2Excel Aviation Gives Drones Virtual Eyes

Chris Norton spent 22 years as a Royal Air Force fighter pilot before he co-founded 2Excel Aviation in 2005. The U.K. company operates a fleet of stunt planes known as the Blades and is licensed as an airline, so it can take fare-paying passengers on ride-alongs as the planes do barrel rolls and other aerobatics. Behind the scenes, 2Excel is investing in a solution to one of aviation’s most intractable problems: opening up civilian airspace to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), often referred to as drones.

Drones are best known for their use over battlefields, but there’s a huge potential market for civilians, since UAVs are cheaper to operate and can stay in the air longer than conventional aircraft. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has experimented with using them to monitor wildfires, and in South Africa they’ve been used to quickly ferry blood samples from remote clinics to medical laboratories. Yet outside war zones and military ranges, UAV use is largely prohibited. In most countries, civilian air authorities such as the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration don’t permit UAVs to fly in the same airspace as conventional aircraft.