them mid-40s to get the drone and then another hundred thousand.
Start a lidar business.
[00:24:16] Speaker A: Is a lot of that work. Do you think it's state funded or federal?
[00:24:19] Speaker B: 100.
It's roadways, waterways, railways, mining, construction of huge projects. That's why it's hard to start a business in it. Because when you call, you know, let's take for instance cacosing. Right. Huge surveying company or construction. Construction company.
[00:24:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:42] Speaker B: I just wanted to see if I can do a LIDAR scan. I mean how are you going to sell a company of that size your service?
Very, very difficult. We already know how difficult it is to sell a farmer to allow me to spray his crops.
[00:24:56] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: Now you're gonna call a guy that put a bid in a project like the one out back here by the farm. That one's $1.3 million.
And to do a LIDAR scan for that company, they're probably going to do it themselves.
[00:25:10] Speaker C: Absolutely, that's what I'm saying.
[00:25:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:12] Speaker B: They already have one dozer, a D8 or whatever. That thing's probably 500 000. Why wouldn't they have their own drone to scan the. The project? Oh yeah, sorry, I keep shooting this thing down. I'm just saying like yes, there are lidar scanning companies out there, but for the most part we're talking bigger scale type of situation.
Not a deer recovery, not a pet recovery.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: You don't think a commercial construction. Yeah, so I think maybe we're saying the same thing. A commercial construction business probably has their own equipment with. And there's hundreds of those or thousands of those companies around. Right.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: Y'. All. But yeah, they're not the people listening.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I never said they were. I'm not. I'm not saying they are.
I just think there is like if I walk through that show there is a lot more light our drones being sold than thermal drones.
[00:26:03] Speaker C: The drone industry is not going to go down.
[00:26:06] Speaker B: No, no. It is going to be the little
[00:26:08] Speaker C: guys that are not going to be
[00:26:09] Speaker B: able to get into it.
[00:26:10] Speaker C: That is what's going to happen.
[00:26:12] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:26:12] Speaker C: Like the drone industry is just starting.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: It's just going totally, totally.
It's going to screw all the little
[00:26:18] Speaker C: people that were able to get into
[00:26:20] Speaker B: it up to this point.
[00:26:22] Speaker C: Going forward it's going to be.
[00:26:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
The big guy.
[00:26:25] Speaker A: And you're saying just because the cost of equipment.
[00:26:27] Speaker C: The cost.
[00:26:27] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah.
It's going to be harder to justify right now you can justify going and buying one hundred forty thousand dollar spray drone rig because you're still going out and selling it to the farmer. You're not selling it to a multi million dollar operation where they're like I have all this equipment, why would I not just buy my own drone?
I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. You know what? Put this into record books because in two years we're probably the largest lidar provider in the nation.
Yeah. Somebody will comment on this and be like guys, you have no clue what you're talking about.
[00:27:04] Speaker C: There's a good chance of that.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: Send me an email
[email protected] and tell me where we're going wrong with this because maybe our minds are in the thermal business because we've done incredibly well with it and there might be a whole different private business. I'm talking like anybody with less than 50,000 can start doing lidar. Like I just don't, I, I don't see it either. I just don't.
[00:27:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know that 50,000 gets you in the door.
[00:27:33] Speaker C: I agree this, the door is just closing on the, the entry level guys getting into it.
[00:27:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: I have a friend, I mean we have a friend who sells timber and he would like to use lidar in some way to measure, you know, like to do better, basically estimating of what land is worth. But it's not very viable.
You can't do it from the sky and if you're going to have to walk it, you might as well just walk it. There's no point in having a light or you can just see it. So. But I bet you there's a bunch of stuff like that where like for him, he's a solo operator. If he could find a way to either create a service, there's a lot of companies there that were creating services for drones. Not actually making the equipment, but making it easier for drones for drone operators. Like, I see that as huge opportunity. And the company that we're talking about that had 4 million acres orthomosaically mapped, they have a platform that takes images and it helps translate it per the crop, so you can see crop health and all that stuff. But that's a platform that's there to.
[00:28:36] Speaker B: Yeah, and they did own the equipment, though. Remember, they had said they sent it out to their service providers, but the
[00:28:41] Speaker A: platform is their main offering, I think, because.
[00:28:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And what they. What that company would technically be looking for is just pilots with a 107 that are willing to get up early and probably.
[00:28:54] Speaker C: Yeah, those pilots are just working for them. Yeah, they don't have the equipment. They don't have anything.
[00:28:58] Speaker A: Was there any new industries you guys saw that were exciting or new? Like drones, you know, used in a new, unconventional way? Or like, was there anything new and exciting?
[00:29:06] Speaker B: I did see one, so the one I seen was pretty cool. Had this huge lidar built into the drone.
So it was like on. On its. Like the whole front portion of the drone had a lidar and it had. All the propellers were protected and it would fly through, like, through pipes maybe and through buildings to do lidar scans
[00:29:31] Speaker A: underground kind of thing or.
[00:29:33] Speaker B: I don't know if it would go underground, but it looked like it was a drone that was made to bump up against things.
[00:29:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:40] Speaker B: If it was flying.
[00:29:41] Speaker A: Had a cage around.
[00:29:43] Speaker B: Was not a whole cage. It just. Yeah, the prop guards.
[00:29:45] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I've seen that one.
[00:29:47] Speaker B: But the. The lidar was right on the front and it was just a big old circle.
I thought that was neat. Now I just. I don't know. I mean, I don't know where it's going to be used, but it's like anything else. You just don't think about that.
[00:30:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: Like, I was talking to the. The guy this morning that is a fireman, and he said, and I never thought about this, but he said a thermal drone is probably one of the most valuable things that they could have before they go into a house. Because he said, if you could have that thing there prepped ready before we get there, it will tell us so much about what gear are we showing up with. Are we entering the house? Are we bringing in a bigger hose? Are we bringing in the ladder truck? Because he said, if you could tell me where the hot spots are, that will tell me if the building's going to collapse.
Because basically he said, Anytime that they get to a place and if there were a drone there, go up on the roof and tell us, hey, there's a hotspot here, they wouldn't enter.
But they also sometimes don't enter because they don't know because they can't see if the fire is inside the wall, gone up through and is up in there. Anytime the, the, anytime the fire gets beyond the rafters, then they don't want to go in because they don't know how weak it is. But I was thinking, dude, that's the things. I don't know how viable it would be for each department to have their own thermal drone because they could launch that thing and get a real quick idea, hey, this back wall, you know, still cold, no fire there. This one portion over here, really, really hot. Don't go in there. If there's people over here, let's go save them first. Like, it's like crazy.
[00:31:30] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Life seems to change the game.
[00:31:33] Speaker B: Yes. Life saving for real.
[00:31:35] Speaker A: That one guy, Was that the same gentleman who said. No, not the different guy.
[00:31:39] Speaker B: Different guy.
[00:31:40] Speaker A: So we heard a story from a firefighter, I think, or he said he put the thermal drone up.
[00:31:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:31:45] Speaker A: And he was able to see the building was about to collapse.
[00:31:48] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: Told the people inside, like the firefighters inside to get out, and less than 60 seconds later, it collapsed.
He personally flew that. It's like, wow.
[00:31:57] Speaker B: That is. But he's like on the department to do that.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: Yeah, right.
[00:32:00] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:00] Speaker B: But it made me think. I think I'm gonna go offer that to the local departments. Anytime you guys get a call, let me know. I'll, I'll run out there, I'll launch this thing and we'll scan. Well, we'll try to inform you guys as much as we can. She going away or yol Trumpy writing out Trump checks or something to these fire departments to get one of these for. I think you're going to be able to get him for about 50,000. It was $118,000 for the, the camera that I seen that was NDAA compliant. And the drone was 29,000 plus batteries. So about 37,000 for that.
[00:32:35] Speaker C: About 50 grand.
[00:32:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:37] Speaker B: So, but Trump check, you know, just write that out. Probably no big deal, but if it's not government funded, good luck.
[00:32:44] Speaker C: Big deal. I mean, the little departments already are having problems to spend 10 grand on these drones, a lot of them now they have to go spend five times that.
And all the, all the departments that already have these drones, when they have to upgrade, it's going to cost them 10 times what they. What they had spent. Yeah.
[00:33:03] Speaker A: I feel like the industry is in a combination of disbelief and anger. And I think some people are over to the acceptance stage where it's like, okay, this is just the new normal. There's no way we're changing. This is just like, where are you guys at with frustration, anger, acceptance, whatever those seven stages of grief?
[00:33:25] Speaker B: I would say I'm at the. I can't believe how quickly that they were able to do it if it actually goes how the government wants it to go.
[00:33:36] Speaker C: It does feel unreal.
It does.
[00:33:40] Speaker A: That's like the shock stage.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: Is that the shock stage?
[00:33:43] Speaker C: Okay, probably between that and the frustrated stage. Yeah, definitely.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: Hey, I.
Hats off to the young fell that is really blowing up on Instagram about his drone scanning thing because he's like a thermal deer recovery guy.
[00:33:58] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:33:59] Speaker B: Did you guys look into that?
[00:34:01] Speaker C: The drone.
[00:34:02] Speaker B: The drone scanner thing? Yeah. So can I tell you why that's such a big deal right now in his area out there?
[00:34:08] Speaker C: Why is he in Illinois?
[00:34:10] Speaker B: I believe he's setting them up in Iowa.
[00:34:12] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:34:13] Speaker B: Iowa has this law that I don't know that I want senators and stuff to hear. Well, actually, you know what? I don't care. They have a law that you cannot grid search. You cannot grid fly a drone over a homestead, livestock farm equipment and crops within 400ft.
[00:34:36] Speaker C: How do they spray their crops?
[00:34:38] Speaker B: If it's private individual, that's one thing. But if you want to go do a deer recovery and you're looking at your neighbor's land. No, no, no, no, no. Wrong. Oh, wrong. Oh, wrong. I can't do it.
[00:34:47] Speaker C: So if you're spraying crops, if I'm a applicator and farmer hires me to come out and do that, you can do it.
[00:34:53] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:34:55] Speaker C: If a deer hunter, Deer or landowner hires me to come out look for a deer.
[00:34:59] Speaker B: I had this long talk, so there's this one comment I was like, whoa, whoa, is this a thing? So I started, you know, digging into it with AI and it is a very hard law to fight.
It just got put into effect in 2024, and then they revamped it a little bit in 2025. Now, I will. I will tell you guys that this law was not written for deer recovery. This law was written for.
What is that called? Like, people that are against livestock killings, maybe. And like PETA. Yeah, like those activists.
It, it, it was written for them because they were using drones to scout and scan these areas and then they make documentaries about it or whatever. And they were surveilling private operations.
So they actually developed this law that will protect those farmers, those homesteads from that.
[00:36:03] Speaker A: But they wrote it ambiguous enough to where any drone flying a grid pattern is illegal. I had no idea this existed.
[00:36:10] Speaker B: I didn't either. I had no idea.
[00:36:12] Speaker C: But technically, if you're out spraying, spraying some dudes crops, that's illegal. If he's flying a grid pattern, which they always.
[00:36:17] Speaker A: Unless he's giving you permission or no, then.
[00:36:21] Speaker B: So there's a 400 foot bubble around every animal. If you get within 400ft, I don't know how that would work.
[00:36:28] Speaker C: Of an animal, of a.
[00:36:30] Speaker B: It has to be a homestead. And what a homestead is considered is not. Guys, I'm not giving legal advice. I'm just referencing from the little bit of stuff that I listen to. The reason I have to preface this, because everything is collected by AI and this podcast will be scanned by AI and then taken for literal. This is not that at all.
I'm trying to share information that I learned myself and trying to educate you guys as well. So it's a 400 foot bubble from a homestead, from livestock, from farm equipment, from crops.
So what is a homestead? I thought it was structures.
It does not necessarily mean a structure like this shop that we're in, this, that we're living on is a homestead. So if you have a 2,000 acre homestead, then you cannot be within 400ft of that homestead without permission from the homestead to be within 400ft of it.
[00:37:34] Speaker A: Is it to fly a grid pattern in that bubble or just have a drone hovering? No, no, it's like 400ft of protected airspace around it.
[00:37:42] Speaker B: 400ft of protected airspace. Now you could go, you could go like fly through it. Yeah, like just. Then you're gone. Yeah, that's not a problem. That's not a problem. Yeah, but if you're like going back and forth or if you drop down just slightly, then you have, you've engaged in, in a, in a way that you're trying to surveil. That's why in the video, if you watch, you see he zoomed in, he said, you see, he dropped down. Because they know the law.
So they're like, look, this dude broke, broke the law. If somebody were to want to do it, I mean, it's going to be a tough, tough thing to fight, but it's one step closer to control.
[00:38:27] Speaker C: So they did it 400ft. So you absolutely can't, you can't do it. You can't fly a drone there.
[00:38:30] Speaker B: You can't do it. Yep.
[00:38:31] Speaker C: Because you are not allowed to go higher.
[00:38:33] Speaker B: You can't go higher.
[00:38:34] Speaker A: Is it clear how the state of Iowa has jurisdiction to kind of rule the skies above? It, like, does that Federal.
[00:38:42] Speaker B: Federal airspace.
[00:38:43] Speaker A: They're not, like, a state's not allowed to do that.
[00:38:45] Speaker C: Interesting.
[00:38:45] Speaker B: I'm just. I'm a little confused. I'm just telling you, look up the law. It's like, wow. Yeah, that's a valid point.
[00:38:52] Speaker C: Yeah, it's federal airspace.
[00:38:53] Speaker B: That is a valid point.
[00:38:54] Speaker A: I know there's, like, really dumb stuff, like townships try to, like, say you can't fly a drone. But the way that the law is actually worded is the drone may not take off from a public park in whatever township, but if you go to the house across the street and you get permission to take off from his driveway, you can fly over that park all you want, and there's not a dang thing they can do about it.
[00:39:13] Speaker B: Yeah, no, this is not that. According to how it's written, maybe.
[00:39:18] Speaker A: I know.
[00:39:18] Speaker B: It was so intriguing.
[00:39:19] Speaker C: That's interesting.
[00:39:20] Speaker B: It was so intriguing, I was digging into it for about an hour.
[00:39:23] Speaker A: I wonder if it's not to do with the flying, it's to do with the surveilling.
[00:39:27] Speaker B: It is to do with the surveillance. So if the drone has thermal capability and has a zoom camera, then it makes it even more in the category of surveilling. So if you just take an FPV camera or an FPV drone. Take an FPV drone with just a static camera, you could probably fly as much as you want. And it's not considered surveilling because that's not what the drone is for.
Yeah. You know, to those guys that are spending, you know, 8,000, 10,000, 15, 20,000 on drone scanners so they can surveil on other people that are surveilling on them. Do what you want, but you're scared that they're surveilling on you. Now you're surveilling on them.
So all kinds of surveilling is happening here.
You know which one is more wrong? You surveilling on the people that are innocently out looking at stuff or, like, them surveilling you.
[00:40:23] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:23] Speaker B: Did you ever think of that one?
[00:40:24] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:40:25] Speaker A: I think anything that's publicly visible, there's nothing wrong with surveilling it.
[00:40:29] Speaker B: Like, this is publicly available airspace.
[00:40:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:33] Speaker B: There's nothing wrong with me flying around in it.
[00:40:35] Speaker A: Could not agree more. Just the same way, like, if you're gonna Video from the sidewalk. That's public property. If you don't want people to look in your window, close the freaking blinds.
[00:40:43] Speaker B: The problem is their deer are too big and they have. They. They feel like my freaking deer. I grew them to 200 inches and I'm gonna shoot him, not you. Yeah, that's the problem.
That's what gets this whole thing riled up.
[00:40:57] Speaker C: That's freaking crazy. Yeah.
[00:41:00] Speaker A: I had no idea a lot like that existed.
[00:41:02] Speaker C: I did not.
[00:41:03] Speaker A: That is fascinating.
[00:41:05] Speaker B: You should Google it real quick. Just make sure I'm not blowing smoke.
[00:41:08] Speaker C: But what's it called?
[00:41:09] Speaker B: Well, I'll just tell you the conversation I had with it, and I'll. I'll tell you real quick what it was.
All right, so the law is the. Oh, and Iowa did push twice already for a drone day recovery bill to be allowed, and every time it has died at the. At the part where they actually have to, like, go vote on it. It's just never been a high enough priority to make it into all the other issues that they're dealing with. But according to the research, says that Iowa Bow Hunters association, they're supportive. They want to be able to use a drone to recover a carcass, but, yeah, it's just not.
[00:41:50] Speaker C: Is it currently illegal?
[00:41:52] Speaker B: Yeah, they've. They've outlined it really well.
That bill is called the HF 2112 bill that they're trying to push through.
So the law is the Iowa Code, Chapter 715E.
Remotely piloted aircraft was added in 2024 and amended in 2025. A person commits the offense if they knowingly control a drone over someone else's homestead and the drone remains over that homestead, or control a drone over someone else's farmstead and the drone remains within 400ft of a farm animal farm equipment structure on that farmstead. The 400 foot bubble does not include land inside city limits.
The problem is the 400ft.
[00:42:41] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:42:42] Speaker B: Because you can't technically go over 401 with the. The drones because of the. Part 107.
Yeah. Oh, oh. You had asked earlier.
So then I went down this road about if it's like commercial work. So it does say that if you're doing commercial work, then there's more leniency to it. So if you're doing a spray job and you're like doing commercial work, not a problem.
But if you are not doing commercial work, then it is a problem.
[00:43:12] Speaker C: So if somebody hires you to come out and look for a deer.
[00:43:14] Speaker B: Correct. But you can't do a deer in Iowa that's the problem, technically, because I was like, well, I'm not looking for a deer. Let's say I'm looking for a pet.
Then.
Then you have more leniency.
[00:43:26] Speaker C: So it's basically for some dude that's out there, that's just out there flying and surveilling stuff.
[00:43:33] Speaker B: After I processed it, once my brain processed it, because I'm not a violator. Like, I don't like violating the laws, I was like, yeah, kind of makes sense because it is really, truly built for people with intentions. Meaning if you're a commercial operator and you're doing a LIDAR scan, or if you're a commercial operator and you're doing a pet recovery, you have a true case. Right. If the. If the police show up, you can show them, here's my remote pilot's license. This is what I'm doing. I'm doing a LIDAR scan. There's nothing they can do. But if they show up and the guy has no pilot's license, he doesn't know why he's there. He's just scanning the area.
Now you got an issue.
[00:44:19] Speaker C: I kind of disagree with that, though.
If I'm sitting at my house and I want to go fly my dang drone around and look at ducks or deer or.
[00:44:28] Speaker B: Can't do it.
[00:44:29] Speaker C: Whatever, I'm gonna do it.
[00:44:31] Speaker B: No, you can't do it.
[00:44:32] Speaker C: Do not take my freaking rights away. If you want to take your little ultralight up here and fly around, nobody's stopping you. Nobody can stop you.
[00:44:38] Speaker B: That's correct.
[00:44:38] Speaker C: Why are they stopping you with that?
[00:44:39] Speaker B: Because they feel like you're surveilling on them. Well, that's what I thought about doing, too, is like, what would you rather have a loud screaming ultralight over your property or a little drone or.
[00:44:51] Speaker A: There's a new category also, which is the drone with a guy in it.
[00:44:54] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, what about that one? I like that one.
That's a valid point.
[00:45:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:01] Speaker B: What if your neighbor is like, okay, I can't take my 8,000 myself up
[00:45:06] Speaker C: there and surveil you.
[00:45:09] Speaker A: I was thinking it probably. Probably if you.
For it to not be an unmanned aerial vehicle, is it enough that you are in a basket underneath it, but your remote controller is still, like, remoting, or does it have to be. Your controller has to be wired for it not to be unmanned.
[00:45:26] Speaker B: Oh, I don't know.
[00:45:28] Speaker C: I. I think if you're on that sucker, I ain't. No, it ain't unmanned anymore.
[00:45:31] Speaker A: Even if the controller is wireless.
[00:45:34] Speaker B: Yeah, there's Definitely some stuff on.
[00:45:37] Speaker A: It's manned. It's manned. It's wirelessly manned.
[00:45:40] Speaker B: Yeah, sure.
[00:45:40] Speaker C: They got some validation that.
[00:45:42] Speaker A: Yeah, then, dude, that's gonna happen. I mean, that is this. It is happening. Like you're seeing more and more of those. And a 12 year old can fly it with no license. So.
[00:45:52] Speaker B: Hey, since we're this deep into the podcast, only the people that are serious are listening to it about.
[00:45:58] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:45:59] Speaker C: About right now.
[00:45:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, let's talk.
[00:46:01] Speaker B: We talked about the FAA inspection last week. Yeah, probably. We don't know for sure.
Somebody probably listened to that and was like we had mentioned something or I did that. We hope to never hear from the inspector again if. As long as we don't do something wrong. Boom.
[00:46:18] Speaker A: Monday Inspector podcast released on Friday.
[00:46:23] Speaker B: Yes, Mr. Reoder, I have a. I have a complaint.
[00:46:28] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:46:29] Speaker B: That I'm dealing with which we share information with us.
I've heard many other companies that have grown to a decent size. It feels like you get to a certain size and all people want to do is take you down. I don't know, is it jealousy? Is it pissed off that they can't have what you have?
But there is no doubt in my mind that I feel that about New Way Ag and Drone Deer Recovery.
Because we are being so closely watched on New Way Ag.
Closer than I think we've ever been watched before. You do one thing that is even
[00:47:10] Speaker A: remotely close or that has the appearance of being.
[00:47:14] Speaker B: That has the appearance.
Has the appearance of being remotely close of outside of the exemption. The regulations of epa, whatever it might be, they pick you out and it's like, that's wrong. Like it's, it's frustrating that it's like that. But I'm okay with it because I've, I've. I've had enough counsel from other people that when you get to that size, then you know, you're doing something right.
But we did get another. It's not an issue yet. But I'm talking about it, Kevin. We got a. We got a new attorney.
Really good. Like, we're gonna work it. We're gonna work it through.
[00:47:53] Speaker C: Put her to the test.
[00:47:54] Speaker B: Yeah, we're gonna work it through.
[00:47:57] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, are we talking about it now or are we talking about it?
[00:48:01] Speaker B: We're not talking about the full deal, but we're just saying, like, how we built something right.
[00:48:07] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:48:08] Speaker B: And we. It was calculated risk of the things that we've done for good reasons. But there's always that competitor, that, you know, keyboard warrior, the jealous guy, the. Whatever it is it's like dog gone it. At fa. Did you see that they.
[00:48:27] Speaker A: At.
[00:48:27] Speaker B: At the faa. You click on it, it goes straight to the faa.
[00:48:30] Speaker C: I did not see that.
[00:48:32] Speaker B: It does.
[00:48:32] Speaker C: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
[00:48:33] Speaker A: It's a good system.
[00:48:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:35] Speaker A: So system.
[00:48:37] Speaker B: I don't know. I just thought I'd had to throw that in. So if you're listening, you must be a really good hater. So thanks for hating on us, but we'll work through it.
It's just part of. Of the growth.
[00:48:48] Speaker A: Makes me think, Mike, to. Back when we started doing deer recovery and there was a good use for technology that the government hadn't completely figured out how to regulate. And we took the position that we're going to. Yeah, we're not going to abuse the technology, use it, you know, to like, hunt deer. But we are going to pioneer and we are going to push the whole industry, including our government, including the state, towards seeing the value of it.
[00:49:16] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:49:17] Speaker A: And there is a lot more pushing that needs to be done.
[00:49:20] Speaker C: The FAA inspectors told us we need people like you to pioneer this because we are way behind.
[00:49:28] Speaker B: Yeah, they said it themselves.
But then they still want you to
[00:49:32] Speaker C: operate within your exemption.
[00:49:35] Speaker B: Yeah, we will do our very best, but then there's times when you just gotta cool off. That's all I'm saying. Go for a swim and then just.
What?
Why do you not.
[00:49:49] Speaker A: Yeah, all right. I know what you're saying.
That behind you is one way that we have pioneered.
I wish you were rolling when the inspector checked out, whipped out his phone.
[00:50:06] Speaker B: I have never seen a guy whip out his phone that way. When Junior pulled up that rig, he's like, oh, my gosh. Like, you're serious.
Yeah. We don't take it lightly.
[00:50:16] Speaker A: That rig is going to be in Kansas for anybody who wants to see it.
What, in a couple weeks, probably.
[00:50:22] Speaker C: A couple weeks? Yeah.
[00:50:24] Speaker A: You can get the details of new Way Ag, or it'll be in Ohio also.
[00:50:27] Speaker C: Actually, it's going to be in Kansas in the Kansas State Fair.
[00:50:31] Speaker A: If you want to see us. The slickest trailer on planet Earth.
Too much?
[00:50:37] Speaker B: No, no, I don't.
[00:50:38] Speaker C: That might be a little much, but it's pretty slick.
[00:50:44] Speaker B: We will talk about the full FAA thing at some point. We are. We are in negotiations at this point. Yeah, it's going to be good.
[00:50:53] Speaker A: I agree. I. I think that's how I feel about it. It's like. It is, man. It's hard to know how do you push this industry forward and how do you.
Yeah, like, there's. There's the safety there's the right and wrong and then there's pushing it for all those things. How do you do everything? And then. Then you have a business and you have to.
[00:51:10] Speaker B: Let me just say we're the only people that put it in front of an audience.
We're not the only people that are using these drones in a way that the FA might look at it, that it's outside of what they're supposed to be used for.
[00:51:29] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:51:29] Speaker B: We're not the only people. Not even close.
[00:51:32] Speaker C: Not even close.
[00:51:33] Speaker B: I've talked to many people at conferences that tell me the things they do.
[00:51:39] Speaker A: And, you know, if there was, if there was a.
Easier pathway to like. I think what happens is when it seems like legal, like, regulations simply will not allow it, and over the last 24 months have not even made a step towards allowing it.
[00:51:54] Speaker B: They shelved a freaking thing and you've done everything. He said he parked it, he parked it.
[00:51:59] Speaker A: And six times we've tried to, like, request and we tried to do it with different. All the, all the ways. And when it seems like there's just no avenue and they're not listing and there's no way to do it, and the agencies that are supposed to enable commerce to happen in the air, y have no idea. And they just park things. That was 18 months ago. Then that's when people start feeling like, well, what are my options? And I'm going to take my chance.
[00:52:22] Speaker C: These are the things where you hear people talking about regulations hindering.
[00:52:26] Speaker A: Yep. This is, this is exactly. What if we could get on. If I could get on a little platform here. I would just say that if the FAA wants the drone community to become more compliant, to become like, to follow regulations, then there has to be an equal move towards building out more quickly regulatory framework that is actually feasible to follow.
[00:52:47] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:52:47] Speaker A: And there has to be a way for new technology to be. There has to be a category where new things can, like, give me six or 12 months to be able to do a new thing. Don't give me 24 months of we parked it and there's no way. And this is.
[00:53:00] Speaker B: I mean, guys, we're. We're being honest. When we say they parked it, it means, like, one of the inspectors was asked his opinion on a scenario if they could grant this operator the exemption and then it just parked like he. Because he didn't. He or she did not want to get into it. It's like, yeah.
[00:53:25] Speaker C: Part of it is also, they don't have enough people.
[00:53:27] Speaker A: They don't have enough people thinking about that. Yep. And if there's not enough people to, like, approve, approve, approve, approve, approve. And that takes six months to approve, approve. How much time does it take when there's a whole new thing? Like, how do you figure that stuff out? There's probably hundreds of new things.
[00:53:41] Speaker C: And the crappy part is most of these people that are operating illegally, they're not operating unsafely.
[00:53:47] Speaker B: It's just illegal right now.
[00:53:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:53:49] Speaker B: Because there's no way to legally point.
[00:53:51] Speaker C: There you go. It's. They're using common sense. They're not doing something wrong or dangerous.
[00:53:56] Speaker B: Yeah. It's not like it's truly affecting the public.
[00:53:59] Speaker C: No, most of it's not.
[00:54:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:01] Speaker C: Nope. Most of these people aren't out there
[00:54:02] Speaker B: where there's other people even around.
It's absolute.
[00:54:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:54:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
Regulation's definitely hindering innovation. No doubt about it.
[00:54:13] Speaker C: What?
[00:54:14] Speaker A: I just, I saw an email this morning from ExxonMobil saying, fly cart 100 winch system. What's the price and how much? How long does regulations take?
[00:54:23] Speaker B: Oh, my. Good luck.
[00:54:24] Speaker A: How do you answer that email? Well, the price is easy and it seems freaking cheap compared to.
[00:54:30] Speaker B: I mean, wait, did we talk about the heavy lift at all? Last podcast, we talked about someone that was using the system because of its hover capability and.
[00:54:39] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:54:40] Speaker B: But we did not talk about the regulation side that. The inspector basically gave us some insight information on heavy lift drones.
Now, this is not, again, concrete information, but he did kind of say that the FAA is not really looking to approve heavy lift drone operations unless they are a blue drone.
[00:55:05] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:55:06] Speaker B: So that fly cart thing, it's going to be pretty tough. Now, this is talking about 135 operations.
No other operation really works for the heavy lifts. So he's basically saying that if it's 135, it's probably going to have to be blue.
[00:55:24] Speaker C: But what about the dude in New York?
[00:55:26] Speaker B: It's not a 135.
[00:55:27] Speaker C: What's he have?
[00:55:28] Speaker B: He has a fly cart 30 and he has a 91 for research purposes or something.
[00:55:37] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:55:38] Speaker B: I guess I just feel really scientific right now. So let's get that 91 for research purposes.
Yeah, I mean, that's what. That's what we were pushing for. But, you know, we don't know how long they've parked it. I mean, she. She done been parked for a while. Yeah. And that's why, you know, tree removal has to happen and deer need to fly out of the woods and. Yeah, you got to do those things to keep innovating. Yeah. All right. So that should be enough to leave them hanging. Sometimes we'll completely open up. We'll. We'll tell you what they're wanting to do to us.
[00:56:09] Speaker A: And I say we got a pretty good.
[00:56:11] Speaker B: But we're truly here. We're truly here to try to help the industry go move forward, innovate. Like the innovator that was just released. That dog on thing took so much time.
[00:56:21] Speaker A: All right, so leaving the show, what is your mindset for the next six months? Like, you just got a really good snapshot of commercial drone operations in the
[00:56:29] Speaker B: US Tell as many people as I can about the Matrice 4T and the 4TD. That if you've ever thought about buying a thermal drone, like Jay was saying last week, you better buy.
[00:56:39] Speaker A: You could buy four for the price of one.
[00:56:41] Speaker C: You couldn't literally buy two for the price of one. And they're going to be better.
[00:56:45] Speaker B: Well, more than that.
[00:56:46] Speaker A: More than that.
[00:56:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
Matrice 4.
[00:56:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:56:50] Speaker B: Matrice 4T right now is 8100 bucks with four batteries.
[00:56:54] Speaker A: I think the essential kit, something like that. I don't.
[00:56:56] Speaker C: Yeah, it's like, somewhere around eight grand.
[00:56:58] Speaker A: And if it's 18 grand for us,
[00:57:00] Speaker B: you can buy freaking four of them for one airframe.
[00:57:03] Speaker A: We need to do the four for one special.
[00:57:07] Speaker B: You can buy four drones for the price of one because the in flight, I think it's called in flight or iFlight, that drone was 29, 000 without a payload.
[00:57:18] Speaker A: And I think that's what that service provider guy was saying is go ahead and buy four of them, have four backups.
[00:57:24] Speaker C: Yeah, that's what he was saying.
[00:57:25] Speaker A: If you don't have four backups, you aren't prepared for the next two years.
[00:57:28] Speaker B: See, that makes sense.
So get them now, boys, while they're hot and they're on the shelf.
[00:57:32] Speaker C: It seems like we should probably take some off the shelf for ourselves.
[00:57:36] Speaker B: It seems like a good idea. Yeah.
[00:57:38] Speaker A: Agree.
[00:57:38] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure.
[00:57:40] Speaker B: Well, then now there's less available. But there should still be some available.
[00:57:44] Speaker C: I think we should at least, like, keep, like 20 back.
[00:57:47] Speaker B: Well, now there's even less than it was.
All right, guys, that's all we got. Thanks for tuning in. I appreciate the support that you guys have given us. And we'll keep bringing you guys interesting content on drone day recovery. New ag. Yeah, we. We like informing and bringing you info. We'll see you guys.
[00:58:06] Speaker C: I feel like this is a little bit of a downer one.
[00:58:08] Speaker B: It is a downer, but it's real
[00:58:09] Speaker A: life how I feel. Yeah, I feel.
[00:58:11] Speaker C: I feel the same way.
[00:58:12] Speaker A: A little, like. Just a little heavy. Just a little heavy. Yeah.
[00:58:16] Speaker B: It's all right. It's real life.
[00:58:19] Speaker A: It is. I agree. Yeah.
[00:58:20] Speaker B: The people will be okay. They understand. Because honestly, most of the people that are listening are probably in the game.
[00:58:27] Speaker A: They feel the same.
[00:58:28] Speaker C: For sure. For sure.
[00:58:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:58:31] Speaker A: Well, I was trying to think, like, what's the speck of hope? Or what's the highlight from that show? Like, what. What's the goodness? Like, what's the thing to celebrate?
[00:58:38] Speaker C: Did any of you talk to anybody that has flown that was flying a different drone than dji?
[00:58:44] Speaker B: No, not one guy there was flying a different. Is that not insane?
But.
[00:58:50] Speaker A: Right. The. A Steady Pilot Institute or they had a video about a study recently where 97% of all consumer. Yeah, maybe all. I don't know if it's consumer or.
[00:58:59] Speaker C: I guarantee it's 100% all consumer. No. Who. Who else makes a consumer drone except dji?
[00:59:05] Speaker B: They don't.
[00:59:05] Speaker A: Well, you have the. What's the green one.
[00:59:07] Speaker B: Oh, the Anzuzu.
[00:59:09] Speaker C: Or.
[00:59:09] Speaker B: Don't give me that.
[00:59:11] Speaker C: That's a freaking DJI drone.
[00:59:14] Speaker A: I'm just saying I don't know how they did the test, but that might have been the other 1 or 2%. I don't know.
[00:59:18] Speaker C: Oh, they're having problems right now, but there is.
[00:59:21] Speaker A: And. And. Okay. And the other thing that was frustrating for me is, like, some of the people I spoke to, they didn't know that the comment period ended that day. They didn't know. That means they didn't leave a comment.
[00:59:31] Speaker B: Come on, bro.
[00:59:32] Speaker A: These are people in the drone industry. Like, did we really show up and, like, comment appropriately? I don't think we. There's no way we did.
[00:59:39] Speaker C: Absolutely not. There's 3,000 comments.
[00:59:41] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:59:42] Speaker C: How many. How many hundreds of thousands of drone flyers are out there? But you know what? I don't think it matters. And that's why the people don't comment, because it does not freaking matter.
Guarantee you if people truly thought it mattered, if they commented, I guarantee you they would take the time and comment. People don't think they. It matters, and I don't think it matters.
[01:00:03] Speaker A: It's hard to blame them for thinking that way because the. The comments get left, then whatever gets announced later gets announced.
[01:00:10] Speaker C: The government will do what the government will do.
The government does not care about the average little person.
[01:00:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It just sucks. The government does show, and then government
[01:00:20] Speaker C: gets run by freaking money. If you guys don't have money, they don't care. You're irrelevant.
Big Companies, big corporations, big donors.
[01:00:29] Speaker A: That's who I was wanting to find the bright spot.
Are there any bright spots at the show? There's none really.
[01:00:35] Speaker B: One second, give me a second. I'll think about it. There will be millionaires made and some of those are at the show.
I mean to those guys, hats off to them. I just. That's not majority.
[01:00:46] Speaker C: No, it's a handful.
[01:00:47] Speaker B: That's like tiny little bit of people and probably not the people listening. No, that's. I want to hear those stories.
Dude. I started deer recovery. Now I got a spray drone now make a hundred thousand dollars. Last year I made a quarter million. I quit my job.
Those are the things I like to hear to, to help people make a life choice, make something different.
Probably is going to be harder to do that in the future.
[01:01:17] Speaker C: It'll be harder, yeah. I mean think about it. How many people are going out and buying two and a half million dollar airplane to go spray crops?
[01:01:23] Speaker A: 15.
[01:01:24] Speaker C: Not very many.
How many people are going to go out and spend a hundred thousand dollars to go spray crops with drones?
[01:01:31] Speaker B: A lot.
[01:01:32] Speaker C: And those guys can do good, but once they have to start spending half a million dollars to get into it, it's not quite as.
[01:01:39] Speaker B: Is there something else on your mind?
[01:01:41] Speaker A: I'm just trying to think like what, what was the positive message? I like what was exciting at the show?
[01:01:47] Speaker C: Nothing for people like us, I don't think.
[01:01:50] Speaker A: I think one of the questions people might have is are these foreign drone manufacturers, are they just laying over and going to take it or are they going to come to America? What do you guys think about that?
[01:01:58] Speaker B: I don't think the government will let it come in.
[01:02:01] Speaker A: I, I talked to an Italian company
[01:02:03] Speaker B: because Kevin, if they would, why didn't they let the China manufacturers come and set up shop?
[01:02:08] Speaker A: What chain manufacturers like cars?
Yeah, yeah. Cars is definitely.
[01:02:13] Speaker C: And drones is way, way, way worse than cars in their opinion.
[01:02:18] Speaker A: We talked to you. Okay, here's the bright spot to end on. This is.
[01:02:23] Speaker C: Okay, let's hear it.
[01:02:24] Speaker A: We talked to an Italian drone company that makes a decent heavy lift drone that is manufacturing in America, assembling in America starting in 2027.
[01:02:34] Speaker C: How much was that drone?
[01:02:36] Speaker A: 50 to $75,000 depending on the package you got.
[01:02:40] Speaker B: Heavy lift will be an option for people to do one whenever the FAA gets that figured out. But heavy lift, trying to get heavy lift exemptions right now.
Good luck with that.
[01:02:53] Speaker A: Yep. Okay. Nothing good.
Thanks for tuning in.
[01:02:57] Speaker C: Good try, Kevin.
[01:02:58] Speaker A: I'm done.
[01:02:58] Speaker C: Thanks for trying. It was a valiant 8 minute effort
[01:03:04] Speaker B: to try and think of something positive and exciting.
