# Flight safety and compliance for BVLOS Operations

- Event: NestGen ’24
- Published: April 13, 2024
- Length: 46:17
- Watch: https://nestgen.org/library/watch/z73xoANDpHg/

> The transcript of a recorded NestGen session, for reading or for use with an AI tool. It comes from the video's
> captions; automatic captions can mishear names and terms.

## About this session

Join industry leaders in this NextGen '24 panel discussion as they explore the forefront of drone technology, focusing on flight safety and compliance for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations. Discover insights from experts on regulatory advancements and technological innovations shaping the future of unmanned aviation. Delve deep into the challenges of scaling remote ID technologies and overcoming barriers in different urban environments. Gain valuable perspectives on network-based remote ID systems and the evolving role of air traffic control in managing airspace for drone operations. Don't miss this informative session on the future of autonomous flight and global standardization in the drone industry.

To know more, visit:

=====
Subscribe to FlytBase YouTube -

Follow Us On -

LinkedIn -
Facebook -
Twitter -
Instagram -

## Transcript

**[0:21]** all right good morning afternoon evening wherever you're joining us from from around the globe welcome to Nest gen24 this is a place where the future of drawn autonomy takes flights now today we're embarking on an exciting journey into the world of flight safety and compliance for BB loss operations now BB loss represents the frontier of drone technology now it's pushing the boundaries of what's possible in uncrewed aviation so in this session we're going to dive deep into the heart of flight safety exploring the latest advancements and Regulatory insights that are shaping the Skies of Tomorrow our panel today consists of some of the most Forward Thinking Minds in the industry experts who live on The Cutting Edge of Technology policy and operational safety now they're here to share their knowledge experiences and Visions for a world where drones do more see further fly safer all while ensuring compliance with the evolving Global standards so before we dive into their introductions let's cover a little bit of housekeeping one we really got to thank uh

**[1:22]** the event sponsors DJI Enterprise and sunflower Labs very excited to have them here I would say what one the things that we're also going to do we're going to take questions we're going to leave them at the end so you can use the Q&A section to add those questions and we'll get to them at the end um and let's see this is being recorded So if you're it has got a little bit of a little bit of lag for you you want to see it later show your friends show your family show your cat whatever you want to do it's going to be available for you in a few short days so without further Ado I'd like to turn the floor over to our distinguished panelists please intr introduce yourself and let's Dive Right In let's start with Ian hey everyone my name is Ian nce founder and CEO of Zen drone Solutions uh we're a drone Solutions provider who has been working in the drone delivery space and more recently we launched two FAA doc approved remote ID broadcast modules that we're

**[2:23]** bringing to the market and excited to discuss how that might tie into BB loss operations thanks Ian uh let's move to Josh hey everyone my name is Josh Ogden I'm the CEO of avss we build parachute recovery systems flight termination systems and guided Delivery Systems we're really good at dropping things from the sky awesome great intro uh let's go to last but certainly not least let's go to Don hi I'm Don bof I'm the CEO of true weather Solutions we're a microw weather data and analytics company focused on low out altitude WEA data gaps and really bringing solutions for BV loss operations where there's no longer a pilot on the aircraft and we try to fill in that Gap and uh we also help to lead the ASM weather standard that's been published uh and will allow for lower cost weather sensors in the future to be used in flight management decisions awesome thank you so much I'm just really honored to have all three of you

**[3:25]** on this panel today um so I want this to be fairly conversational um let's do this though I want to ask each of you a question that's been tailored for you and then hopefully we're gonna get some other questions and we're kind of tackle this from as many perspectives as possible so let's go to Ian so Ian in your perspective what are the sort of primary challenges in scaling remote ID Technologies for BV loss across different Urban environments and how can these challenges be overcome yes so great question um I'll started off by giving a little bit of history about remote ID so as many of you know remote ID was initially proposed back in 2019 with the final Ru making coming out in um 2021 and now we're into the phase where um basically implementation is required so there was the extension on the remote ID requirement for broadcast modules until March 16th which is exactly 3 weeks away

**[4:29]** from today so starting on March 16th effectively everyone in the United States airspace system is required to have a remote ID broadcast whether that's standard remote ID built into the Drone or a remote ID broadcast module that is on one of the more Legacy models so the way that I see the main challenge with it right now is the way that remote ID was initially proposed back at the start was both a network-based and a broadcast based system that has shifted due to the 53,000 comments on the rule to a purely broadcast based system and no longer a network-based system that was more part of the UTM where all uas service suppliers would be able to have that remote ID information and know where all drones are in real time but while it is just a broadcast based solution now we at Zing believe that there's uh solutions that can be tied in to basically enable

**[5:30]** more BV loss operations so the way that we think of it now is that all drones are now digitally visible when before they were not so every single drone similar to like the adsb system for Mand aircraft around 30 miles of an airport in that mod SE Veil all drones can now be seen within a certain vicinity of one another so if a drone is actively broadcasting via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi it's exact GP PS position and also the Pilot's location we can now pick that up from scanners either onboard scanners on other drones or scanners on the ground that are picking up Roe ID information in in nearby vicinity so I think that one of the main challenges has been the elimination of the network based remote ID requirement and coming up with solutions to still enable BB loss in the way it was initially envisioned in the UTM system great Ian thank you I got more questions for you but let's move on to our

**[6:32]** next panelist Josh so I'm curious so from your perspective this one's directly tailored to you so what are the latest advancements in Flight termination systems for drones you know and how do they specifically cater to the unique challenges of BB loss operations yeah so flight termination systems um are an interesting topic from a perspective of do they or do they not include a parachute so um There are rules that you don't necessarily need a parachute the Irish for example will tell you you don't necessarily need a parachute but they do actually like it because of human factors um you don't want to your drones drifting away to an airport you might you know be hesitant to drop that 50k out of the sky if there's no secondary device um even though a parachute doesn't guarantee your drone doesn't break it make sure that no one gets hurt but there's still the psychological human factor with flight termination specifically the whole intention is stop the motors from spinning two purposes one avoid entangle that's like a nice to have the real purpose is bystandard we don't want drones coming down you know with blades spinning and and

**[7:37]** hurting someone and so the big pieces of flight termination systems you know you've got your RG pilot PX4 where you can send a shutdown command um you've got independent systems that are turning off power of the Drone or are are focused directly at segregation so that if the Drone fails you can still trigger it I don't believe flight termination systems from a physical standpoint blocking propellers is a good idea because you you actually end up breaking a propeller and now you have a new laceration point so the big pieces of flight termination systems we see coming forward is more about the independence and you see that with something you know enhanced containment in certain regulatory pieces the big problem I think with the L advancements is getting drone manufacturers wrapped around the requirements no one everyone wants to use that off the shelf just click the button and not understanding the like the failure points and so really the latest advancements are focusing on how do you make sure that the system still works when the Drone isn't working which seems pretty intuitive because you only want to kill a flight when the drone's not acting right that does make intuitive sense but you know if Common Sense was a thing then

**[8:41]** you know I don't know um we wouldn't have a business so that's yeah I kind of think so um thank you Josh um coming to you Don I got one tailored right for you so how can realtime weather tracking and forecasting Technologies you know how do we integrate those into BV lost drone operations you know how do they enhance flight safety in decision- making well first of all I don't know if folks realize but about 30% of Mand Aviation or crude Aviation today that's cancelled or delayed due to weather could have flown and so we have a lot of uncertainty out there that causing people not to fly when they can fly now when you look at that that turn that's Revenue that's being dropped on the ground and the current aviation weather systems we have were not built for low altitude weather there is no data being collected in most places about 97% of the country and around the world there's no data being collected below 5,000 feet that will actually benefit you today it's only at airports and it's some balloon launches everything else you see is a model and the

**[9:44]** model has errors in it so what true weather is focusing on is how do we close those gaps where it matters how do we get you safer but more flight time because safety is a direct you know relationship to your decision making about whether there could be an incident if you are uncertain about the weather then you're probably going to be more conservative and you don't want to have an accident so what we're doing is saying look we can get you back that 30% if you have the right infrastructure associated with your systems now when we were doing vloss it wasn't as big of an issue but now what we're seeing is we're seeing more drone in the Box solutions for autonomous flight and it there's no visual Observer or there's nobody outside even with the Drone people are working inside flying these drones they're not even in the weather they don't know what's really happening out there so what we want to do is close the gap and then bring that data into an R API which then can be fed into your systems and you can have very lowc cost sensors we're talking like $1,000 for a wind

**[10:48]** sensor on a tower that's collocated with a detecting a void radar that give you unimaginable information about what the winds are doing at altitude and then you can also bring in a low cost salometer or weather station in the municipality that will give you the ceiling and visibility right in your municipality because the mear may not be relevant and we could bring that into our system and integrate it into all these decision systems and so that's what we're doing and we've worked withm we develop a standard because today the main concern is is it approved weather and up to this point approved weather was only government data and it was only the mear but does it make sense to use the mear that's 15 miles away to make a decision about what you're doing I've told the government that that's actually Mal it's it's it's Mal content right you're giving people the impression that that's a good piece of information and so they've agreed and they said look we're gonna have the standard so the standard's been published and the standard's going to become an advisory circular and it's going to become part of 108 in the future and so as we're working

**[11:50]** through the dfr and the BV loss whatever your your your entity is bringing weather resiliency in is a very low cost compared to all the other money you're spending spending for infrastructure and what it could do is get you more flight time and and make you more safe Don you T me up perfectly and thank you that Insight was was very helpful looking forward to seeing that coming out in advisory circular absolutely so this one's for the group so we you you heed up standards Don so I'm gonna I'm gonna dive into standards so like what what this is for everyone and you can start what are the key barriers to establishing and adhering standards and and more importantly I'm interested in a global standard for BB lost drone operations and how do we overcome and address these barriers you know me I'm always ready to answer if you want me to yeah let's start with you done so the barriers that we had in weather so I'm I'm very proud of the

**[12:50]** fact that I think the weather industry and the work we've done with the FAA and now doing with the A and others we're kind of leading in how you can take a standard develop a stand standard work with the caas work with the nsps to figure out how to implement that standard and so the challenge always is you can write a standard but how are you going to execute it what are the means and methods of compliance that are going to be required and how do you get that out into a rule that everyone could follow and is Affordable so one of the things that we said was we don't want to drive cost up what we're trying to do is bring a solution that's going to actually you know free weather data sounds free but it's not it's costing you 30% of your flight time I think I made that case earlier right so it's not really it's free you think it's free but it's costing you money how do we close that Gap get something affordable out and have make sure it's meeting the standard because weather has always been the most one very regulated in the aviation industry for a reason and that's because you don't know what you're using on an app or wherever you're getting it today it could be it could be uh spoofed it could be cyber insecure it could be

**[13:54]** unreliable we don't know what you're getting the FAA and all the other National uh you know the caas have said we have to have controlled weather because we have to know where it's coming from and as we move into the autonomous era you're not gonna there's not gonna be humans in a loop anymore so you're not going to be checking that data so that data has to be checked in some way so the standard has to be executable has to be affordable it has to have a business case that is making sense and then you got to test and demonstrate it and that's the hurdle right it's the hurdle is how do you test and demonstrate and get something feasible that will work and I think that's one of the biggest challenges makes sense Josh I' like your perspective yeah so I think when we look at the challenges there's there's uh like especially with with the products we make with the parachutes and flight termination systems we've seen the challenges um come to terms I guess manufacturers and end users come to terms with

**[14:54]** it I think end users did first I think they realize hey I just want to do this Mission what do I need to buy and then I think with manufacturers what we see is and there I would say there there's an opportunity there when they click when it clicks and they realize it is they look at the product you know for us is as like unnecessary it's extra weight extra cost it's a new failure Point there's not enough data what happens if it triggers and and what they struggled with really up until the last I'd say year and a half two years is that too bad it's like the man if if The Regulators want it like why fight it there are other methods you know anytime you see a standard whether the weather or the parachute standard you'll see the regulator say this is an accepted means of compliance but not the only and then everyone it's not everyone it seems a lot focused on well what's the other ways and then they realize it's a rabbit hole yes there's other ways to get around it if if you really want to get into it but it's far more expensive and so you know whether that's going for like d178 d c DB whatever you want to do and and move up those change and and so I think a big piece is just accepting and you know we look at the

**[15:57]** automotive industry people hated C sat converters you know maybe the big manufacturers didn't even want it and there was there's some good movies on that and then there's like airbags and seat belts I think seat belts were mandated in Texas in like the 90s finally and it's one of those ones where or helmets on in motorcycles imagine that topic um so it's one of those ones where I think the big challenges is more like technically I think we're getting there as an industry the ones that had very bad parachute system flight termination system you don't they're not really existing anymore and the ones that still do with bad systems are kind of not getting the larger deals that make a sustainable business and then I think I think ultimately the challenges we see are more about implementation now I think we've we're jumped over the hurdle I don't think we have the same problem as like weather where people are still trying to get to terms with the 30% I think they've come to terms with our 30% it's just now about do they have the cash flow do they have the budget do the manufacturers see the opportunity to to go into that market yeah that's that's the good point Josh and and I'm now curious to move on to Ian

**[17:02]** same question yeah and I think what Josh said it really lines up with with what we're doing here now is basically the ASM standard documents the ASD standard documents in the EU and um even Japan all have very very similar requirements for basically the remote ID broadcast module or standard remote ID implementation so as a manufacturer I mean we've had to go in and spend mon kind of deciphering the Bluetooth messages the Wi-Fi messages the means of compliance and basically building a remote ID broadcast module that is up to the spec so most recently um with our like let's say with our ZD light broadcast module we're finding out like new intricacies about the remote ID standard and about open remote ID that enable us to shift some things around to help kind of lower the cost for the modules and also keep it compliant with the ASM and ASD standards so I mean right now in terms of uh the

**[18:06]** standards documents for the rest of the world globally things like open drone ID that really facilitated remote ID becoming standardized across the US and the EU if everyone keeps following those initial standards that are set as the foundation across the globe for things like open drone ID it'll really help set the precedent for for Global standardization for both remote ID and as we get into like BV loss operations how those drones can be digitally detected across the globe thank you Ian Josh I want to go back to something that you said um relating to like protocols and reliability so what testing protocols do you feel are essential for ensuring the reliability and effectiveness of drone parachutes and other flight termination systems in a variety of environmental conditions yeah that's a funny one so depending on which country you're in and apparently kinetic energy affects you differently I didn't know this but apparently a drone coming down in one country

**[19:10]** faster might cause less injury than in another country it's the cor Coriolis effect obviously I I I guess so I don't even know what that means but sure um it sounds rational easy on the science Jason sorry sorry I talk about kinetic energy transfer of energy but yeah let's but uh no I I think it's an interesting topic so I I uh so I'm the technical lead of the asdm standard for parachutes I took over this summer um and one thing like we're like as a company we we started this standard didn't exist in 2017 it got published in 2018 we didn't get our hands on until late 2018 and we said okay we're this is going to be our golden book on what we're going to do Baseline we don't even think it's enough but like you go and there's so many manufacturers out there who fight and say this this is overkill this isn't needed and you they go to Europe and say well M2 mitigation medium I only need 30 activations two flight tests and like I wouldn't sleep well at night if if that was the case we do the 45 tests um deploy the parachute get the data and then we're

**[20:14]** still running missions we're doing ongoing testing programs and I think this is where like the Drone industry is at a really tough point where it's getting expensive to participate uh but it's one of those things where it's like it's I I didn't know you could cut corners on safety know you could just make that as an excuse and we see this with many manufacturers now who don't want to play with the real game in my opinion they want to cut Corners as they want it as light as possible they argue the costs are too high and it's like I've spent the money doing it ourselves we no one paid our first few drones on DJI drones we paid that all ourselves we had to buy the drones we had to do the testing you know dropping 150 200k and it's one that like once you get good at once you figure it out and like I think this is where the industry is rolling into more of that Automotive sector where you're doing subcomponent and integration whether it's remote ID whether it's weather like you're not going to Do complete vertically integrated unless you got really really Deep Pockets in a lot of time um it just the economics don't play out if you're trying to do everything yourself currently and and this is where I think

**[21:17]** like with parachute and testing like anyone who thinks asdm F3 322 is overkill I I laugh at them in in my head I obviously very polite um when I when I when I hear that it's just to me it's like I I know it's expensive and I know it's a big hurdle I'm not a fan of M2 mitigation medium now uh when you can use the example of 30 activations two flight test I I have customers that want to do that and and we support them on that I we also push them to do more because we just don't feel comfortable ourselves all our DJI products come out with asdm F3 322 plus we're doing more testing and I think when we look at testing like you can fight it or you can just like this is going to be an easier path we've seen so many companies fight the stand ards and adoption and they're not getting approval so their customers aren't there they don't have customers so I think that as a component manufacturer you have to look and say how am I going to help my drone manufacturer sell more drones because I make money when they sell drones I want my customer selling thousands of drones and there's there's cost there that we have to co-invest in and

**[22:17]** we have to believe in each other and and ultimately get the product to Market and make money off units being sold um and that's where I think with the industry right now there's there's still that push back and it's fair right like not everyone's got $100 million sitting in the account uh and you know you want to do a parachute integration yeah there's some companies that'll do it for 2K you buy their unit you can go and like have fun I I know what that's like I know what and we see these customers and you know we're actually more in the game right now of firing customers it seems who want to cut Corners who don't want to spend the Investments and I think this is a thing where the industry is probably getting more mature like we'll make decisions on okay we don't think this company's safe they don't want to do the testing they don't want to and you know very anti- capitalism I don't want to serve serve this customer but actually it is because it takes me the same amount of time to integrate a parachute for someone's going to sell a thousand units as 10 units um hopefully and so this is where yeah I think the industry has got this weird or certain experience where like we want all these standards but not everyone's got budget and there's got to be a strategy you can't do everything and and you know the

**[23:20]** companies that choose not to do it I I respect because it's like hey I don't even want to do a parachute I want to do all the testing I'm just going to not play in that game that's 20 to 30% Market opportunity and that's fine but if you're going to come in and try to do it like do it right because we see this in Canada just a final rant and pass on is you know in Canada we've been doing flight flight over people since 2019 we just had a big audit by Transport Canada a couple weeks ago and 15% of drone models were removed for false declarations because we have a nice self- declaration system we finally look under the hood and we find out a bunch of people are cheating and lying and it's one thing and some people made administrative mistakes not everyone was a bad actor but it's one that I think people tried to do it cut corners and like it'll be interesting to see if they they face the financial penalties you're supposed to get up to 15,000 per model of false declaration so this is ultimately I think it's time to the industry to accept their certain costs and if it's a cost of doing business like it is what it is like I don't know like you can't tell your staff not to wear hard hats on a construction site because you don't want

**[24:20]** to buy the helmets it's one of those ones where like do the right thing and yeah so end of rant sorry go ahead Don I just want to say I'm I'm listening to Josh and I'm thinking one of the things I want to make clear about the weather standard is you don't have to necessarily have better weather data you it's a risk-based performance standard if you want to fly using the current data that's available just recognize that you're going to have more risk and more liability potentially down the road and also you may not get that flight time that I was talking about so what we've done is we've created a standard said look if you're going to use a better Weather Service or a better weather if you want to use that you don't have to use it it doesn't cost you anything if you don't want to use it but if you want to use it we're saying that the service that you're going to use would have a standard that they have to follow in order to report what their error rates are in their data sets or understand what is going to be uh allowed and approved a third-party weather provider this standards

**[25:21]** for us to say you're an approved thirdparty weather provider and now you can purchase from us or we can support a UTM and you know that that weather is meeting that standard that's what the standard's about and the other thing I want to mention is that if you decide that you want to take your own weather data off your own drone and use that to fly yourself you could do that nobody's saying you can't do it I wouldn't recommend it necessarily but because you know there is science behind this and everyone thinks weather's easy they think oh I just throw a sensor up and no there's all kinds of problems with motion and and rotor blades and all this stuff the data you're getting off a drone that's a weather sensor data is not necessarily accurate now it may be good enough for what you want to use it for but we can't have you share that back into the system for other people to use because we have to be able to quantify what that error rate is and what the risk is that's what the standard's about it's just protecting everyone if they want to use thirdparty weather providers and not just use the government data I just wanted to make that point Jason yeah Don I want to stick with this just for a second because you've

**[26:21]** talked about uh the gaps that are that are currently in the models we just talked about sort of like reporting I had a conversation yesterday with someone gosh there has been a common conversation about practical scalability so in your opinion related to that topic a little bit like what are the current gaps in those weather the current weather prediction models like the ones in UAV forecast and the ones that like are are kind of practically scaled that are that are practical applied to drone operations how do we address those gaps for BB loss and autonomous you know operations yeah so UAV forecast any weather company out there you're using today is using standard N9 kilometer resolution model data and their initial conditions that they're using to run that model we don't even have we don't even know what the weather is so we have to use models to estimate it and then we're putting in a 9 K kilometer resolution model so the winds at 300 feet are not necessarily they could be off 30% 40% I know

**[27:24]** people have seen that because I I mean that's why I know is a business case here right well you can deal with that and you could do that on one off you know I'm just going to go out and fly today and if you're not on a schedule right if you're not on a schedule and you're not trying to do high velocity drone delivery and you're trying to make money you can get away with that but if you're trying to scale your operations and you're trying to be efficient and you want to know my drone's going to take this long to get back I have to recoup that I have to give my customer some lead time on whether I'm going to have to cancel you know you can't mess around and I've been you know I've been working with a lot of drone operators and they are starting to see this right they realize that it's about efficiency weather data better weather data is about efficiency it's about reducing the uncertainty so that you can plan better and use your resources better and have better client reliability and so what I'm saying is that there are ways to close that Gap the Gap is in winds the Gap is in ceiling height the Gap is in visibility at BB loss the Gap is in uh

**[28:28]** icing and Cloud which we haven't had a worry about yet so it below 400 feet but we will have to start worrying about that when we start flying remote heavier lift drones from Regional Airport to e airport they're going to be flying at a thousand to 4,000 feet 5,000 feet that's going to be if you're in the North in the winter time that's icing zone right so how are you going to know if there's icing there or not today we over forecast it because you have to be safe so so here's the thing we could put sensors on Tower if we get 100 feet above the ground and we collocate a wind sensor uh with another uh detecting aoid sensor we got winds now above the ground level we're going to get much better wind than you're going to get from that UAV forecast we take that data eventually and we do machine learning and we start improving our forecast it's just by having that little bit of data that we don't have today today it's a guess right can't validate it you only know it when you get up there um so that's what we're working on right getting more Pomers out so we could see the cloud height more obiously right now you only get a cloud height at the airport everything else you guess right if you're by a water source if you're in

**[29:31]** a valley if you're trying to fly in the morning and you don't know where the fog and Stratus is and the products you're looking at are not telling you if it's there or not because they don't know they think it might be there or they think it might not be there but what you see on a visualization is not real it's it's a simulation of what we think is there because there's no measurements so that's what we're trying to do no D I appreciate that so yeah go ahead Josh I think one thing Don said that I just want to follow up on is you don't have to participate you don't have to go to college you don't have to go to university you don't have to do a master's degree you don't have to go do a PhD go to law school med school those are choices and if you want to play in certain opportunities it's it's it's it's a cognitive choice anyone who thinks that I have to do all these things to run a drone company is it's no you don't have to buy it you don't have to build it you don't have to integrate it but if you want to meet regulatory requirements for 90% of drone operation opportunities or 95 or if you want 99%

**[30:36]** things get more expensive this is just a reality no one wants to charge you that as much as they have to charge you no one wants to you know make you do this testing it's just become a very scientific requirement based off needing data reliability performance and I think that's something that a lot of people in the industry need to come to terms with like if I want to do drone delivery there's a cost of doing business I'm sorry like yeah so you don't have to but if you want to there's a there's there's a ticket admission price you can watch the hockey game at home or you can go in person there's a cost sorry no no no this is so I'm I'm curious about this so I'm coming back to you Ian but but I want to go off of something that Don said about like spoofing things like that it's like yeah you could probably spoof the weather and it's probably opportunities to do that jam it spoof it know it's already simulated anyway walk outside see what it's like if you want hyperlocal weather you walk outside you see what it's like where you are like that's what you can currently do but like I want to talk about this for remote ID so like what steps

**[31:41]** can we take to ensure that like remote ID systems are resilient against jamming or spoofing so particularly in like highly sensitive or highly regulated airspace yeah so for remote ID it is built on an Asm standard that is pretty much publicly available with the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi information that is broadcasted via messages so I was doing some more research on exactly what we can do to combat this or what the legal implications might be for somebody who does perform a spoofing operation so basically with remote ID I mean you've got all of the Drone registration information and all the remote id id uh identifiers live on the FAA's website and ios's website kind of publicly in CSV files so it could potentially be a big problem the faas perspective on this is you have three different three-letter agencies that would get involved if there was a spoofing attack on a sensitive

**[32:44]** infrastructure so that would firstly be the FCC who controls the radio frequencies while they can't necessarily control what is being broadcast on those radio frequencies if it's causing safety concerns near infrastructure that would um definitely in um imply um legal action especially if it's prohibiting or inhibiting on the safety of aircraft I mean that's when the FAA gets involved and like just um just this week uh one of the Drone pilots in Florida who shot down a drone got sentenced to four years in prison so I mean it's the FAA is taking this seriously and it's not like you can really mess with with the airspace and not have any implications and then the last three-letter agency that gets involved is the FBI for the uh actual like criminal um um basically sentencing of the individual who performs one of these spoofing

**[33:44]** attacks like let's say like a thousands of remote ID broadcast signals coming out of a single Stadium something like that so you would have all three of those three-letter agencies involved and from watching a someone from the FAA talk about it earlier today they said it's probably not a good idea or he wouldn't recommend it based on that okay well fair enough fair enough so let me let me move back to more generalized question um and we talked about this a little bit but I want to double click on it a little bit so we all know sort of the the concept of this entire the theme of this entire NestGen is is that we're now looking towards evolving scalability and evolving standards you so in that context so how and I want to go to each of you on this how can those global standards be designed to remain relevant and adaptive to new advancements in BB loss operations Let's uh start with Josh on this one um how do you it's got to be there's got there's a balance of of what you need

**[34:50]** to do I like the European low medium High um even though I don't think medium's good enough but it's as far as they're testing criteria in our small world um I think one thing with these standards is is evolving um but it's also giving predictability I think one thing drone manufacturers really want is like if you're updating a standard every year it's like come on guys like like Let It Roll like if there's clear issues there's clear gaps and people are cheating we saw it in our parachute standard -8 people were were using too much legal Lees to get smart and try to circumvent certain things and and you know the fa caught somebody and and made them redo testing and it's like so there's those elements that you got to tighten up but like I think ultimately the Drone industry needs predictability it's already Tough Enough with regulatory uncertainty if we have standards we need to to get them out there for a few years let let them play out um I know one person in our standards body is like you know really pushes that you know the enemy of of of what is it

**[35:50]** enemy of good is upgrade is good enough or whatever whatever the saying may be but basically yeah yeah yeah sorry sorry my brain works uh but ultimately it's like we have to accept some flaws we're human humans are writing these standards there's not some chat bot that's perfect that's doing it or or chat gbt so like to me it's like we need to accept that there's going to be always gaps and we will get better um slowly but we also need predictability people don't need things changing every year on them so I think that's a big thing about standards and standard bodies is yes we can always get better but like do we need to do it every single Bill a year now because like a drone manufacturer builds a drone they want it out there five seven 10 years to recoup their Investments not everyone innovates at the DJI speed obviously and and can pump out every three to four years especially like you know non non gji companies we'll say um so it's something that like we need predictability and standards and if we're changing things this is just going to be you know the 20s are going to be a year of just up and down like the more

**[36:51]** predictability we can give the better I think we will be as as a manufacturer as a component manuf ufacturer as pilots and as as uh standard participants thanks Jos Don same question yeah no I think um one of the you know weather's hard I don't I don't know if people understand this um weather's hard right so uncertainty that we have in weather today we don't know if it's being spoofed or it's just a bad forecast you don't know that and and so it's hard for us to even discern what's happening because we don't know right we have to go back and trace it back and go is this a bad forecast or did somebody do something somewhere in the system now in terms of the standard scaling you know we started we said look we this is hard we got to figure out how to use these sensors that are not as expensive you know we're we're saying right now the choice at a Hort today is a wind sock or a $500,000 surface weather station that's not a choice all right so what

**[37:54]** happens we get a wind sock guess what a windsock is not as safe as one might think for ver Port especially for planning how do people know what the heck the winds are there if they're not standing on the verp port I mean it's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life so we went back to the FAA and we said look let's find a way to get a $30,000 sensor that does all those things that Asos does at a vertiport so people can actually have reliability and predictability about what's going on to make better decisions on whether or not it's safe to do a Medevac into an urban Canyon where you have people on a helicopter that you know you have to decide if you're going to fly them or you going to have to go out there with a car right or an ambulance which takes longer right these are the things that weather causes in the in the disruption so we got them to agree yes we got to use common sense and and we talked earlier about how hard that is sometimes but we did it and now what we have is a standard that's start and that's scalable but it doesn't mean that we're going

**[38:54]** to get all the way there on implementing the whole thing at once there's it there's remote sensing data that comes from radar and satellite that is not the same as Inu measuring like a thermometer we have to figure out how does what's the area coverage that that sensor is going to be allowed for you to use whether doesn't work that way people always ask me all the time hey Don um that sensor at the airport how relevant is it what area does it cover and you know what I tell them I can only guarantee you it's where the sensor is everything else if relevant or relevant to other areas around it it has to be it's just luck because that day the weather happens to be homogeneous right but I've been on airports where half the airport is fogged in the other half is seven miles visibility I don't know right this is the challenge that we have so we got that this standard to a point now where we have something like you said Josh it gives you an idea of what you could do and what's approved and you could start going in that direction on certain things but we're going to make it

**[39:55]** better we're going to make it better and we also have to move into the forecast elements but it's scalable but we're going to learn but we're not going to change fundamentally the standard we may just reduce some of the standard uh some of the rules and the means of compliance we'll try to make it you know we have to make it feasible right and that and it may happen over time it may not happen all at once so I think that's my answer to that I appreciate that Don now like I said I think this is really interesting because there's a lot of and then Ian I want to get your your thought on the same question these are supportive techn techologies that help the indust that help these operations scale and they're required for a large number of these applications and it's just trying to come to terms with that so just wanted to make that small small comment I know we're sort of getting down to the end is um we're gonna allow for questions right after we hear from from Ian uh so put them in the Q&A section uh hopefully we have a couple great questions for the uh for the panelists otherwise I think I have at least one more but Ian yeah your your answer

**[40:58]** to this question yeah so speaking about like evolving regulations especially about remote ID so as I mentioned previously Network or remote ID was split into two systems the network-based remote ID system and the broadcast based system the network-based system is really NASA's vision for a fully functional unmanned traffic management system with Beyond visual line of sight operations so those 53,000 comments on the nprm for the remote ID R making did convince the FAA to take out the network-based remote ID standard for now but they did say that the Network remote ID standard is something that's still on the table as a possibility for getting implemented in the near future to help enable BB loss so with the network-based requirement I mean you can imagine like every single drone basically via a uas service supplier sending their database to a central sending their data to a central fa a database so that in real time we have information on every single drone that's

**[42:02]** operating in the US airspace so while this is something that's coming probably around the corner and maybe something that happens somewhat parallel with the BV loss Ru making this is just one of the things that the FAA has said that hey this these regulations are not necessarily set in stone they're designed to evolve and adapt based on the technological advancements although it may be lagging behind it is still has the ability to adapt and evolve based on how the technology evolves thanks Ian and we did actually just get a question so let me read this out and whoever wants to take it absolutely so okay so I'm a uas pilot yes I am a uas pilot uh for BB loss medical delivery operations in Romania doing long range flights 100 plus kilometers we're in a constant conflict lict with the atcs we never have priority in the airspace even if we announced the flight early how do you foresee

**[43:04]** this situation evolving in the future how fast do you think atc's will adopt using network rid for airspace management actually let's go to Ian since you're the actually you know what Josh go go go go you ra quick quick response on that one is I think what we've seen in the Drone industry is countries where regulatory adopt and exception accepting drones as a real thing have created economic wealth that the country wants and I think that when we like eventually they'll come to terms that drones are as equal to man to crude Aviation I think that's the piece like whoever wants whatever country termines you know what drones are a good thing crude aviation's a good thing let's play nice I feel like that's like if someone could get over that mindset that drones are second tier citizens like that'll just ch change the game awesome uh Ian love to your thoughts on that thanks Josh could you say again the country that they said

**[44:04]** they operating Romania okay um have you been an EU country do you guys know yes okay so yeah I guess um with in the EU they do have the direct remote ID standard which is very similar to the remote ID broadcast broadcast standard here in the US then they've also started implementing the network based standard for the uh specific category of operations some of those more advanced operations so I mean that is also I think there's a parallel here to Lance in the United States where drone Pilots were able to operate within five miles of airports with immediate authorizations if the um air traffic control or the tower accepted those Lance authorizations so it was kind of a phased approach um initially it was mainly like class class Bravo class Charlie some of the bigger airports and then after two years

**[45:07]** they actually did another kind of roll out to a lot of the rest of the airports like for example for about two years I still couldn't fly within five miles of the St Petersburg Airport in Florida because it didn't Implement Lance yet although the Lance standard was already created so I think with remote ID in the EU it just got required on January 1 and it's going to take a little bit of time for air traffic control and and everyone to like fully accept and embrace it and start um start operating with it in mind for the for their local drone Pilots you know I think we can go on for for days and days and hours and hours but I want to be respectful everyone's time this has been a great panel session uh panelist thank you so so much your insights and expt expertise have absolutely come across um obviously you can reach out to the panelists you can you could talk to them either through direct messaging or through their LinkedIn or through their websites highly recommend you do that thank you so much for this session this has

**[46:10]** been amazing and we will catch you on the next session bye now thanks shman