USA were & continue to be top for large scale, such as military. But that’s a different subject.
In the beginning, the DIY crafts were primarily USA products. These developed into ready built, large photo platform... cinema and vertical markets. The USA product remains in the top ranks for quality, but in comparison to competition has extremely low volume. It wasn’t lack of quality that directed market away from USA companies, initially more high cost & complexity to readily fly. Another was being caught off-guard that there was such a huge market for simplistic to operate, quality photographic small platform sUAV. Based on previous RC plane & heli small User base, and the small professional sUAV market, the lack of foresight of demand and potential growth based on current technology & costs wasn’t realized until a few Chinese companies introduced and released product. Even then, USA companies elected not to compete in the low-cost sUAV market feeling it wasn’t a sustainable growth market and no motivation to compete in cheap products.
That was the beginning of the sUAV market change away from USA. A few years prior, the Chinese were assisted in manufacturing high tech IC chips and various electronics; many built and funded by USA companies searching for low production costs and large profit margins in other market segments: phones, TV, computer boards, etc. Like all Chinese companies, technology is shared and cultivated socially... something USA Boardrooms & CEO’s didn’t fully grasp until too late.
That provided the growth of a few Chinese sUAV companies (CEO‘s US Educated) to rapidly gain technology, build upon the technology and present globally very high tech small sUAV that enlightened the hobbyist and professional... which continues today as the dominate market controller and all new sUAV are compared.
In a similar scenario... the auto industry began using various Asian production to maximize profit and minimize high cost USA Labor and that also indirectly trained & improved their products... the old Datsun & Toyota grew from low grade products and quickly grew into a dominate force... did ya ever imagine a Toyota engine in NASCA, NHRA or Indy would dominate GM or Ford. Or the motorcycle market, if not for regulations and various Govt involvement to limit non-USA cycle’s price differentials the Harley would have died a 3rd death under Massey Ferguson.
The control or attempt to control sUAV market in my opinion under a different Govt ”cloak“ is attempting to assist USA companies regain ground and able to compete in a market basically unobtainable if left to open competition. Unless the price differential is addressed within the future regulations causing Chinese products to substantially increase in price, the USA companies won‘t be able to compete.
I’m all for USA product, but also realize the economical difference... 50 cents per hour is pretty hard to compete against with USA economy for 1 factor.
The 2nd factor: product development. Enough time has elapsed that their technology is very impressive and continues to develop and may be difficult to defeat... on a open market.
