On Sky News Excitement, page-62

Hi Kat and others on this 'drone' bandwagon,

At this stage, my "research of the facts" (lol) suggest that UAVs are not an issue to this business; neither threat nor opportunity.

Lets assume UAVs eventually get FAA approval for commercial use in controlled airspace. So what?? This isn't about the aviation platform; its about cost of capture. Hell...if drones eventually work out to be more efficient and cost effective, then companies such as Nea will look to customise their pods into these platforms.

As it stands right now, long term chartering of a Cessna 210, the cheapest best workhorse in aviation, is dirt cheap. On spec, I can get one, fuel and pilot, for US$350/hr (in the US). I'm sure any aviation group would shave 20-25% off this for 500+hr type contracts. They absolutely crave these longer term, equipment specific contracts. Kat's a PPL...he can check this out but I'm sure they'll have done contracts equal to about (or less than) US$2000/4.5hr flight day which includes about $500/d of standby and per diems.

My point being is that fixed wing UAVs with 100-200kg payloads (yes...this is not about strapping a GoPro to anything that can fly!) wont be materially cheaper and I doubt will be more effective...for quite a while anyway. Drones still need a fully qualified commercial pilot (so no savings here) for controlled airspaces. They may even cost more given specialist UAV ratings. The USAF's main UAV, the Predator only cruises at 170knts...and a UAV that can handle the 100-200kg payload range (est for NEA) is likely to be substantially less, maybe 100knts max(?) Vs 210 cruise at 180knts. So will likely need 50-80% more flight time to cover the same flight plan. Also, I doubt whether they are materially cheaper capital cost wise; good quality 210N's are only about US$200k. I don't have any capital cost information on commercial fixed wing UAV's with 100-200kg payload capacity but it wont be second hand and it wont be cheap. I think we can rule out copter UAVs for city size capture given lower platform stability and speed.

So bring on the drones! Nea and the GIS industry will only use them if they prove to be more cost effective than the platform they are using now = a positive for Nea.

Once again, its not about the platform...satellite, aerial or UAV.

Cheers,