The Topic was Unmanned Aircraft

Hundreds of people were in attendance recently as the Red River Valley Research Corridor hosted the 5th Annual Unmanned Aircraft Systems Summit in Grand Forks, ND. High ranking military officials, politicians, FAA, educators, and numerous companies and organizations involved in UAS provided updates and insights relating to the UAS industry. A very positive message was given regarding UAS as an emerging industry in the civilian and commercial segments of aviation. United States Senator John Hoeven from North Dakota during opening remarks stated, “If we (the USA) don’t rapidly develop UAS and open the national airspace system to UAS operations, someone else will.†Michael Tosccano, executive director of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, began his talk wearing a pair of sunglasses with the comment, “The future of unmanned systems is so bright I need to wear sunglasses.†Al Palmer, the director of the University of North Dakota (UND) UAS Center of Excellence, described its UAS educational program and stated the first group of students have graduated from the UAS Management program. Scott Fletcher, chief operating officer of Northland Community & Technical College (NCTC) Aviation, described its new UAS maintenance training program which is due to begin with the first group of students this year. Dr. Anne Temte, NCTC president, says, “UAS has revived the aviation program at NCTC.†A highlight of the event was Northrop Grumman Corporation donating a full scale model of a RQ-4 Block 10 Global Hawk to the NCTC Foundation of East Grand Forks, MN. The model will reside at the NCTC Airport Campus in Thief River Falls, MN,  where it will be used as a training aid in their newly developed UAS maintenance training program. It appears this region has become a center of UAS activity for civilian, military, education, and research. Many companies are locating in the area to support this activity. I’m sure there are other areas with similar activity. I’d like to hear from them and also hear your thoughts on UAS as an emerging industry with civilian and commercial applications.