 Good afternoon, folks. Ted Rawson here in our downtown Hong Kong Studios, ThinkTech Studios, ThinkTech Hawaii, with our show, Where the Drone Leads. And this show is known by the people that brings on as guests, and we keep going increasing in our scale and scope of our guests every time we have a show. And I would like to introduce the guest we have today. He's in Reston, Virginia right now, well into the evening hours. And thanks, Brian Nguyen, for coming on with us from afar. And there you are in Reston, Virginia, wearing your aloha shirt. So we totally appreciate that. Happy beer, Ted. Thank you. Brian is the President and Chief Executive Officer of AUVSI. That's a term and the name we've used many times on this show. That's the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, not just local, that's international. This is the daddy rabbit of the unmanned air systems and unmanned surface systems and unmanned underwater systems, robotics in general, that are going on for a long time. And these guys are the ones who really set the stage for us, set the path and drive the future through advocacy with Congress and through assistance and rulemaking and such. Anyway, Brian, so much appreciate you coming on here after a very busy week. And tell us a little bit about the week, Brian. This is a fairly unique week, I think, in the White House. Well, it was and I can't think of a better week in memory. We've been working on a lot of different things, but this week at the White House with the, we co-hosted an event with the Office of Science and Technology Policy, OSPP, which featured a number of government agency folks that have been flying unmanned aircraft systems and a number of people that represent industries that are very eager to utilize this technology as well, like the electricity industry. And basically, you know, as we prepare for the implementation of part 107, we had the platform of the White House basically to say, this is a great technology. We have a lot of value that we're going to create for industry and for society in general, and there's still a lot of work to be done. So we convene much like this medium utilizing the internet. I think we got a lot of people interested. And then we retired, as it were, to the museum, which is one of my favorite venues in Washington, D.C., to do a demonstration with a lot of young people in attendance. And then we did some really hard work and breakout sessions to talk about what we can do to advance this a little bit faster. So it's a really, really good week. I dare say one of the best weeks we've had in our community from a policy perspective. And let me tell you what it looked like from the outside. Here we are, six miles away in Hawaii, and we had a representative from our unmanned air systems test range complex out of Alaska present. But what we kept seeing, Brian, was releases about every six hours on various media releases and such, and each one itself was really complete and really interesting in the subject matter it contained. The next one would top that, and the next one would top that. So like about Thursday, we wondered, is this ever going to end? What's going on here? Because there was so much change, so much innovation, so much creative thought, so much motivation to expand that just kept coming out of the media releases. And so that's why it's great you're on here because you were actually there and you saw what was like from the inside, and you can tell us, but from the outside it was just like, is this ever going to end? This is incredible. What's going on here? And if I can characterize this how I saw it from where we sit here, this whole year has been that way. The whole year of 2016 has seen more change and more advancing of the world of unmanned air systems than we've ever seen. I just think a lot about the big categories where things changed. Public aircraft ops, all the efforts that John Steventon and Steve Pants have been putting forth in order to generate COAS, certificates of authorization to allow public service agencies of fire health and police and such to use UAVs. That got expanded incredibly in this year with now with the blanket COAS. I saw the first one of those yesterday and I was astounded at how blanket it is. Then we got the educational release that took place at your conference down in New Orleans. And that sort of becomes a low barrier of entry to the Indiana educational system to generate concepts of operation and generate education in this domain. Now we have 107 came out about a month ago. It'll hit for real at the end of this month. The first time we've ever seen certification of UASs in a standard form, which is I think getting the attention of the world from what I understand in terms of such a well done job. Then we have this White House conference that you probably had a lot to do with putting together this week where business and government and research and the whole futures began taking shape in a way that could only occur at the White House. So what's going to happen next? In Washington we like to say it's not why it's why now. And as you point out there are a lot of things that are converging right now that are coming together. It's the result of a lot of really really hard work. So in some respects I think raising the visibility of this is extremely important. Giving a visibility to the good work that's been done, some of the folks that you've mentioned, the way this technology is going to be used. I mean I'm very excited about any number of things that we could talk about. First and foremost let's talk about the educational pieces. I've talked with Embry Real University. I've talked with Auburn University. I've talked with Atlantic Cape Community College. I talked to Sinclair Community College. All of them are spinning up really exciting programs to start training operators and not a moment too soon because here you've got groups like the Sinclair Broadcast Group and CNN and so forth all wanting to step in, utilize this technology as the regulations become available the permission to fly is there and of course our ability to provide very professional operators, folks that understand the airspace, folks that understand the platforms that they're utilizing, know how to implement safety management systems. All of those things are going to be extremely important to keep advancing the effort as fast as the technology is advancing. So there are many many different pieces to this and I can't tell you exactly what's going to happen next week. All I know is we've got a tremendous amount of work to do. We've got the momentum now so we're going to take advantage of it. You know that you just mentioned and implied something about the educational aspect that I haven't thought of and that's that as the technology and the ability to manufacture and now certify these systems expands we do have to have a trained workforce that understands that from a safety and an operational perspective and brings an aviator mindset into it and the educational domain be it high school, be it community colleges, be it universities, be it professional training operations, all of those are the places where this can occur and the educational interpretation where education is considered in the recreational domain which then opens up that the use of UASs in training programs in a great way and a low barrier of entry as I like to say I think is a is a great way to get that get that workforce and that interest going. I agree and I'm I'm personally I am an airman. I've been a pilot for 25 years. I'm an aircraft owner. Fly instruments in the airspace all the time. So I've been very gratified to see that the FAA has a they've they've backed away from hey you've got to have you know what at one point we're we were talking about you've got to be an instrument rated pilot to be able to fly UAS. Now we've got much more reasonable things you know coming into play here but as I went through the course that they put online for us part 61 certificated pilots I was also very pleased to see that they're pulling through exactly the same kinds of concepts that that that are very second nature to me and all pilots like pilot and command as a as a as a very serious concept of responsibility and accountability. We're just moving we're putting remote in front of that now we've got remote pilot and command but for those of us that aren't airmen and and there's a whole there's a whole host of of young people coming along. My son among them who's a firefighter who's been you know at a very young age was chasing grandma and the cat with you know with with an early stage drone but now these folks are you know they've got probably better stick and rudder skills than I do with the drone and and and yet they need to be taught the principles of airmanship if they're going to operate aircraft in the airspace with other aircraft. So this is really a critical moment in time for us not to get as I like to say and as my brother said he was also a pilot and said to me after my first landing in the aircraft he said don't get cocky right that was a good landing but don't get cocky. I kind of feel that way at the end of this week we got a lot going on but there's a lot of work to be done so that we take advantage we keep building this momentum and we execute the introduction of this technology in the marketplace as as as brilliantly as I think it deserves. And you know that leads to the the thought that goes through my mind a lot and I'm sure others who were associated with the various FAA state test ranges and we have one here in Hawaii we're part of the Alaska, Oregon, Hawaii, Pan-Pacific, Unmanned Air Systems Test and Research Center and our Test Resource Center and because in addition to the grand expansion on the economic side that was discussed at the White House and all the different parties like the Department of Interior and such you can use these systems later on outside that that conference the administrator of the FAA was identified and quoted as saying that that's good we can expand that but we really need the data we need the certification processes we need the methods of of measuring things we need the means of control and standardization we need all those things to go along with this economic expansion in order to have a circumstance the situation is controlled upon is going to get it right and that to me takes us right to the six FAA designated state test ranges so this from a selfish perspective can you say what you might have taken away from the conference in terms of additional inspiration to push those push that that work into those test sites yeah we we we kind of went behind closed doors as it were to to be able to use Chatham House rules as we say you know not not we weren't attributing things to particular individuals but we had government people in the room obviously industry people in the room as well as researchers and academicians in the room and we broke out into different groups and we're talking about things like what comes after part 107 you know what about UTM unmanned aircraft systems traffic management there was a whole a whole range of different things and AVSI under the guise of our foundation we're pulling those things together into a report to to that will be public but my takeaway from this is you know part 107 represents the least the lowest risk kind of flying that we can contemplate right now and that's a great way to start to the administrators point and we have a great relationship with the administrator he's been he's been really very proactive in pulling industry in and and we've developed a very very good collaboration between industry and the regulator you know we do have to base the more complex operations that we want to evolve into on data we need to make certain that uh that that as we're executing this technology to do whether it's flying at night whether it's flying extended visual line of sight or beyond visual line of sight in urban areas over people etc what we need to be applying you know we need to be data driven we need to be facts based on the way we're doing this the good news is that we're starting to fly under part 107 very soon we've got a vanguard of folks that are out there they've been flying under exemptions that are part 61 certificated pilots so they're airmen that vanguard are very sophisticated kind of folks and we've got the six test sites as you say to start building safety cases for the kinds of things that we're going to need to do to optimize this opportunity as we go forward and truly make the technology mainstream all of that's going to come together all of that is uh is extremely relevant and now strategic patients comes into play here at some point you know we can't do it all at the same time now we need to we need to be a little bit more uh we need to think about how are we allocating and and I think there are some things that the test sites can do very very effectively that probably can't be done in other places and frankly up until now if it weren't for the test sites in places where we've got the ability to fly more complex operations like why I think that a lot of that work would be going overseas and that's that's a fantastic testimony to why the test sites are are useful and are going to be effective in taking us in this data driven direction and you know in fact we're even looking at these test ranges now as sort of a not look at not like a geospatial definition of a ticket arrange but pretty much but since we were using operating under a blanket co-op that anywhere class to your spaces these test ranges become virtual they can they can take advantage of the opportunity to operate in different areas uh as the challenges are brought up so they're not stuck just like ever zero four space or something like that to a certain geospatial location it does allow us to spread out and and take advantage of the uh the different threats and and the environmental challenges and the topographical issues that are presented in fact here in Hawaii for example beyond line of sight uh doesn't mean the same thing as beyond line of sight in kansas which make me six miles here beyond line of sight could be 500 meters because you're over a cliff and so it's a it's a whole different perspective as we see things here so our challenge i think in the test ranges is to take the the economic and business interests that were evident in the white house workshop and associate those that can be addressed by testing and by extreme testing beyond the current limitations in the various test range areas and then generate ideas that can be addressed by the the companies and the foundations and such that are promoting uas operations and generate programs that then execute the data collection that the is needed by the administrator to support what the white house workshop generated yeah and i think you've got all the pieces that you need i mean let's take the utility sector i did some work with eco and an earlier earlier part of my career i know they're very forward leaning in terms of technology in many instances um you know being able to to utilize i'm imagining that you've got wind farms out there and and things like that so you know that there are ways that we can immediately apply this technology um utilizing those areas but i think what what the real game is going to be is trying to push the limits a little bit um because let's face it in aviation you know we're going to need some margin of error here we're going to need to figure out where that error is and we're going to need to learn how to correct for it very quickly and and that is really the the the role of the safety agencies is in whether it's automated vehicles and in nitza or the f a with regard to uas or the coast guard when it comes to maritime systems their job is to try and figure out okay what are the the good possibilities here that we want to try and we want to try and move toward and and then industry's job is to bring those technology solutions forward and demonstrate that i think the big difference between aviation before and unmanned systems today uh is that we're just not going to be able to specify the regulations in a prescriptive way the way we did before that's just not going to work and it would actually inhibit the the development of the advancement of the technology what we really need to do is be performance-based uh and and we're still going to be figuring out we talked about that a lot this week but we're still going to need to figure out exactly what that means part of that will be case by case basis under 107 we'll have the waiver process stand you know we were still figuring out exactly what that means uh but we'll know in in pretty short order here once the the regulations are implemented later this month uh we'll start testing that process but for things like you know how do you get from you know below basically class g aerospace up to class a airspace for some of the larger platforms that's where uh that's where i think we're you know we've got to have data we've got to have ways of dealing with it and um and and we need to the test centers i think will help us to move from uh accommodation in the airspace into true integration in the airspace and then ultimately uh we're evolving with the technologies so that even manned aircraft are benefiting from the scale that of the technologies that we're developing in the unmanned area you know a couple things you said made me think uh the aspect of the performance-based operations and uh certifications almost in what what i've seen i talked a lot of guys in the faa is as the 107 was being evolved and such and uh what's interesting to me anyway as i took it was that the historical use of public aircraft ops in manned days manned aviation days uh begat the operate the use of uas in that in that uh pao domain that i was that the trust that was developed on the manned aircraft led to the use of unmanned systems under public aircraft ops the experience in the uas with public aircraft ops was part of what informed the 333 exemption process to how to use uncertified aircraft in in operations the 333 as you mentioned the the you know 10,000 guys out there with exemptions uh actually in informed 107 to a certain extent it's all that that performance-based aspect and the trust that went with it so the whole system behaved in a trustworthy fashion and it was uh uh there were some extremes perhaps but by and large the system worked and i think that led to one of the things we've seen in the 107 that was a bit of a surprise is recall i think when the nprm came out for 107 there was or maybe it was the in the fAA's uh roadmap a couple of years ago there was going to be still the concept of a uh uh coa associated with a 107 on a certified operation that's gone it's been replaced by the performance of the pilot or the operator who now has the knowledge and the ability to operate in the airspace properly and therefore doesn't need a coa that's that's an incredible uh uh bridge of trust it's been that's occurred and uh so an interesting aspect is how do we continue building on that established bridge of trust and that is another thing that i think these the state test ranges can get into because you will have the human interaction you'll have the interaction with the existing airspace and so the ability to test this idea as to whether the trust can continue to work in that integration is is evaluatable really only in those test ranges yeah and i i completely agree i think i think that that process you know it has been really very very constructive i think the other element that's going to start coming into play here it is that the industries that are going to be utilizing this technology they're going to have their own safety concerns well beyond the way the fAA thinks about this uh i'm going to stay with the utility industry for just a second you know what's the most important thing with the utility industry well reliability comes to mind they're not going to want this technology resulting in a grid getting knocked out because somebody runs into a transformer or into a high power line so what are they going to require etc etc well currently they can't answer that question and and that's where this collaboration comes into into play it to great benefit because the industry itself needs to be responsive to the needs of of whatever the customer wants and the customer's requirements in some instances are going to be well beyond the safety requirements of the fAA and that's not unusual in aviation you know if i think about my aircraft i fly a single-engine piston high performance aircraft there are lots of pilots that theoretically according to the fAA are qualified to fly my aircraft but not my insurance company my insurance company would say oh i need you know 500 hours i need you know 100 hours and retractable gear complex etc etc and and and at least 50 hours in type and maybe 20 hours with uh you know or 10 hours dual time with an instructor so you know these additional requirements come into play and what i'm suggesting here is is that the element that we haven't had up until now and that i think will be really really critical in moving forward and particularly in moving beyond some bad experiences that we might have because we have those in aviation from time to time will be the support of those end-user communities they have an enormous economic incentive to help us help them they clearly see the benefits of this technology in some instances improving the safety of their operations um by getting people out of harnesses 100 feet off the ground and things like that so that's a phenomenon here that i think we're going to benefit from as well and and that's uh that is a really big subject getting the user to stand tall and state in terms that the manufacturers can understand what the requirements are that are needed in order for the system to behave in an economic and a and a good life cycle cost of life benefit to the company in fact you mentioned heco uh we don't have anybody from heco on however we have this little guy on the table here one of our little friends who's uh making video show up on the screen here i don't think people see that what camera am i looking at here okay you'd think i would know what this studio is all about wouldn't you but uh anyway uh if you were up at heco you'd probably see something looking very much like this these days and um and bigger but uh we're we're actually working collaboratively at the university with heco on where this is all going and uh took a bunch of researchers up into the mountains where the heco lines are and said okay what's it going to take to operate day in and day out up here we got rain we got wind we got winds here we got 40 knot winds we've got 1600 feet per minute climb rate on the coals we've got turbulence um and we got to sit 20 feet set back off the wires and automatically pursue down the wires with sensors that are picking up corrosion or other damage in the conductors and such um and we better better better be able to handle light rain we better be able to handle salt water intrusion there's a number of things we have to think about those other requirements that we have to work on and bring forth and have then the manufacturers and you through the universities start coming up with solutions to those issues so that's a fascinating part but heco is uh certainly a leading force out here and we really appreciate uh the the very senior and uh solid support they've got and the way they're very carefully proceeding down the path of making uh making good use out of these systems but you know um uh i saw a NOAA spec recently uh for shipboard operations of unmanned systems they wanted uh five years of a good life cycle operation onboard ship 40 knots is their wind speed as well of course arctic conditions as well as tropical conditions they wanted something like two to three hours per day uh operation for that five-year period if i do the math that's like 1600 days or 1700 days of continuous operation there's nothing more than the daily maintenance that is prescribed in the manual that's what they wanted they wanted a piece of gear just like a marlin hook you know something that you buy and it lasts for a long time and and perhaps that's where the change is in fact i suspect that that economic uh workshop you ran uh would have a lot of that themology coming out of it that is what is really needed and what's important in a in a truly surviving economic business with these systems and and we can't answer all those questions that all of those things you're emerging now which is why having the freedom that you're describing under those coas is extremely important we need to be able to demonstrate not just to the f a that we've got to handle on the safety issues we need to be able to demonstrate the customers help the customers develop those requirements with industry that will actually accelerate the adoption of the technology in some ways almost just as fast and because i think the safety requirements will be more stringent and we can meet the safety requirements once we know what they are and and you know at the end of the day it's the customer that's going to matter the customer is not going to allow us to do things that put their operations or their people at risk so if we if we can now we can get focusing on that i think we're going to be good and i think we're going to cease and really continue to see this momentum built that's great i mean the momentum is just what this is all about and speaking of momentum we have we've accelerated right through our time period we have a half hour show in days gone by we could have had 45 minutes and we're going to talk some more but we'll have to pick you up at a later time brian and you can take that aloha shirt and wear it on an airplane get out here sometime and actually sit here at the table where jim williams is set and gretchen west has set and a lot of other people have set in the past and but at this point we thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom here from this great weekend at the white house and i think we'll be feeding off this one for a long time to come with that i i i hope to come out in december uh when the foundation does a competition out in uh in oahu uh so hopefully i get a chance to sit there and and uh count myself among those very distinguished guests that you've had friday at four o'clock on the show outstanding brian win a ceo of a ubsi in reston washington thanks very much you can get back to the nightlife in dc now and we'll get on with it out here and folks we'll see you next friday