North Dakota Has The Nation's First Unmanned Airport -- June 3, 2015

A reader sent me a link to an article from The Washington Times about drones and North Dakota. It was very interesting, but too superficial. I told the reader I was looking forward to the day when The New York Times did a story on the subject. The reader suggested I google the subject and see what pops up. Wow, this is a very, very good article, from Emerging Prairie. It's a very, very impressive story. Highly recommend it.

It certainly appears North Dakota is leading the nation in drone research and testing.

In addition to meeting FAA regulations, North Dakota’s 4 season climate and unencumbered airspace are beneficial for test flights.

It now makes sense why North Dakota got FAA approval for this endeavor and California did not.  Another neat thing, something I knew but did not think about it in these terms, North Dakota has the nation's first unmanned airport: Grand Sky.

Grand Sky operates 217 acres in Grand Forks, ND, which includes an Air Force runway that is a registered Northern Plains FAA test site. The full package includes safe airspace to test fly, connection to local investors interested in the UAS industry, and access to a UAS data communication infrastructure.

Pretty cool. And then this:

Another perk for the North Dakota drones is that they can be used in collaboration with the two other mega-giants driving the state: energy and agriculture. Doug Goehring, Commissioner of North Dakota Department of Agriculture, traced back through the advancements seen in agriculture – from the plow to the GPS – showing how this tech has advanced more in the past two decades than ever before.

This is pretty exciting.  Background / earlier post same subject back on May 10, 2015.