Commercial Drone Markets --------------- 2015 Year in Review --------------- by colin snow
What a difference a year makes. At the end of 2014, I reflected back on the news and trends of the commercial drone markets of that year and wrote about the mixed state of affairs in the U.S. Back then, drones got considerable media hype and you would have thought that drones could do anything from guide your car in the wilderness, to save the planet from starvation. In reality, we were just beginning to see the very first FAA grants of regulatory exemptions for commercial activity—which was nothing more than filming on closed sets.
Contrast that with 2015, a year in which we saw more than 2,500 Section 333 grants for all kinds of commercial activity and the press’s narrative that ‘drones are cool’ turned to ‘drones are a headache’. Even so, there’s more going on than just public consternation.
In this article, I’ll review what I think were the six most significant commercial market trends for drones in 2015 set in the context of movies and myths. Enjoy.