I was working for the company that performed the first commercial UAS inspection trials for BNSF using a Scan Eagle. The location was a 70 mile or so route in New Mexico around 2014 IIRC. I recall BNSF ended up pretty enthusiastic with the results so it comes as no surprise they have continued with those efforts. The Scan Eagle was a 10’ span, 4’ long, 44lb. gas engine powered UAV with a flight duration well in excess of half a day.
I remember some sort of fun informal discussions about how a platform could be fitted with several different payloads collecting a diverse data set on such a mission. So equipped, a long mission night be contracted by one customer but have additional data collected that would suit other customers. After fulfilling contract requirements the additional data that did not conflict with the contracting customer could be sold to numerous other end users, multiplying profit potential for a single flight many times over what a single payload flight could provide. All while remaining under the 55lb. sUAS limitation. Imagine the profit potential where a single flight could service 5-10 or more different types of customers, each being delivered their own proprietary mission data set.
The possibilities were, and still are, endless, with the only limitations being weight and system capabilities. The difference in thought processes is why we are at where we are today. Corporate aerospace thought about diversity for profitability using 5 and 10 year planning processes, creating systems with vastly superior optics appropriate for multitasking. The recreational/ small commercial UAV was too busy planning for just the next single purpose public release, typically with only small, inconsequential improvements for each new model using minimal performance small sensor cameras. Something that really disturbed me was the move by consumer manufacturers to provide very expensive thermal cameras with performance so low the product was virtually useless, yet we got pretty excited and bought them anyway. That corporate planning goes back a long ways as I held one of those aircraft in my hands that was FAA registered in the experimental category and provided N numbers in 2013, well before the 333 program was initiated.
Ultimately, we had too many users and too few inventors or people with vision and the users were too busy arguing over which consumer brand was better. They didn’t understand how severely they were being limited by manufacturers more interested in selling new models with minor incremental improvements to obtain maximum profitability when consumers should have been demanding far more performance and versatility from any sequential release before making a purchase.
The history is readily available for review using a little open source research. With a little analysis we can see how we allowed ourselves to be fleeced by our own short sightedness and stupidity. We were just too narrowly focused to realize the true potential of what could be done while others with more vision planned for the time they could take control of our airspace for great monetary gain. For us, obtaining more and more cheap but limited products had higher priority.
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