Posted on 09/19/2017 6:16:31 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
For the first time in history, investments in drones--those buzzy airborne gadgets that used to be called UAVs--have crossed a billion dollars. $1.2 billion has already been invested in unmanned aerial tech in 2017 so far, according to CB Insights. When I invested in a drone startup last year, there was only about $600 million in venture capital deployed. Drone pilots still had to be licensed like fixed-wing aircraft.
"In the past several years, the drone space has crossed the threshold from being driven by hobbyists and experimentalists to being largely enterprise-dominated," says John Frankel, founder at FFVC, a New York venture capital firm and early drone investor. He invested in Top Flight Technologies in 2015, and later, Skycatch, an autonomous aerial mapping startup that helps international construction and mining companies like Komatsu automate the collection, processing, and analysis of aerial data."
The doubling of investment and FAA deregulation now are driving a mini job boom. It's fast creating a workforce as large as that of private school teachers in the U.S.--about 400,000.
Deregulation is driving the drone market.
Seeing the need for more licensed drone operators, about this time last year, the FAA created a new commercial drone pilot licensing program that requires no hands-on demonstration and onboards commercially licensed pilots fast. How fast? Plunk down $150, a 70-question multiple choice test, and the license could be yours. In the first 3 months, 300 new drone operators were minted every business day. Out of the first 28,000 applicants, some 22,000 passed. Those numbers pale, however, in comparison to the number of commercial drones registered in the same period--2,000 a day.
The FAA's young drone pilot license program is also creating sub-industries that create jobs. For example, the University of South Dakota just added drone operations to its academic curricula. Instructor Byron Noel shared recently with the Brookings Register, "It's useful in any field where an aerial perspective is useful."
"The drone industry is a great place to find a job," says Aerobo's Brian Streem, an Inc. 30 Under 30 honoree and the founder of that startup I invested in last year. His offices in Los Angeles and Brooklyn are hiring drone operators, production, and sales talent. Streem believes there are lots more changes to come in how users interact with drones. "A lot of people underestimate the complexities of actually pulling off a drone operation because of the 'unfun' stuff--charging batteries, performing flight maintenance, checking airspace. Automation only gets us so far. There is still manual work to do."
Many drone startup CEOs are pushing the FAA to ease back even further on regulation and further open the market. In a recent meeting with President Trump on emerging technology, former founder of Blackboard and current CEO of Precision Hawk of Raleigh, NC, Michael Chasen, lobbied Trump to relax regulations that are "limiting what drone technology can do," as reported by Recode.
Another big driver of the drone age is the promise of easy access to hard-to-reach locations.
Whether you're Qualcomm and AT&T, which are piloting drones for cell tower inspection, or Amazon and Wal-mart, which are both investigated airship warehouses, not every business location has a highway. Drones are making a significant business case for extending the eyes, ears and operations of a number of enterprises at a cost that's worth exploring. Amazon is even looking at an "Alexa in the sky."
Corporations are on pace to acquire a drone startup a month this year.
Increasingly, drone jobs aren't just at startups--they're at big corporations. Already in 2017, Intel acquired MaVinci. Boeing bought Liquid Robotics. Verizon snapped up Skyward and Snap snipped Ctrl Me Robotic.
FAA predicts the U.S. registered commercial drone feel to climb to between 442,000 and1.6 million in the next few years. Every few new drones create at least one job, at a minimum, to maintain, deploy and operationalize the asset, so we're looking at a new job force of a few hundred thousand created in just a few years.
I priced drones on Amazon.
A good rated one I could swing but it would be church mouse living for a while.
One is wishlisted for now.
Seeing what people are willing to pay makes it worth my interest.
Serious question. In what way does it make it worth your interest? Following stocks? Buying them now because they will go up in price? Just tapping your brain. :) mine’s been in slow gear for years.
I’d like to do the actual photo/videography.
Every so often I see some good paying side jobs on CL and Thumbtack for drone operators.
It would be all the more reason to use the Go Pro.
So far I’ve done a tiny bit of Youtube, a couple of stock submissions, and some things sent up to Go Pro Awards.
I spent too many years in TV and I still enjoy making things. It’s even better when I can make something at it.
Wow. Very cool.
Keep up with technology, make Money :)
BTW, what’s Thumbtack, if you dont mind?
BTW, I just saw a video and you are a man with great foresight.
Drones are being used to detect sharks near humans in Australia and alert the humans and soon even drop rafts.
There’s gonna be BIG money in drone use.
I am a smart guy but I NEVER had foresight.
Always missed the big pictures. The internet, amazon, google, etc. Still can’t make up my mind about 3d printers and how big they will be and where/how to take advantage of it.
And outfitted with thermal and infrared cameras for crop inspection of small sites.
I was on a “webinar” that showed the ideal of having a swarm of drones go through a large building under construction each evening with the results ready that morning showing the “as-built” compared to the plans. “Knowing that beam is off by 3 inches now rather than a month from now will save a lot of money.”
Using drones with remote sensing tools, such as tiny magnetometers, are in use now scanning sites for buried metal - especially in possible dangerous areas such as unexploded ordnance at old test ranges.
Speaking of drone swarms - the last Super Bowl light show had 500 drones acting in concert.
Not the superbowl - but a good video on the first time 500 was done.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOd4-T_p5fA
Thumbtack is one of those find a pro (or facsimile thereof) sites.
I was apparently not much on seeing “the coming thing” either.
When I did, I was too poor to be a part usually.
I’m keeping the drone on the wish list. My main goal at the moment is getting a K5 blazer back to operational. I’ve bought my last new vehicle.
The plan is to get the radiator and the last of the cooling system parts this week. A new 4 barrel maybe next time, then tires and wheels, and clean up.
thanks
The blazer IS the most important thing.
My 10 year old mazda is still ticking but soon...
I like to think so.
There aren’t any more.
I’ve got one of the fenders off to do some bigger jobs.
Here it is running a little.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeqaLcAElp0
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