Road to 350: What Does the US Navy Do Anyway?

[Griz882]

They are not as good as DJI - commercial sales bears that out. This really isn’t ford vs Honda, it’s Boeing vs Comac, or whatever preceded it.

The commercial incentives did not exist for homegrown design and manufacturing expertise in drones, and absent the incentive of an invasion I don’t see how this doesn’t end up producing the Comac or Kawasaki of aviation - subsidized programs that retain know-how on shore at high cost because there is no profitable commercial side business to share development costs with. (Or in comac, you make your airlines shoulder the cost). Best case this becomes Airbus, and how long did that take?

And yes, starting from scratch instead of adapting Chinese components will make this take longer; Ukrainians don’t seem to have any aversion to Chinese manufacturing.

You are confusing price with capability. DJI drones are not significantly better, they are significantly cheaper.

 

[mmx1]

For a community that emphasizes consumability, rapid learning, and adaptation, cost of manufacturing seems like a critical issue.

 

[Griz882]

For a community that emphasizes consumability, rapid learning, and adaptation, cost of manufacturing seems like a critical issue.

I don’t disagree. What I am arguing against is the fundamentally ludicrous idea that it would take ten years for the U.S. to develop drones as capable as DJI. That is simply not accurate by any measure (with the possible exception of our own internal military acquisition processses, who apparently could fuck up bunny rabbit reproduction). In 2020 Blue UAS listed only four U.S. companies that comply with NDAA FY 2020 Section 848 and Executive Order 13981, today that number is 14. So, in under five years, the U.S. has tripled its NDAA compliant production base, but somehow we need another 10?

Maybe this is a case of people thinking like military acquisition types who operate not on strategic or tactical need, rather, a closed system where they are hesitant to buy in and put time and resources toward a system that isn’t tailored to their very specific requirements. Put simply tithe technology is there, and the manufacturing capacity is there. The market interest apparently isn’t. Congress recently passed a bill calling for security audit to operate DJI drones in the U.S.. if the audit isn’t done by the end of this year, DJI drone sales will be banned in the U.S. - maybe that will “stimulate” the American market.

 

[sevenhelmet]

The market interest apparently isn’t. Congress recently passed a bill calling for security audit to operate DJI drones in the U.S.. if the audit isn’t done by the end of this year, DJI drone sales will be banned in the U.S. - maybe that will “stimulate” the American market.

If recent experience is any guide, there's almost no chance of that happening. There will magically be a last-minute executive order to extend the deadline by 60 days or something, and then the language will get softened to- at most- a strongly worded glove slap. Or, the audit will be done on time and nobody will pay attention to the results as the lead is quietly buried.

I agree with the rest of your post though.

 

[Griz882]

If recent experience is any guide, there's almost no chance of that happening. There will magically be a last-minute executive order to extend the deadline by 60 days or something, and then the language will get softened to- at most- a strongly worded glove slap. Or, the audit will be done on time and nobody will pay attention to the results as the lead is quietly buried.

Here, you are probably right. The fact that DJI is cut off from LE and Defense is a good start in any case.

 

[mmx1]

As someone with familiarity with the iPhone supply chain, I think it will take as long to make a competitive American small drone as it would a smartphone. There’s a lot of overlap in the classes of components involved.

Some of you are looking at final assembly in Ukraine and imagining that’s all we have to replicate. The smart phone analogy would be final assembly, test, and pack out (FATP). Apple has moved some of that from China to India and other countries. Some observers have derisively described it as disassembling the phones in China and reassembling them at the point of sale. Apple’s “American-made” Mac Pro’s were similarly assembled in US from Chinese components.

That might work for durable goods, in the way that Blackhawk’s are now assembled in Poland, and export aircraft have been similarly assembled overseas to onshore some infrastructure.

For consumables you’re going to need to manufacture the components as well and that is a long road.

Neither the technology or manufacturing capability for consumer drones are in the US, and standing it up ironically looks a lot like how China stood up its domestic aviation industry.

 

[number9]

I don’t disagree. What I am arguing against is the fundamentally ludicrous idea that it would take ten years for the U.S. to develop drones as capable as DJI. That is simply not accurate by any measure (with the possible exception of our own internal military acquisition processses, who apparently could fuck up bunny rabbit reproduction). In 2020 Blue UAS listed only four U.S. companies that comply with NDAA FY 2020 Section 848 and Executive Order 13981, today that number is 14. So, in under five years, the U.S. has tripled its NDAA compliant production base, but somehow we need another 10?

Maybe this is a case of people thinking like military acquisition types who operate not on strategic or tactical need, rather, a closed system where they are hesitant to buy in and put time and resources toward a system that isn’t tailored to their very specific requirements. Put simply tithe technology is there, and the manufacturing capacity is there. The market interest apparently isn’t. Congress recently passed a bill calling for security audit to operate DJI drones in the U.S.. if the audit isn’t done by the end of this year, DJI drone sales will be banned in the U.S. - maybe that will “stimulate” the American market.

Perhaps I misinterpreted your previous post, but if the goal is to make millions of drones per year with 100% (or close to it) American components then I stand by my initial assessment.

 

[Griz882]

Perhaps I misinterpreted your previous post, but if the goal is to make millions of drones per year with 100% (or close to it) American components then I stand by my initial assessment.

Why millions? Right now there are just over 1,000,000 FAA drone TRUST certificates out there of which 420,000 are commercial and 383,000 recreational with just under 445,000 certified drone pilots. But even if we needed millions we could plus up production to get there in much, much less than 10 years. According to the CIA, there are 95 semiconductor manufacturing centers in the U.S. compared to 81 in China. The U.S. produces 12% of the world’s chips but China only 9%. The real gorilla in the room is Taiwan, where they make 50% of the magic that goes in little electronic things. A decision to let China surpass the U.S. (and they could by 2030) would be a strategic one that the U.S. might be lazy enough to make, but I doubt it since the republican led Senate and several republican House members told Trump to pound sand when he called for shutting down the CHIPS Act.

 

[Brett327]

Here, you are probably right. The fact that DJI is cut off from LE and Defense is a good start in any case.

In my previous job, I was briefed on a fairly simple procedure you can (must) perform on DJI products to use them for DoD purposes that addresses the OPSEC issues. Seems like we've already skinned that cat.

 

[Griz882]

In my previous job, I was briefed on a fairly simple procedure you can (must) perform on DJI products to use them for DoD purposes that addresses the OPSEC issues. Seems like we've already skinned that cat.

Sounds good. I thought DoD had to buy off the Blue UAS list, but I’m not up on policy with reference to that.

 

[Spekkio]

The usual suspect is back.

A point of pride? Not really (quite painful actually, for most) but it does generally make people more informed and sound less stupid when discussing these topics.

Definitely holds a little more water than “rawr, I’m angry at the man and I don’t know why, but I’ll continue to sound ignorant and offer solutions without identifying the problem.”

“ThE PaSs & TaG pEoPle aRe a bUncH of LazY ciVilIans!!… fIrE tHeM!!”

I have encountered more GS civilians who don't earn their paycheck than those who do, even on these high level staffs.

You (and @Flash) seem to want to stand up this strawman that we're saying all DoD civilians are useless. No. But even for the useful ones, their contracts / business rules do generally make things take 42x longer than they ought to take to implement.

Yes, Trump is cutting with a chainsaw when he could be using a scalpel. But at least he's starting the work, and that's getting people to at least pay attention to the issue.

 

[taxi1]

But even for the useful ones, their contracts / business rules do generally make things take 42x longer than they ought to take to implement.

So why aren’t they attacking that problem? They follow rules Congress and Trump makes.