Ten years after its first unmanned air vehicle flight demonstration, the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) will not hold its unmanned air show this year in conjunction with its August symposium.
The organisation started the flying programme in 2001, working with the US Navy, which hosted the demonstrations at NAS Patuxet River outside Washington, DC. The AUVSI Unmanned Systems North America trade show and convention traditionally kicked off the next day. The show has been held in other US cities every other year, but with flying demonstrations being conducted only when the show heads to Washington.
“We want to make sure we were doing the event for the right reasons,” says AUVSI chief executive Michael Toscano. “When we started this in 2001, it was with the purpose of educating people on what UAVs are. We’ve gotten to the point now where the technology is no longer strange to people, it’s very common.”
In 2015, AUVSI North America will also move from August to May, so the timing seemed right to make changes to the overall programme, Toscano says. This year, the symposium is scheduled for 16-19 August in Washington. The 2012 event will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, then return to Washington in August 2013 before switching to May and travelling to Florida, Atlanta, Georgia and New Orleans, Louisiana.
The break in flying demonstrations will give AUVSI a chance to reinvent the programme as an event separate from the convention, Toscano says. “If we want to get decision makers to an event, the new thing we come up with has to be compelling,” he says. “We haven’t fleshed out exactly what it’s going to be. The next we need to do is reassess why were doing it and what we want to do with it in the future.”
Source: Flight International
