Did you catch Keoki Kerr’s story about the $75,000 unmanned drone purchased by the Department of Transportation to maintain aerial surveillance at Honolulu Harbor?

He reported:

It’s supposed to be used to transmit aerial video of harbor facilities, but the craft has never left the ground and sits in a state DOT Harbors office nine months later.

“The UAV has never flown. It’s very unfortunate. This is an example of government not working,” Meisenzahl said.

“Unfortunately, we never checked if we could fly a UAV around Honolulu harbor. And we cannot,” Meisenzahl said, noting that the FAA said the state can’t fly the drone at the harbor because it’s too close to Honolulu International Airport. “It’s an international airport. And there’s a restricted area around the airport and Honolulu Harbor is part of that restricted area. And so, unfortunately, you cannot fly within a restricted area.”

But there’s more.

A reader who seems to know a bit about such things emailed his critical observations. His point? The DOT drone did not cost anything close to $75,000 to build. So where did the money go?

Seeing the picture of the DOT’s UAV, I just don’t understand how the money was spent. The motor is a standard hobbyist electric motor that is, at the most, $120. The airframe can’t be more than $300. A very good RC system is $500. Other electronics including a stabilization system, on-screen display with a wireless feed back to the ground, and camera, is perhaps another $500. And knowing the general characteristics of electric airplanes, I doubt this can stay aloft for more than a half hour, sending back standard-definition images from a camera that might not be very sophisticated, not at that size.

The rest of the money must have gone toward someone’s salary or elsewhere. Has anyone even tried to fly it at the radio-controlled flying field at Kawainui?

There are hobbyists who have built “First Person View” aircraft capable of flying as far as 10 miles or more, sending back real-time video. They build these for less than $1000 for fun!

For $10,000 you can get a turbine-powered helicopter that can go as far as two miles out, stay up for half an hour, and capture high-definition images with a stabilized camera and a zoom lens.

Over the past few months I designed and built a multi-rotor helicopter that can fly for 10 to 12 minutes, give me a real-time view of what the helicopter can see through a wireless link, and capture high-definition images. It’ll eventually be fitted with a gimbal that can be operated by a second person, which will compensate for aircraft movement and ensure a stable image. The electronic controller board includes sensors that will level the copter on its own. I just have to let go of the stick and it’ll get itself rightside-up if things go bad. And a “failsafe” that allows it to come down slowly if the radio signal is lost.

The ‘copter itself was built for less than $1,000, most of which was the motors and electronics. The rest consists of raw materials such as fiberglass, carbon fiber and epoxy.

So the actual aircraft the DOT bought can’t be anywhere near $75,000. Where did the rest of the money go?