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Not just for the military anymore

SkySkopes gives Minot entry into emerging drone industry

Submitted Photo SkySkopes Chief Instructor Pilot Cory Vinger flies a drone during a January power line inspection near Wilton.

Minot is getting an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a burgeoning industry with an announcement by SkySkopes last December that it is expanding its unmanned aircraft operation to the city.

The company has received a great reception from companies in the Bakken that could benefit from SkySkopes’ services, said company founder and president Matt Dunlevy, Grand Forks.

“We are expecting that our operations in Minot are going to have a profound impact on us being able to get into the oil and gas industry and for the Bakken region,” he said. “We will be in range to get out there and do inspections.

The core of SkySkopes’ mission is inspection of energy assets such as pipelines and transmission lines, but it also is involved in agricultural, construction and engineering applications. Providing qualified and quality pilots is central to the job mission.

SkySkopes also has identified pilots, data operators and aircraft maintenance specialists within Minot whom it wants on its team. The company expects to have people contracted this month.

“Everyone we found that we are going to be putting in our Minot office as pilots are from Minot. We are certifying them. They have proven themselves through their experience to be qualified and safe pilots,” Dunlevy said.

Minot Area Development Corp. has identified the unmanned aerial systems industry as one it plans to target for recruitment through its MAGIC Sky Initiative.

“The Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) industry is an emerging industry that has experienced tremendous growth and demand over the last few years. North Dakota is quickly becoming known as the drone state. With a rural setting and wide open skies, Minot is a prime location for UAS operations. Between military and commercial uses, the opportunities are unlimited for UAS businesses in the Minot area,” MADC stated in announcing the initiative.

Proximity to the Bakken, the proximity of the coal industry and wind farms, the dominance of agriculture in the region, the presence of distribution facilities, the existence of Minot Air Force Base, and the educational opportunities at Minot Public Schools and potential opportunities at Minot State University are listed as characteristics that make Minot well suited to the UAS industry.

Bakken applications of UAS include pipeline inspections, oil storage tank and boiler inspections, site surveys and stockpile management and reservoir volumetrics. Military applications include surveillance, disaster response and search and rescue. Agriculture applications involve data collection on crops and drainage.

MADC considers landing SkySkopes, considered to be one of the top UAS firms in the oil and gas industry, to be a good start for its MAGIC Sky Initiative.

“Between military and commercial uses, there are so many opportunities for SkySkopes in Minot, and even more opportunities for the businesses that utilize their services,” said MADC President Stephanie Hoffart. “SkySkopes has helped businesses save up to 70 percent in business costs. This will be huge for Minot businesses and MADC couldn’t be more thrilled to be a part of this exciting milestone.”

MADC has backed assistance of $375,000 from Minot’s MAGIC Fund to help SkySkopes purchase equipment. In exchange SkySkopes would need to meet job creation targets.

The MAGIC Sky Initiative also looks to partner Minot with the state Department of Commerce. North Dakota already has invested more than $37 million in the UAS industry, MADC reports.

Northern Plains in Grand Forks was designated one of six national test sites for UAS by the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct research into drones’ airspace integration. The FAA allows drones to be flown up to 1,200 feet above the entire state and permits flights at night, a combination that makes North Dakota unique.

In December, Northern Plains became the first test sight to receive permission from the FAA to conduct beyond-line-of-sight flights from the Grand Forks area. Researchers in North Dakota are working on aviation-grade network services that will allow unmanned aerial systems to operate with a chase plane to monitor the drones.

The test site also achieved success in securing a block of spectrum from the Federal Communications Commission for transmitting commands and data during drone flights.

That’s the type of UAS environment, Minot hopes to tap into, beginning with SkySkopes.

Dunlevy started SkySkopes in an office at the University of North Dakota in October 2014 out of a desire to fill the need for unmanned aircraft flight operators in the Grand Forks area and in North Dakota.

“It was striking to me that there was so much UAS activity here but there wasn’t a UAS flight company,” he said.

It took eight months, until June 2015, for the company to get the necessary FAA permits to actually consider itself to be in business. Unable to generate revenue, the fledgling company had lived off grants during that time.

“It’s really interesting – the regulatory environment that we navigate. It also was definitely a learning process,” Dunlevy said.

However, the relationship with the FAA was a positive one, and the process went smoothly even though it took several months to reach a conclusion, he said. There was significant paperwork, but he noted it also was necessary because it is important that there be clarity surrounding the different aspects of the emerging industry.

Dunlevy said drones aren’t entirely a new concept. Drones, in some form, can be traced back to World War II. However, the country is in a new age of development, spawned by the military. After Grand Forks Air Force Base was targeted by a base closure commission in 2005, the military began to take a serious look at UAS and identified the Grand Forks base as a center of operations.

The arrival of the first Global Hawk aircraft in May 2011 signaled the industry had arrived, but the Grand Forks community already had been preparing. UND had begun offering a bachelor’s degree program in unmanned aerial systems in the fall of 2009.

Dunlevy said SkySkopes is focused on taking the advances first developed by the U.S. military into the U.S. commercial sector.

“On the defense side, we are decades ahead of the rest of the world. On the commercial side, we are maybe a couple of years behind,” Dunlevy said of American drone activity. SkySkopes is committed to building that commercial activity.

“We also take pride in the fact that our piloting role on the commercial side is going to play a part in getting the U.S. back to maybe a leadership position,” he said.

The future of the commercial UAS industry is bright, he added.

“We are going to see dozens if not hundreds of billions of dollars of economic stimulation in the United States because of the commercial use of UAS,” Dunlevy said. “From a commercial aspect, within 15 years, you are going to see a tremendous benefit based on the advent of commercial UAS.”

A 2013 report by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International estimated $82 billion in economic impact in the United States from 2015-2025, with 103,776 direct and indirect jobs created in the UAS industry. It projected a spike in industry growth in North Dakota to 2017, followed by continued gradual growth to nearly 60 direct UAS jobs by 2025. The report lists $83 million in cumulative economic impact in North Dakota from 2015-2025 and 105 direct and indirect jobs created.

The forecast is dependent upon the FAA developing new regulations integrating UAS into the nation’s airspace, available capital and other potential unforeseen factors.

The association listed numerous areas in which UAS might have a presence across the country, including wildfire mapping, agricultural monitoring, disaster management, thermal infrared power line surveys, law enforcement, telecommunication, weather monitoring, aerial imaging/mapping, environmental monitoring, oil and gas exploration, freight transport and television news coverage, sporting events and movie making.

Dunlevy said he expects to see many changes in the years ahead, affecting aspects from training and technology to the regulatory end of the industry.

Dunlevy said the day is coming when drones will increase their endurance, reliability and air worthiness, enabling them to fly for much longer times and distances. The computer systems that collect data will become more advanced and capable of acquiring more and new types of information.

Currently, manufacturers of drones are where the action, innovation and revenue is in the industry, Dunlevy said. In the future, the big winners will be the developers of the computer and data-generating systems, he said.

Regulatory rules will need to be developed that address safety, privacy and ownership of collected data, Dunlevy said. The rules are likely to change in ways that will turn the industry loose, such as allowing drones to be flown without the need for the operator to keep them in line of sight.

“When those come out, that’s when we will see the real efficiency of unmanned aircraft. That’s when unmanned aircraft will be operated in a way that truly does complement and add to the value of manned aviation,” Dunlevy said.

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