DRONELIFE is pleased to present this guest post by Matt Sloane, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of SkyfireAI. As a prominent figure in the drone industry, Matt brings a wealth of expertise and firsthand experience to the table. In this piece, Matt discusses his reactions to the current legislative movements impacting the drone industry. DRONELIFE neither accepts nor makes payment for guest posts.
by SkyfireAI co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Matt Sloane
As I crisscrossed Capitol Hill a couple weeks ago in 100° plus heat for the Association of Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International’s (AUVSI) annual “Hill Day,” one thing became crystal clear: if we wanted the American drone industry to have a fighting chance, we needed a “space race” style commitment. To me, on that day, it felt like we were a million miles away from a demand signal like that; and we were focused on more of the same scattershot approach we’ve been taking.
Then, it happened. In a move that will redefine American technology for the next generation, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth released his “Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance” memo. The plea I and so many others in the industry have been making is no longer a hypothetical. The starting gun has been fired. The drone space race is on.
Consider the historical parallel. In the 1960s, as we were in the midst of a Cold War with the USSR, President Kennedy made a declaration to a packed joint session of Congress challenging the US to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. He asked for what would be tens of billions in today’s dollars to ensure American boots touched the moon before our Russian adversaries. That effort wasn’t just to make a “small step for man”; the goal was to make a “giant leap for mankind.”
Is it possible Secretary Hegseth’s memo is our generation’s JFK moment for drones? The Saturn V rocket I drive by every day in Huntsville, AL, is a testament to the incredible engineering feats we can accomplish when we set our collective minds and money to an effort. Hegseth’s directive is the clearest demand signal yet that we could get the support to do it again.
Until this memo, trying to prove our engineering superiority against our adversaries felt like a lost cause. We let the People’s Republic of China and companies like DJI take the market, and in-turn, we got low-cost, high quality drones. They built a global manufacturing and engineering juggernaut for unmanned systems. Tens of thousands of engineers, dozens of new products — so many that half of us can’t keep the model names and features straight anymore. And frankly, who can blame them for taking full advantage?
As a side note, and to those who might say I’m a DJI hater, let me be clear: I’m not. I own and fly their drones and have hundreds of clients who do, too. What DJI did was create a commercial drone industry, an explosive demand, and gave us a roadmap for what these systems can do. Frankly, we should be thanking them.
But their dominance also exposed a critical potential vulnerability. With millions of sensors crisscrossing our critical infrastructure, power grid, and large events, the potential for exploitation by an increasingly adversarial superpower is undeniable. For what it’s worth, if someone gave me that kind of access inside an adversary’s country, the temptation to use it would be immense.
So what happens if one day the PRC decides to keep us from flying, blinding us to gain a strategic advantage? They could, in theory, remotely brick every aircraft we at the state and local level with the flip of a switch. This isn’t hypothetical. We saw it happen in Ukraine, and we did it ourselves when John Deere remotely bricked its connected tractors in Russia.
So, we’ve made a strategic decision at the federal level that the risk is too great. But our response to that risk has been a half-measure. We’re pulling the plug on what’s been working, and we haven’t figured out how to plug in the thing we need to take its place.
We’ve pinned our hopes on things like the Army’s Short Range Reconnaissance (SRR) program, a one-time kingmaker that has only ever lead to purchases of a few thousand aircraft. For context, the Ukrainian military is reportedly burning through 10,000 drones per month. A prize of a few thousand drones doesn’t build multi-million dollar production lines or pay for thousands of top engineers.
All we’ve done is created a Catch-22. Demand for US drones is low because prices are high, and prices are high because demand is low. Investors have been slow to put big money into hardware because the risk was too great, and the competition from cheaper Chinese alternatives was immense.
So how do we break this conundrum? Just last week, the answer seemed distant. Today, it’s a lot clearer. We broke it with a drone flight on the Pentagon front lawn, and the stroke of a pen.
Secretary Hegseth’s directive mandates a “Buy American” strategy and, crucially, treats small UAS as “consumable” assets, like munitions. This isn’t about buying a few thousand drones; this is about creating a demand signal for hundreds of thousands of units. It calls for the exact things we’ve been asking for: government-backed, low-interest grants and loans; tax incentives; strong investment in our manufacturing and engineering workforce; and faster procurement paths for DoD, public safety, and critical infrastructure.
The memo is a direct order to change the culture from “risk-aversion” to strategic necessity. This is the ultimate demand signal that tells private investors the market is real and the government is all-in.
And what happens next? Good companies get the capital to become GREAT companies. Small, innovative companies have a fighting chance. Collectively, we will supply high-quality alternatives to Chinese drones at competitive prices and with competitive features—which is everything our cops and firefighters and warfighters have been asking for.
In this new reality, do we ban PRC drones? If we do it right, we won’t have to. The free market, supercharged by strategic government backing, will drive the widespread adoption of superior, secure, American-made options.
The time for waiting is over. The race has begun. It’s time to Make American Drones Great Again.
Read more:
Matt Sloane is the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at SkyfireAI. With over a decade of experience in public safety and drone technology, Matt has helped countless agencies integrate drones into their critical incident response. Prior to Skyfire, he worked as a medical news producer at CNN and served as an EMT. Matt is actively involved in shaping drone regulations and policy and is a licensed pilot.
