Comment by gandalfgeek
3 months ago
Keep seeing DJI drones at local police dept open houses. They even have a "drone unit" that specializes in SAR, hazardous recon type scenarios. Given extensive existing use throughout US local law enforcement, fire depts etc, not sure if this will actually happen.
Or maybe they all mass-migrate to Anduril solutions?
I know a state police drone pilot. There are 6 people on the team.
They use Mavic 2A and 3 drones for thermal. Mostly surveillance.
They use DJI Avata for whipping through a house faster than people can. They use this for hostage and other possibly dangerous scenarios.
I know for a fact they are often breaking the FAA laws on lights and line of sight. They don’t care because they’re “good guys”.
It's going to be a disaster for SAR, policing, firefighting, and all kinds of public good. The whole thing is an incredibly shortsighted move that will literally cost lives.
The goal, I think, is that these organizations will migrate to Skydio or BRINC (as they have the only reasonably viable drones for most of these use cases IMHO).
The reality is that they'll buy Autel (just as Chinese as DJI) or just keep using DJI and hoping the FCC Radio Police don't show up, which is probably a safe bet. Anduril don't really sell into this space.
In five years the US will have a prolific consumer drone industry and will have hardly skipped a beat. This is a good move for the US from a long-term security and economic standpoint. There are some short term pains but long-term this is good.
Did you get paid 50 cents to write all these posts?