Cat Orman and Jason Lu at Noahpinion:
Last month, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would ground over 70% of America’s industrial drone fleet. The Countering CCP Drones Act seeks to ban DJI, a Chinese unicorn and the world’s largest commercial drone manufacturer, from supplying its drones in the United States. So why has the bill sent drone pilots into a panic? Here is the unfortunate truth: there is no real alternative to DJI.
Like much of our electronics, the majority of drones deployed in the United States are made in China. It’s a bigger hole in our industrial base than you might think. Drones operate behind the scenes of every American industry — they inspect our civil infrastructure and electric grid, shoot movies, conduct land surveys, detect diseases in crops, prospect for minerals, locate gas leaks, and create 3D models. If you get mugged in one of over 1,500 American police precincts (including Santa Monica, where I live), the first responder on the scene might be a drone. But — as the war in Ukraine has demonstrated — even commercial-grade drones will play an increasingly important role in national security. To protect our critical industries and field an effective fighting force, the United States must develop a competitive drone industry, then get DJI out of our airspace.
More here.
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