What really made Skydio S2 successful was its superior obstacle avoidance and autonomous following capability- breath taking videos of snow boarders and mountain bikers using it to film themselves without anyone else helping. But the camera and wireless range still lagged DJI and most people aren’t interested in the autonomous following capability beyond toying around.
Skydio pivoted to industry, public safety and non weapon defense use cases (winning a large army situational awareness use case contract) and now sells the X10 which is too expensive for consumers but has closed the gap on photo sensor quality and still leads in AI compute / autonomous use cases.
It seems Skydio is poised to succeed in these areas, but currently has pulled out of the consumer market. Perhaps if they hit big enough they will have the luxury of reentering the consumer market.
“Remember when the narrative was that it was Russia totally reliant on Western-supplied parts in its weaponry? Here an American general literally admits the entire U.S. military structure would collapse in a day if China issued an embargo against them:
‘If we were in a war with China and it stopped providing parts, we wouldn’t be able to build the planes and weapons we needed,’ he said.
A startling report released earlier this year revealed Chinese firms have a stranglehold across 12 critical technologies that are vital to US national security, including nuclear modernization, hypersonic and space technologies.
The study, which was carried out by defense software firm Govini, delivered a damning indictment on the American armaments industry.
‘U.S. domestic production capacity is a shriveled shadow of its former self,’ the report said.
‘Crucial categories of industry for U.S. national defense are no longer built in any of the 50 states.’
Remember when it was Russia using Western chips in all of its missiles?
Perhaps most worryingly, Govini found that more than 40 per cent of the semiconductors that sustain Department of Defense (DoD) weapons systems are now sourced from China.”?
The Russians have rapidly insourced a great deal of products, building (or rebuilding) a domestic industry to supply their military and consumer needs sans the West. They couldn't have done it without India buying their oil and China selling them high-tech equipment, but they've done it, and very quickly.
We would face some obstacles to that. Our political system is slow (by design). And our environmental and regulatory law precludes the rapid construction of anything.
Good guest post by folks who are in the industry and review about how we got to where we are today in the US wrt to competitiveness.
I agree that the play for the US is not to compete with DJI head on in easy to fly consumer drones.
Not mentioned about Ukraine's FPV industry are their current scale and how they are starting to make PCBs and other components instead of importing from China. They are on track to make 2, if not 3 million FPVs this year, up from 10K in 2022 and somewhere around 100K in 2023. That's more than 10x'ing production every year!
Ukraine drone assemblers are starting to make their own flight controller PCBs and thermal imagers.
Given the rapid pace of innovation in the Ukraine FPV and combat drone ecosystem, how else can the US leverage this? If they can kick Russia out, they will defacto have the strongest FPV/multicopter manufacturing industrial chain outside of China.
Also a nitpick: Ardupilot was started by Chris Anderson's 3DR cofounder Jordi Munoz for open source purposes two years prior to the founding of 3DR, and has always been focused on OSS, though 3DR's copters were compatible with it. I have used Ardupilot as the firmware for copter and rc vtol builds recently.
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is supposed to protect the US military from technical advances. However, DARPA often fails in imagination, in this case, with drones. The Russia-Ukraine war has opened the eyes of many.
Our problem is our arrogance and Congress. The last Stinger missile that was assembled was in 2007. After we gave a boatload to Ukraine, we needed to restock. Since we hadn’t built them, the company had no line open nor employees to build them. They eventually had to ask retired employees to come back and show them how to do it.
In essence, the military was, in effect, asking the company to shit out its ass a new Stinger missile. We currently cannot build naval vessels. We recently had to scrap 12 new Littoral ships due to the transmission not working. I defecate you negatory. We need 40 new LA Class Attack Subs...they're years of service life is ending....We currently can only build two a year. We do not have 20 years to finish the job. The same with the big boomer subs. The ones with 3rd strike capability....Big MRV’d nuclear bombs Russia won’t be able to avoid. Nor China. We need to do the same thing but don’t have the capability.
Lastly, and this really needs to be fixed, is procurement. We used to have Navel Shipbuilding entities. Sure, maybe mostly for repair or uplift....but the fits and starts that Congress plays with budgeting doesn’t allow private contractors who report stockholders to waste money being ready in case Congress does something. Military spending is very different due to very long lead times. We need more flexibility.
The history illustrates how capitalism is a security threat unless the “market” is augmented by a democratic State intervention without creating reactionary multimillionaires intent on prioritising their own greed and avoiding paying tax.
"Last month, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would ground over 70% of America’s industrial drone fleet."
Incorrect. The CCCPDA would only apply (if passed) to new DJI equipment needing and FCC license to operate in the U.S. Also, it did not pass the bill. Congresswoman Stefanik was able to get the CCCPDA language into the House version of the National Defence Authorization Act. That same language is NOT in the Senate version of the NDAA. However, Senator Scott (R-FL) has announced his is going to offer a floor amendment after recess to include language similar to the CCCPDA, as well as Stefanik's sister bill, Drone for First Responders Act.
Additionally, "Eliminating CCP-sponsored drones from American skies is essential for our national security" is also incorrect. First, there are no "CCP-sponsored drones" in the U.S. DJI and Autel are private companies (with some gov't support, just like the U.S. supports Skydio). And if this was truly an issue, why not just develop, then mandate, cybersecurity protocols for ALL drones flown near CI.
"Moreover, DJI is no stranger to lawmakers — consider that they’ve out-lobbied Skydio nearly 3-to-1, spending $1.6 million just last year" is accurate. And easily explained. Skydio is lobbying from an offensive position. They are trying to remove DJI from the space since they can't compete. And honestly, with the insiders they have on the Skydio payroll, they don't need to spend as much.
Joe Bartlett, current Skydio Director of Federal Policy has direct ties to Stefanik, the one who introduced both anti-China (DJI) bills. Bartlett spent 9/21-1/23 as National Security Advisor for Stefanik. Who needs to spend money with they have a direct link to Congress via one of their VPs?
Also, you don't need to throw money at an anti-China piece of legislation in D.C. these days. China is the current whipping boy, and everyone jumps on board a bill that first that criteria.
On the other hand, DJI has to play defense, and at the same time fight the Anti-China narrative. Both daunting tasks. Add that to the fact that just a few short months ago, D.C. insiders let lobbying firms know that if they have any Chinese companies as clients, then many Congressional offices wouldn't talk to them about any of their clients.
This caused a huge issue with many Chinese companies.
So please don't spread the paranoia and propaganda that we're being spied on by DJI and Autel drones. Even now, you can no longer upload flight logs to DJI. They did that in answer to the fears, even though they never uploaded "High resolution imagery of critical infrastructure", which they have been accused of on The Hill.
Do we need a U.S. drone manufacturing industry? 100% yes. But a ban like this would decimate an entire industry, and literally cost American lives by taking the most capable and most cost effective drones out of the hands of First Responders, who use DJI and Autel to save countless lives across this country.
After reading this article I'm confused about whether or not there is a national security risk from using inexpensive Chinese-made drones for routine commercial and law-enforcement purposes. If there is such a risk, I'd be interested to see it explained in some detail.
China dominates the drones market because it controls the full supply chains (hardware and software). It would take a while for US to build an integrated hardware supply chain for drones manufacturing that can match Chinese made drones in price, quality and functionality.
They just need to do the most security sensitive components like software and overall design, they do not necessarily have to ban/recreate the whole supply chain.
Good piece! Naturally I went straight to the Skydio paragraph first, wondering how much of their story mattered to the larger story. The R1 was in fact for consumers, not enterprise; the full pivot to enterprise came in 2020 with Skydio X2. Skydio's autonomous consumer drones were an interesting sell -- part of the fun of many drones is the actual piloting of the drone -- and they were expensive. To follow up on Noah's recent post on batteries (why isn't the US a leader?) they didn't do as much cultural work as they might have. But Skydio also reached out to partner with universities, to put drones in the hands of students. And yet still now, Skydio's focus on inspection and public safety as well as military means they don't really interact with any culture workers. Most American's I'm sure don't really know what drones do or can do. State capacity could be vastly improved with drones (inspection, safety) but they're expensive. Note even the Secret Service didn't have one in Butler, PA.
I still believe Skydio is the US drone company to watch.
Scale and supplier proximity matters so much in consumer electronics. Skydio could not compete on price with DJI.
Heck I've heard even other Chinese multicopter startups from DJI's time, which were founded in other cities, could not compete with DJI's advantage being in Shenzhen almost next door to electronics suppliers just as miniaturized components like cameras and GPS modules were made in volume thanks largely to smartphones.
Another part of the story is that congress and the FAA killed a big early chunk of the domestic industry in the cradle. Giving DJI a half decade head start and scared off a bunch of competition during which they gained dominance.
DJI launched Phantom 1 and 3 in 2013 and 2015.
Meanwhile in US the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, until it's delayed Aug 2016 implementation: "While such regulations were pending, the agency claimed it was illegal to operate commercial unmanned aerial vehicles". Around which the FAA was aggressively prosecuting** and generally scaring off most organized usefulness.
Due to that almost all the commercial usage in that time was technically illegal and done via individual "hobby" operator drones skewing the whole industry to "consumer" (DJI) drones with "labor and component cost" competition. Killing other service plus or industry vertical approaches until later after DJI was already dominant :(
Last week, I personally bought 20 FPV drones for Ukrainian military to target Level 3 (ZALA and Lancet) russian drones. These drones are made in Ukraine for $300
China is centralized and focused which is why it quickly dominated the drone (and other) markets. The U.S.is decentralized and polarized which is why it is falling behind in lots of world markets.
How to catch up? That will involve a complete (and long overdue) restructuring of the U.S. government and economic system. I would not hold my breath on that happening …
"Congress/FAA froze all commercial use of drones in US without explicit (stingy) approval"?!?!?
Hardly. It's easier than ever to fly and make money with our drones. FAA rules are being relaxed even as I write this. BVLOS is coming, and for many, is already here. Ops Over People is relaxed, as were night rules quite a while ago.
No, it's very easy to fly legally in this country, whether for work, or for play.
They released phantom 1 in 2013 and popular phantom3 in 2015.
via wikipedia: "FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012[14] set a deadline of September 30, 2015, for the agency to establish regulations to allow the use of commercial drones. While such regulations were pending, the agency claimed it was illegal to operate commercial unmanned aerial vehicles"
The FAA were a year late from the deadline releasing in 2016
"August 29, 2016. FAA implemented the first operational rules for routine non-hobbyist use of small UAS, or drones. This regulation is 14 CFR part 107."
killed or dumped in hobby-limbo a bunch of entrepreneurs and startups, giving DJI at least a half decade head start and diverted a lot of early talent and interest from going into the industry.
China is a very regulated and authoritarian society. I am assuming their equivalent of the FAA also has rules for flying large drones in commercial air spaces yet drone technologies are a top government priority. I am suspecting corporate laziness - the Chinese are doing it better and cheaper, let’s just buy drones off the shelf from them. Then, the bogus scare that the Chinese are somehow tracking all these drones emerged and the racist right wing nuts over reacted and barred essentially the only source of commercial drones available without a plan to fund domestic drone production. The biggest threat of domestic terrorism is our GOP dominated House of Representatives.
Commercial drones must be piloted by a licensed pilot and adhere to FAA aviation safety rules. This is more common sense rather than regulatory hindrance.
This is exactly why Noah is sounding the alarm on the demise of U.S. drone design and manufacture. Why does DJI have 70% of the world market on commercial drones used in law enforcement, military, and first responder organizations?
Yes, the GOP is forcing the U.S. to consume "poison pills" on baseless fears of Chinese spying, but as Winston Churchill said: "Americans will always do the right thing, only after they have tried everything else." If this self-inflicted wound is what is necessary to jump start domestic drone production then we are lost.
What really made Skydio S2 successful was its superior obstacle avoidance and autonomous following capability- breath taking videos of snow boarders and mountain bikers using it to film themselves without anyone else helping. But the camera and wireless range still lagged DJI and most people aren’t interested in the autonomous following capability beyond toying around.
Skydio pivoted to industry, public safety and non weapon defense use cases (winning a large army situational awareness use case contract) and now sells the X10 which is too expensive for consumers but has closed the gap on photo sensor quality and still leads in AI compute / autonomous use cases.
It seems Skydio is poised to succeed in these areas, but currently has pulled out of the consumer market. Perhaps if they hit big enough they will have the luxury of reentering the consumer market.
The title says "how to catch up agaon". Is that supposed to be "how to catch Agaon, the dragonrider"?
Drone attacks seem like a good plot for season 3 of House of the Dragon.
""how to catch Agaon, the dragonrider"?" <-- EXACTLY :D :D :D
Agaon
https://images.app.goo.gl/NBt6VbGn8KjCVGtP7
“Remember when the narrative was that it was Russia totally reliant on Western-supplied parts in its weaponry? Here an American general literally admits the entire U.S. military structure would collapse in a day if China issued an embargo against them:
‘If we were in a war with China and it stopped providing parts, we wouldn’t be able to build the planes and weapons we needed,’ he said.
A startling report released earlier this year revealed Chinese firms have a stranglehold across 12 critical technologies that are vital to US national security, including nuclear modernization, hypersonic and space technologies.
The study, which was carried out by defense software firm Govini, delivered a damning indictment on the American armaments industry.
‘U.S. domestic production capacity is a shriveled shadow of its former self,’ the report said.
‘Crucial categories of industry for U.S. national defense are no longer built in any of the 50 states.’
Remember when it was Russia using Western chips in all of its missiles?
Perhaps most worryingly, Govini found that more than 40 per cent of the semiconductors that sustain Department of Defense (DoD) weapons systems are now sourced from China.”?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13551371/China-military-supplies-war.html
I wonder who the idiots (or should we say "traitors") were who even allowed the use of Chinese parts in US military equipment?
Parts are not the problem systems are...
"a damning indictment of the US armaments industry. "
Shouldn't it be the administrations and Congress, that prioritized short-term butter over long-term security?
Yes. Short term butter for the administrations and Congress?
Short-term getting votes with the illusion that the choices had no negative consequences.
The Russians have rapidly insourced a great deal of products, building (or rebuilding) a domestic industry to supply their military and consumer needs sans the West. They couldn't have done it without India buying their oil and China selling them high-tech equipment, but they've done it, and very quickly.
We would face some obstacles to that. Our political system is slow (by design). And our environmental and regulatory law precludes the rapid construction of anything.
Good guest post by folks who are in the industry and review about how we got to where we are today in the US wrt to competitiveness.
I agree that the play for the US is not to compete with DJI head on in easy to fly consumer drones.
Not mentioned about Ukraine's FPV industry are their current scale and how they are starting to make PCBs and other components instead of importing from China. They are on track to make 2, if not 3 million FPVs this year, up from 10K in 2022 and somewhere around 100K in 2023. That's more than 10x'ing production every year!
Ukraine drone assemblers are starting to make their own flight controller PCBs and thermal imagers.
https://x.com/wilendhornets/status/1757835941723422765
https://archive.is/LIRjv
Given the rapid pace of innovation in the Ukraine FPV and combat drone ecosystem, how else can the US leverage this? If they can kick Russia out, they will defacto have the strongest FPV/multicopter manufacturing industrial chain outside of China.
Also a nitpick: Ardupilot was started by Chris Anderson's 3DR cofounder Jordi Munoz for open source purposes two years prior to the founding of 3DR, and has always been focused on OSS, though 3DR's copters were compatible with it. I have used Ardupilot as the firmware for copter and rc vtol builds recently.
The Ukraine is a great example of this, thanks!
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is supposed to protect the US military from technical advances. However, DARPA often fails in imagination, in this case, with drones. The Russia-Ukraine war has opened the eyes of many.
Our problem is our arrogance and Congress. The last Stinger missile that was assembled was in 2007. After we gave a boatload to Ukraine, we needed to restock. Since we hadn’t built them, the company had no line open nor employees to build them. They eventually had to ask retired employees to come back and show them how to do it.
In essence, the military was, in effect, asking the company to shit out its ass a new Stinger missile. We currently cannot build naval vessels. We recently had to scrap 12 new Littoral ships due to the transmission not working. I defecate you negatory. We need 40 new LA Class Attack Subs...they're years of service life is ending....We currently can only build two a year. We do not have 20 years to finish the job. The same with the big boomer subs. The ones with 3rd strike capability....Big MRV’d nuclear bombs Russia won’t be able to avoid. Nor China. We need to do the same thing but don’t have the capability.
Lastly, and this really needs to be fixed, is procurement. We used to have Navel Shipbuilding entities. Sure, maybe mostly for repair or uplift....but the fits and starts that Congress plays with budgeting doesn’t allow private contractors who report stockholders to waste money being ready in case Congress does something. Military spending is very different due to very long lead times. We need more flexibility.
The littoral ship concept was probably deeply flawed, too ambitions and aimed at a non existent market
It is hard to come up with anything analogous to scrapping 12 brand new ships. New Coke is the only boneheaded idea I can come up with.
Hah!
The history illustrates how capitalism is a security threat unless the “market” is augmented by a democratic State intervention without creating reactionary multimillionaires intent on prioritising their own greed and avoiding paying tax.
"Last month, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would ground over 70% of America’s industrial drone fleet."
Incorrect. The CCCPDA would only apply (if passed) to new DJI equipment needing and FCC license to operate in the U.S. Also, it did not pass the bill. Congresswoman Stefanik was able to get the CCCPDA language into the House version of the National Defence Authorization Act. That same language is NOT in the Senate version of the NDAA. However, Senator Scott (R-FL) has announced his is going to offer a floor amendment after recess to include language similar to the CCCPDA, as well as Stefanik's sister bill, Drone for First Responders Act.
Additionally, "Eliminating CCP-sponsored drones from American skies is essential for our national security" is also incorrect. First, there are no "CCP-sponsored drones" in the U.S. DJI and Autel are private companies (with some gov't support, just like the U.S. supports Skydio). And if this was truly an issue, why not just develop, then mandate, cybersecurity protocols for ALL drones flown near CI.
"Moreover, DJI is no stranger to lawmakers — consider that they’ve out-lobbied Skydio nearly 3-to-1, spending $1.6 million just last year" is accurate. And easily explained. Skydio is lobbying from an offensive position. They are trying to remove DJI from the space since they can't compete. And honestly, with the insiders they have on the Skydio payroll, they don't need to spend as much.
Joe Bartlett, current Skydio Director of Federal Policy has direct ties to Stefanik, the one who introduced both anti-China (DJI) bills. Bartlett spent 9/21-1/23 as National Security Advisor for Stefanik. Who needs to spend money with they have a direct link to Congress via one of their VPs?
Also, you don't need to throw money at an anti-China piece of legislation in D.C. these days. China is the current whipping boy, and everyone jumps on board a bill that first that criteria.
On the other hand, DJI has to play defense, and at the same time fight the Anti-China narrative. Both daunting tasks. Add that to the fact that just a few short months ago, D.C. insiders let lobbying firms know that if they have any Chinese companies as clients, then many Congressional offices wouldn't talk to them about any of their clients.
This caused a huge issue with many Chinese companies.
So please don't spread the paranoia and propaganda that we're being spied on by DJI and Autel drones. Even now, you can no longer upload flight logs to DJI. They did that in answer to the fears, even though they never uploaded "High resolution imagery of critical infrastructure", which they have been accused of on The Hill.
Do we need a U.S. drone manufacturing industry? 100% yes. But a ban like this would decimate an entire industry, and literally cost American lives by taking the most capable and most cost effective drones out of the hands of First Responders, who use DJI and Autel to save countless lives across this country.
Exactly!
After reading this article I'm confused about whether or not there is a national security risk from using inexpensive Chinese-made drones for routine commercial and law-enforcement purposes. If there is such a risk, I'd be interested to see it explained in some detail.
No mention of supply chain issues of electronic components that comprise the drone?
China/Taiwan…
China dominates the drones market because it controls the full supply chains (hardware and software). It would take a while for US to build an integrated hardware supply chain for drones manufacturing that can match Chinese made drones in price, quality and functionality.
They just need to do the most security sensitive components like software and overall design, they do not necessarily have to ban/recreate the whole supply chain.
Good piece! Naturally I went straight to the Skydio paragraph first, wondering how much of their story mattered to the larger story. The R1 was in fact for consumers, not enterprise; the full pivot to enterprise came in 2020 with Skydio X2. Skydio's autonomous consumer drones were an interesting sell -- part of the fun of many drones is the actual piloting of the drone -- and they were expensive. To follow up on Noah's recent post on batteries (why isn't the US a leader?) they didn't do as much cultural work as they might have. But Skydio also reached out to partner with universities, to put drones in the hands of students. And yet still now, Skydio's focus on inspection and public safety as well as military means they don't really interact with any culture workers. Most American's I'm sure don't really know what drones do or can do. State capacity could be vastly improved with drones (inspection, safety) but they're expensive. Note even the Secret Service didn't have one in Butler, PA.
I still believe Skydio is the US drone company to watch.
Scale and supplier proximity matters so much in consumer electronics. Skydio could not compete on price with DJI.
Heck I've heard even other Chinese multicopter startups from DJI's time, which were founded in other cities, could not compete with DJI's advantage being in Shenzhen almost next door to electronics suppliers just as miniaturized components like cameras and GPS modules were made in volume thanks largely to smartphones.
> "Why America fell behind in drones"
Another part of the story is that congress and the FAA killed a big early chunk of the domestic industry in the cradle. Giving DJI a half decade head start and scared off a bunch of competition during which they gained dominance.
DJI launched Phantom 1 and 3 in 2013 and 2015.
Meanwhile in US the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, until it's delayed Aug 2016 implementation: "While such regulations were pending, the agency claimed it was illegal to operate commercial unmanned aerial vehicles". Around which the FAA was aggressively prosecuting** and generally scaring off most organized usefulness.
Due to that almost all the commercial usage in that time was technically illegal and done via individual "hobby" operator drones skewing the whole industry to "consumer" (DJI) drones with "labor and component cost" competition. Killing other service plus or industry vertical approaches until later after DJI was already dominant :(
**
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/05/07/major-news-outlets-call-the-faas-drone-restrictions-a-violation-of-the-first-amendment
https://www.vice.com/en/article/gvykaq/the-faa-says-you-cant-post-drone-videos-on-youtube
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/01/17/faa-drone-skypan/96671342/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/04/08/realtors-and-soybean-farmers-agree-drone-rules-are-overdue/
https://aublr.org/2015/02/droning-on-and-on-what-the-settlement-of-pirker-v-huerta-means-for-the-future-of-uas-policy-2/
Last week, I personally bought 20 FPV drones for Ukrainian military to target Level 3 (ZALA and Lancet) russian drones. These drones are made in Ukraine for $300
China is centralized and focused which is why it quickly dominated the drone (and other) markets. The U.S.is decentralized and polarized which is why it is falling behind in lots of world markets.
How to catch up? That will involve a complete (and long overdue) restructuring of the U.S. government and economic system. I would not hold my breath on that happening …
Nah not in this case. Congress/FAA froze all commercial use of drones in US without explicit (stingy) approval during the time frame of DJIs rise.
Complete centralized self inflicted fail on this one.
"Congress/FAA froze all commercial use of drones in US without explicit (stingy) approval"?!?!?
Hardly. It's easier than ever to fly and make money with our drones. FAA rules are being relaxed even as I write this. BVLOS is coming, and for many, is already here. Ops Over People is relaxed, as were night rules quite a while ago.
No, it's very easy to fly legally in this country, whether for work, or for play.
I am referring to "the time frame of DJIs rise."
They released phantom 1 in 2013 and popular phantom3 in 2015.
via wikipedia: "FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012[14] set a deadline of September 30, 2015, for the agency to establish regulations to allow the use of commercial drones. While such regulations were pending, the agency claimed it was illegal to operate commercial unmanned aerial vehicles"
The FAA were a year late from the deadline releasing in 2016
"August 29, 2016. FAA implemented the first operational rules for routine non-hobbyist use of small UAS, or drones. This regulation is 14 CFR part 107."
killed or dumped in hobby-limbo a bunch of entrepreneurs and startups, giving DJI at least a half decade head start and diverted a lot of early talent and interest from going into the industry.
China is a very regulated and authoritarian society. I am assuming their equivalent of the FAA also has rules for flying large drones in commercial air spaces yet drone technologies are a top government priority. I am suspecting corporate laziness - the Chinese are doing it better and cheaper, let’s just buy drones off the shelf from them. Then, the bogus scare that the Chinese are somehow tracking all these drones emerged and the racist right wing nuts over reacted and barred essentially the only source of commercial drones available without a plan to fund domestic drone production. The biggest threat of domestic terrorism is our GOP dominated House of Representatives.
Commercial drones must be piloted by a licensed pilot and adhere to FAA aviation safety rules. This is more common sense rather than regulatory hindrance.
"There is an eternal conflict between the images presented to us by the mind’s eye and by our human eyes. And we live in favor of the mind’s images and in denial of what our human eyes can perceive. Yet, gradually through the uncovering of untruths, that balance may shift - where we begin to increasingly mistrust our mind’s versions and place greater faith in that which is clear and present." https://www.factmr.com/report/us-drone-market#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Federal%20Aviation,and%20392%2C468%20are%20recreational%20drones.
Who is DJI? I am assuming you mean DJT.
As for the benefits of focused centralization, China does it better...
DJI is the leader in drone manufacturing in the world. They have over 70% of the global market.
Backs up my comment about the U.S. being polarized and partisan...
"House Republicans have once again put their own extremist agenda over strengthening US national security. Through their hyper-partisan amendment process, they transformed a commonsense, bipartisan package into one laden with extremist policy riders and poison pills." https://uavcoach.com/dji-ban/#:~:text=2864%2C%20the%20“Countering%20CCP%20Drones,licenses%20for%20new%20DJI%20drones.
Which is why we need to make sure Senator Scott's NDAA Amendment doesn't get included in the NDAA.
https://droneadvocacyalliance.com/august-recess-2024/
This is exactly why Noah is sounding the alarm on the demise of U.S. drone design and manufacture. Why does DJI have 70% of the world market on commercial drones used in law enforcement, military, and first responder organizations?
Yes, the GOP is forcing the U.S. to consume "poison pills" on baseless fears of Chinese spying, but as Winston Churchill said: "Americans will always do the right thing, only after they have tried everything else." If this self-inflicted wound is what is necessary to jump start domestic drone production then we are lost.
> "Who is DJI?"
...the main subject of the article, you just here for generic china shilling/pol hackery? :/
Very nice informative article ... thanks for putting it together. I am curious about the supply chain under the drones.....semi, software ?