Aardvark Daily

Please visit the sponsor!

What do you do?

I've worked on a lot of really cool tech projects over the past forty years or more.

At the risk of appearing immodest, I've come up with some very innovative solutions to vexing problems that had baffled a number of others. Some of these solutions were commercialised (by myself or others) with significant success.

There's something incredibly challenging and rewarding about setting a goal and achieving it, especially when you're working with far less money and resource than others who are also attempting to solve the same problems.

Long-time readers will recall that while the BBC, CNN and other major news services were struggling with ways to create and grow an online audience, my solution to the problem, 7amNews, was an exceptionally successful enterprise -- ankle-tapped only by greedy and dishonest NZ venture capitalists (including now imprisoned David Ross).

Well now, as readers will already be aware, I'm pretty sure I've been able to best those who are actively seeking to come up with a practical, affordable "sense and avoid" (SAA) system for manned and unmanned aviation.

Anyone in doubt about the value and importance of SAA technology in the nascent era of the drone should read this NZH story.

In particular, this bit:

"Sense and avoid is one of the biggest opportunities in the industry," said Jesse Kallman, chief of global business development for San Francisco-based Airware, a drone-equipment maker backed by Google Ventures. "The technology is not there yet, but it's something the industry needs badly."

I'm sure there are many reading this who can therefore empathise with me and the situation I presently find myself.

Having reached a point where I need to perform some actual field-testing using a model aircraft to carry a prototype system, I remain grounded by CAA and the local district council.

While the government claims it's backing innovative Kiwi industries and working hard to boost exports -- one of its agencies still seems hell-bent on serving the political demands of a hobby group in preference to actually stepping aside and allowing me to complete the development of this incredibly important piece of aviation-safety technology.

The South Waikato District Council likewise has issued a diktat that I may not fly at the airfield (where I've been flying for nearly a decade) and have warned me that if totally legal RF emissions created by any ground-based testing were to (even allegedly) cause issues with other users of the 2.4GHz band, they would "treat the matter very seriously".

I despair.

With the UAV industry predicted to be worth billions of dollars annually by the end of the decade and SAA technology being a crucial part of that market I am dumbfounded that politics is allowed to play such a disruptive role and that petty bureaucrats are allowed to scuttle the efforts of people like myself.

Sometimes I really do think I should just toss it all in and go on the dole.

Why bother investing all this time, effort and money into such a project when noddies and muppets are free to abuse their power in the way that appears to be happening here.

No, perhaps it is better that I become a burden on taxpayers and spend my days watching soap operas on TV while others do the work.

Hmmmph!

Please visit the sponsor!

Have your say in the Aardvark Forums.

PERMALINK to this column

Rank This Aardvark Page

Change Font