At Energy Drone Robotics Coalition Summit (EDRS) in Houston, I sat down with Craig Husselby, VP of Business Development for Synergy Aviation to talk about oil and gas pipeline inspections and their recent expansion into the U.S.על ידי Danielle Gagne, Chief Storyteller for Drone Network News at Volatus Aerospace

Jacob Taylor - CEO Indigenous Aerospace; Darian Edwards, Indigenous Air Mobility Specialist, Canadian Advanced Air Mobility; Kimble McComb, Drone Advisor, Moose Cree First Nation; and Jo-Anne Tabobandung Dean of Aviation, First Nation Technical Institute join us this week to discuss how the usage of drones is an important tool in the process of emp…

Justin Simkins, a Technical Specialist from Emesent, joins us this week on how Hovermap is creating a new industry standard in autonomous lidar mapping. Justin discusses Emesent's SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) based lidar system and how it can be utilized for autonomous navigation on drone platforms. He also explores how this technol…

What are the current trends in the drone market? What do investors think about the drone industry? How do the answers to these questions impact the drone industry and how do we bridge the gap between positive market trends and investor confidence? We spoke with the CEO of Drone Industry Insights, Kay Wackwitz and CFO of Volatus Aerospace, Abhinav S…

Richard Podolski, VP of Flight Operations, talks in-depth about the recent SFOC granted to Volatus Aerospace by Transport Canada to remotely pilot a drone using Remote Flight Control System (RFCS) software and optical Detect and Avoid (DAA) within an active aerodrome traffic zone. This is the first step toward commercializing their nesting station …

While at CanSec, we sat down with Nigel Waterhouse, Delegate for Transport Canada, to discuss the challenges and nuances between autonomous passenger flight, remotely piloted passenger flight, and uncrewed cargo delivery when it comes to integrating them into the National Airspace safely.על ידי Danielle Gagne, Chief Storyteller for Drone Network News at Volatus Aerospace

Designed by Dr. Tad McGeer, the inventor of the ScanEagle (a UAV that defined a whole new group of military aircraft), the Flexrotor from Aerovel is a vertical takeoff and landing autonomous aircraft with a pedigree that predates most commercial UAVs. In this podcast, we speak with Aerovel's CEO, Ali Dian to dive into the dual-use applications and …

Colonel (ret'd) Michel Latouche, leader of the Veteran Training Program, Task Force Drone, speaks about the challenges veterans face when retiring from the military and how becoming a drone pilot can be a fulfilling second career that leverages their military skills.

We speak with Lieutenant Colonel Melanie Lake about what it has been like witnessing the Russian invasion of Ukraine after serving with Ukrainian soldiers as a commander during Operation UNIFIER from March to October of 2021 and how that experience led her and many others to establish Mriya Aid, a Not-for-Profit designed to provide non-lethal milit…

What does it take to evacuate a family from Ukraine? What are the dangers involved? We spoke with a gentleman, who in order to keep his family safe has asked to remain anonymous, about what it took to not only get his family out of Ukraine but to provide six weeks of humanitarian aid throughout Ukraine.…

Divy Shrivastava, Founder and CEO of Paladin, joins us again on Stories from 400 Feet to talk about working with the Elizabeth Police Department in New Jersey to obtain one of the first Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) waivers in Class B airspace for a Drone as a First Responder (DFR) Program. To provide some context on what this means: The FAA …

Latin America is an important emerging market for drone applications, but to understand its needs, culture, and regulations across many different countries requires a combination of demonstrated experience and local knowledge. We spoke with Bruno Leoni, CEO of EOLO Drones about his joint venture with Volatus Aerospace and how they will bring sophis…

What determines when an earthquake will happen or not? Slow-Slip Events are relatively minor movements that don't cause massive disruption like earthquakes despite having similar elements. Subduction, the process of a plate sliding under another plate, is still a key factor with slow-slip events. With the help of Pacific Triangle, Iowa State Univer…

Andy Lacher is currently the Chief Technologist for Future Airspace Operations in the Intelligent Flight Systems organization at NASA’s Langley Research Center where he works on the safe operational integration of new aviation technologies. His deep knowledge and experience made him the ideal person to talk to about defining and standardizing auton…

By embedding a position sensor inside their propulsion system, IQ Motion Control is enabling better position control and safety protocols and advanced health monitoring that eliminates the need for a swashplate. We spoke with Co-Founders Jon Broome and Matthew Piccoli to learn more about their technology and what benefits this can provide OEMs look…

We spoke with Dan O'Toole about drone delivery infrastructure and how reimagining secure mailboxes is an essential element to scaling autonomous package delivery.על ידי Danielle Gagne, Chief Storyteller for Drone Network News at Volatus Aerospace

We asked Troy Hittle, Managing Director of North America for Elistair, what can you do with a tethered drone? More than you think. Tethered drone solutions are starting to get more traction as industries look for 24/7 overwatch solutions, but, as Troy points out in this episode, there are more ways to leverage the power of a tethered drone.…

If your drone crashed, would you be covered? This is a question every end user and drone pilot should be asking before starting a mission, because finding out afterward is too late. Crashes can be costly and dangerous, and you want to be protected if the unforeseen happens. But, the answer on whether you are covered or not are not always simple, wh…

You've inspected one bridge with a drone, you can inspect them all, right? If only that were true! Unfortunately for inspectors, engineers and architects have deployed multiple designs and materials in the building of bridges all over the world. This is the story of one particular bridge in California that needed its O-rings inspected. The only pro…

Back in 2019, Dawn Zoldi, Founder and CEO of P3 Tech Consulting LLC, had a vision to bring attorneys and the drone industry together to network and share knowledge. In 2022 at AUVSI XPONENTIAL, she finally got to realize that dream. After attending this groundbreaking event, we spoke with Dawn about the event's highlights, content, and lessons; the…

In this episode, Adam Bilmes, Director of Sales at Inspired Flight, talks about Blue sUAS and their American-made drone, being prepared to handle supply chain disruptions, the growing maturity and savvy of end users, and what this all means for the industry.על ידי Danielle Gagne, Chief Storyteller for Drone Network News at Volatus Aerospace

We spoke with Pietro Lapiana, President of EuroLink Systems, about the inspiration and applications of their elegantly engineered Beluga Drone. Built for both defense and commercial applications, the Beluga is capable of taking off and landing from the water and has cut noise pollution in half when compared to comparable drone models, making it a u…

David Krause, Co-Founder of Influential Drones, has been working in technology for over 25 years. Influential Drones is a sales, training and aerial service provider. Dave provides consulting and the company is a volunteer Industry Member with the FAA Safety Team (FAAST). He travels the country as a volunteer promoting a drone and aviation safety c…

Chris Corgnati, President of MissionGO, speaks about the current status of Type Certification for uncrewed systems and how this ties into the work they are doing with MediGo delivering life-saving organs and other critical medical supplies.על ידי Danielle Gagne, Chief Storyteller for Drone Network News at Volatus Aerospace

We often talk about a "drone industry" but really there are a number of industries that leverage drones to make operations faster, safer, cheaper, and better. But finding the right platforms and sensors, getting the right talent to conduct missions, understanding what drones can do for your business, or scaling up can be a significant challenge. St…

Omer Sharar, CEO of InfiniDome, has been working with Honeywell for the past several years on building solutions that address some of the biggest threats to drone security and safety - loss of GPS signal due to jamming or other interferences. We spoke with Sharar to learn how his technology works, how this is impacting current events in places like…

Drones are considerably smaller than most crewed aircraft. This means that in order to fly, they can't be weighed down by multiple redundant components, making it more likely to have single-point failures - a component/system that, should it fail, would render the system inoperable. We all know that safety is paramount for advanced regulations and …

When a childhood friend's house burned down in his tight knit Indian immigrant community, Divy Shrivastava began asking questions. What did fire fighters and other first responders need to ensure better outcomes in emergencies? He kept hearing the same things: first responders needed more information before arriving on scene. From here, he built Pa…

In our second episode from AUVSI, we spoke with Michael Healander, CEO of Airspace Link, about what it takes to build a safe, sustainable, and scalable drone infrastructure that can enable advanced operations, the need for outside funding and support, and more.על ידי Danielle Gagne, Chief Storyteller for Drone Network News at Volatus Aerospace

Kickstarting our 17-part series of short podcasts taken from the show floor at XPONENTIAL 2022 in Orlando Florida is none other than President and CEO of AUVSI, Brian Wynne. It was an honor to talk with him about his vision for the future of uncrewed systems (ground, sea, and air), his insights from being on the FAA BVLOS Advisory and Rulemaking Co…

Glen Lynch, CEO of Volatus, explores the ethics and moral obligations we face when supporting the defense of Ukraine with guests Ret. Maj. Gen. Glynne Hines, Ret. Lt. Col. Leon Jensen, and Mriya Aid's Lubomyr Chabursky. The call to provide humanitarian aid and support to those in need can be a complex decision for businesses. When there is a crisis…

As DRONERESPONDERS is poised to kickstart its next set of educational forums with AUVSI XPONENTIAL in Orlando Florida on April 25th to 28th, we sat down with Christopher Todd, Executive Director of AIRT (Airborne International Response Team and home to DRONERESPONDERS) to talk about the challenges, trends, and future of drones in Emergency Response…

In the first installation of our special special podcast series on Ukraine, we speak with Retired U.S. Air Force Major General, James Poss, CEO of ISR ideas and Founder and Former Executive Director of Assure, Lubomyr Chabursky from Mriya Aid, Dean Attridge, VP Solutions Engineering at Volatus Aerospace, and Glen Lynch, CEO of Volatus Aerospace abo…

Building façade inspections are time consuming and dangerous jobs often requiring dangling an inspector off the side of a building or constructing scaffolding. The process can take months if not longer for your usual building project. So, what do you do when you are working against the clock and have a million square feet of building façade and 8 a…

Getting the permission to take off is often one of the first challenges you'll encounter when conducting a drone operation. You may run up against regulations, state and local laws, or unexpected temporary flight restrictions (TFRs). What the industry doesn't realize is how often those rules, regulations, and laws are being built by people who don'…

In our first episode of Stories from 400 Feet, we talk with Frank Segarra, CEO and Founder of ConnexiCore a Volatus Aerospace Company, about the capacity drones have to be a workforce multiplier. A foundational episode that will support everything that is to come, Frank talks us through the many ways drones are bringing value to society and why.…

We need to share more real-life drone stories. This podcast is designed to highlight everything that is going on in the drone industry. Listen to our introductory podcast to learn more.על ידי Danielle Gagne, Chief Storyteller at Volatus Aerospace

In this episode of Venture Journey, Jonathan Hera, Managing Partner at Marigold Capital, sheds light on what Finance for Social Change truly means and how finance can be used to combat the systemic inequities. Jonathan touch-bases on what impact washing means and the return impact investments generate. We also discuss the role foundations and chari…

In this episode of Venture Journey, Rohan Wadhwa, Vice President at Lumos Capital Group, discusses the current trend in the EdTech sector and how this sector is attracting the generalist investors' focus. We also chat about new unicorns worldwide and what's happening with the sector's valuation. Rohan shares his insights on various markets, how COV…

In this episode of Venture Journey, Alex Norman, Managing Director at Tech Toronto, share his insights on the impact of COVID-19 on the Canadian startup ecosystem. Alex highlights how startups in different phases of their lifecycle have to steer their company. We discuss how the pandemic's impact will be temporary, and all the players will adopt ne…

In this episode of Venture Journey, Jasmin Hobbs, Senior Tech Banker at Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), shares her insights on venture debt. Jasmin explains the difference between raising money from venture capital and venture debt in terms of cost and dilution. Jasmin highlights the traditional mindset of the companies while raising fun…

In this episode of Venture Journey, Whitney Rockley, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at McRock Capital, shares her insights on venture exits. Whitney highlights how exit options get discussed at the initial stage of the VC investment and how various investment terms impact VCs and founders. Whitney even touch-bases on the impact of valuations on exit…

In this episode of Venture Journey, Pamela Miranda, Director at First West Capital, shares her views on management buyouts (MBO). Pamela highlights how MBO differs from LBO (Leveraged Buyout), with debt being a common denominator and various aspects that management should consider before planning a buyout, especially the cash flows. We also discuss…

In this episode of Venture Journey, Fred Lazar, an aviation consultant, shares his insights on the probable reason why a private equity player, Onex, invests $5B to buy an airline company, WestJet. We discuss the nature of the industry and whether Onex will be able to generate expected returns out of this transaction. We also discuss what Onex plan…

In this episode of Venture Journey, Ian McDougall, CEO of FSS Aircraft Management, and Luc Massé, COO of Partner Jet, share their insights on Boeing and fatal crash of 737 Max 8 aircrafts. We discuss how the last opportunity to save the plane was taken away from the cockpit, and the problem is much deeper than the software or hardware fix. Both Ian…

In this episode of Venture Journey, Darrell Pinto, Vice-President of Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (CVCA) shares his views on the evolution of Canadian VC ecosystem. He also explains how the Canadian VC market differs from the US, emerging AI market, and possible consolidation in the coming future. We also discuss the geop…