Vantis BVLOS Waivers

Beyond the Buzz (Episode 22) – Vantis BVLOS Waivers 

April 16, 2026   

Hunter Hegel (0:01):  

Welcome to this episode of Beyond the Buzz. Today we're going to be doing a fireside chat alongside Frontier Precision on their new approved BVLOS [Beyond Visual Line of Sight] waiver in North Dakota. What it means, how they're going to utilize it, and what it means for future operations on Vantis itself. So, turn it over to Collin. Collin Kemmesat, he's from Frontier Precision. Again, they just secured that BVLOS waiver. So, if you just want to tell a little bit about yourself and what Frontier is doing in the UAS world. 

Collin Kemmesat (0:27): 

Yeah, thanks for having us on. So, yeah, my name is Collin Kemmesat. I'm with Frontier Precision. I am our regional sales manager for our unmanned division in the Midwest. Um, a little bit about Frontier; we've been around for 38 years. Primarily our start was in the land surveying division, reselling, geospatial equipment, and then we've navigated out into multiple different facets, including unmanned, where we've been for over a decade now. 

Hunter (0:55): 

Awesome. So, why BVLOS? Why did you want to come partner with the test site itself and for Vantis on the whole UAS [Unmanned Aircraft System] BVLOS aspect of things? 

Collin (1:04): 

Yeah, so a few things there, right? Uh Frontier is a North Dakota based company. That's where our headquarters is. We're in Bismark. So, part of it is we've heard kind of this buzz around Vantis, no pun intended, for quite some time. Um and you know, kind of the capabilities that the state was pushing for. So, you know, we wanted to help out, see how we could help push the network as well as for our own benefit. Um, we're a company that really likes to test our boundaries, push the boundaries, and we see BVLOS becoming a huge part of the unmanned industry. 

Hunter (1:40): 

Could you could you elaborate on why just visual line of sight of the aircraft was an impeding factor for what you guys are trying to do in the world of UAS? 

Collin (1:49): 

For sure. Yeah. So, big data is the name of the game right now. Everybody is collecting more data. I mean, your phone's collecting more data, everything in between. So, one of the limitations that typically is out there is visual line of sight. The aircrafts, a lot of them are capable of going much further and the sensors are collecting so much more data that efficiency wise it just doesn't make sense to stay visual line of sight any longer. So really, we wanted to unlock the capability to not only you know expand the horizons on how far we can push collection of data but efficiency as well as test our sensors to see how high we could actually achieve while still getting reliable data. 

Hunter (2:32): 

Perfect. So, and then with this waiver process, since they partnered with Vantis, they were able to tap into the near-term approval process. One of the new regulatory pathways that the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] is trying to streamline these BVLOS approvals itself. So can you tell me a little about the process and how we went about, you know, getting the waiver package together whether it be the safety case, the conop, how we relied on each other in that coordination aspect of things. 

Collin (2:58): 

Yeah, definitely. You guys have been a huge huge part in that. The FAA is a tough animal to navigate, especially with the nuances changing all the time. So really coming to you guys kind of giving you guys our wish list of what we would like to achieve and how we would be able to achieve it. Presenting it to you guys and you guys coming up with a solution of telling us, “Hey this is possible” or “Hey, this might be in the future but today it's not there,” has been a really good partnership for us to help navigate and then achieving the waiver itself so that we can really go out and test it and use it. 

Hunter (3:35): 

Awesome. And then for those that don't know, back in pretty much January of this year, the FAA rolled out a new waiver portal. Not the DroneZone that we've all come to known and easily navigable. Um now it's through the Aviation Safety Portal. Um it's kind of ties into the Trump admin administration's executive order where they are trying to streamline and take off the workload of some of those FAA folk. Goal is to have AI enablement through that whole process as well. So, we were able to test the waters with Frontier and see how it was. I will say from the personal experience, the AI, uh, room to grow definitely on that regard, but it's nice to see that they're trying to streamline the waiver process.  

So, you touched on your wants and your goals. Can you tell me how you guys think that this waiver is different? Did we get your wish list of items that you were hoping for? 

Collin (4:30): 

Yeah, definitely. So, one of the things, I mean, it's becoming more and more common across the industry, right? But one of the unique things that we have is we represent 47 different manufacturers. So, a waiver bound to one singular aircraft is just not viable for us. Historically we've had, I meant before this relationship, we did have and we still have a BVLOS waiver that's nationwide for a specific aircraft. And while that's great, um, really what we're seeing, you know, kind of alluding to earlier is that 200 ft or below, it really just isn't efficient enough at that point; we might as well just fly BVLOS at 400 [feet]. Um, so with you guys being able to achieve our wave or being agnostic, has really opened a lot of doors for us.  

Frontier as a whole, we don't like going off of manufacturer spec. That's something we don't like to rely on. Not because we don't trust the manufacturers, but in this world, especially in the unmanned world, there's a lot of bench testing and theoretical numbers that get tossed out on spec sheets.  

So, one of the things we really hang our hat on is being able to go out and push the product to its limits. Uh, so we can bring that real world data to our customers saying, you know, hey, this is what you can expect out of it. Rather than you know some theoretical number and a customer comes back and goes yeah, I never ever achieved that.  

So, um the waiver has unlocked a ton of that potential. Um as well as especially in in western North Dakota there's a lot of folks out there that are itching to unlock BVLOS just from an efficiency standpoint and that's really starting to prove that it's capable and we'll see a lot more of it happen here in the near future. 

Hunter (6:19): 

Yeah, I would agree. I think the huge aspect this waiver itself is the agnostic under 55 pounds. You know going through the timeline on you know past, present and future. When Vantis was first going through the regulatory process, we went through 91/113 exemption. That took about 2 years for a single platform itself. Then once we achieved that, we moved to the 107 NTAP [Notice To Airmen Publications] process. Again, that took another year or so six months to a year through RFIs [Radio Frequency Interference] and making sure that we were enabling that right process of finding that framework itself. Now to 2025/2026 where for this waiver, it took us 23 business days compared to two years.  

So, I think that the FAA is really relying on the strong safety case and the strong argument that we're making with our you know champion operators like Frontier themselves on what is capable under the Vantis umbrella. So, I think that was really good step in the right progress or step in the right direction when it came to making those not just one-off aircraft specific but making sure that you know Vantis is capable of operating under all sorts of different aircraft.  

So, you've flown advantages before, you know, through some either just visual lines of sites or through test site specific 44803s. We can touch on those later, but I guess let's just take your own experience on operating the system, what you like about it. Maybe some things we can improve on just to give everybody kind of a level set on what to expect when operating on the system. 

Collin (7:52): 

Yeah. So operating on Vantis is really a next level experience. Like I said, we have waivers not on Vantis um or utilizing Vantis, I should say. Um, and really it's kind of an eerie experience just because yeah, you're sending an aircraft out beyond visual line of sight. There's a lot of risk involved. Obviously, there's mitigation protocols in place. But the thing about Vantis that's really different is being able to see and have that awareness of the airspace. We operated in Grand Forks, which I was unaware is one of the busiest, I think it's top 20 busiest airports in the world, and then you have you know some of the DoD [Department of War] contractors out there and we experienced everything possible while doing that operation. And really the safety aspect of it just being able to mitigate all that risk in real time is just phenomenal. So, yeah, really good experience on Vantis. Uh, really been big big advocate for it and we are really looking forward to doing more on Vantis as well as seeing it expand across the country. 

Hunter (9:03): 

Awesome. And then again, just to level set everybody, you know, this waiver was agnostic and it's all within the four current Vantis volumes in North Dakota right now. So, Frontier has access to over 5,000 square miles of BVLOS to either do demo work or, you know, to collect that big data. So, again, huge wavier around that regard. The past couple months me and Collin have been working towards a kind of formalized partnership between Vantis and the and Frontier himself. So, you want to just touch on what we're trying to trying to do with that partnership? 

Collin (9:33): 

Yeah, definitely. So, I I think there's a few parts to that partnership, right? Um first and foremost, we wanted to partner with you guys. Again, we have access to tons and tons of aircraft. So, how do we get these aircraft on the network so that it's easier for future operators to get on as well? So, that was one of the big uh early pushes that we had with you guys to make and form that partnership.  

And then, secondly, obviously, we're both North Dakota based companies. So really you know trying to work together to push the network both you know physically as well as across the nation so that we can you know utilize this elsewhere. That's really kind of the gist of what we've been trying to do. 

Hunter (10:18): 

Yep. Then could you explain how you know you said you had 47 aircraft or partnerships or manufacturers that you have under your belt. What's your plan of action and how can you know have it be UAS agnostic and on board on demand so we can see all the telemetry and we can see where the UAS is flying at all times. 

Collin (10:35): 

Sure. Yeah. So that was kind of the initial conversation right. As I mentioned is, how do we help Vantis bring on these aircraft and initially it was a bring your own C2 type of solution. So we worked with, I assume you're alluding to the app, is where you're getting to. Okay. So, we worked with another North Dakota based company to develop an application that is agnostic across aircraft. Really the connection part is it lives in the background of the aircraft, the GCS, and pushes that telemetry over to the MNOC [MARSOC Special Operations Command]. So that Vantis is able to see the aircraft in real time as well as the operators, us, in the field are able to see that aircraft and mitigate risk. So, it's been a been a work in progress. Our goal is to really on board as many aircrafts as possible because we just see such value in this. The UAS industry is pushing so heavily towards BVLOS and this is by far the best system that I've ever experienced. 

Hunter (11:42): 

Perfect. Yeah. And then again just to give back some history on that too, Vantis did start as a, you know, a surveillance and a C2 [Control and Command] system all in itself altogether we found through trial and error that the ISM [In-Transit/Flight Service Manager] band that we were utilizing just wasn't going to cut it. Considering that the industry was moving so far ahead than what we could accommodate to. So, we moved to a bring your own C2 which enables us to expand not over just you know ISM, but to LTE [Long Term Evolution], and then SATCOM [Satellite Communications] itself too. So, we need those higher end C2 links if you want to enable BVLOS itself too. Having that agnostic aspect and then being able to do the LTE or the SATCOM really enables a lot of operations. Just going back on to the support itself too. So, you know Frontier Precision they are preferred reseller of Vantis or for Vantis I should say and then you know they're not just an, they're an operator as well too but the real goal is to have that end-to-end customer support when it comes to it. So, if you want to buy your aircraft from Frontier, they'll get you on board on the system as well. And then, from there, the test site advance will take care of you and your operational needs. So again, kind of kind of having end-to-end relationship throughout the whole process and just being able to enable um different operators. All right. So what comes next? You guys got this waiver now. What's your future goals with it? 

Collin (13:05): 

Yeah, so I have some big goals in mind. you know this has unlocked a lot of different things both vertically and horizontally as far as BVLOS goes. So really, I think the next step for us is continue to onboard as many aircrafts as possible. But then we also want you know under your guys' 44803 for research we also want to get a group three VTOL and really kind of push some of the bounds there. You know group three VTOL, I mean you guys are already flying them on the network but what we want to do is utilize more use cases that we're seeing specifically in oil and gas industry as well as the utility industry um to again prove how fast and efficient a survey or a inspection can be done um because we're getting a lot of requests from folks to be able to do that.  

So ideally, we'd like to have you know some sort of aircraft we have one in mind that we'd be able to launch and be able to run for 12 hours using utilizing Starlink or SATCOM. Really again trying to push the impossible out there of what the rest of the enterprise industry at least isn't doing today. That's really kind of the next few steps for us. As well as I have this personal goal to try to onboard uh a certain number of folks onto Vantis this year to see the network be utilized. So. 

Hunter (14:35): 

There we go. Perfect. So, I mean again sounds like the limitations with 107 is one thing. We're trying to, you know, we're enabling you guys to do as much as you can under that 55 pound threshold, but, you know, just waiting for that 108 aspect to come out where Vantis is going to, you know, from the NTAP process, it's going to move into the 108/146, you know, framework of uh, ADSB [Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcasting]. So, yeah, once that happens, we'll be able to onboard those aircraft up to 1320 lbs for you guys to operate on.  

And then just want to elaborate a little bit too on the 44803s. Again, for those that don't know, it's a test site specific exemptions that we can do a lot of research and testing uh for a whole subset of aircraft. And that also enables us to move to operate aircraft up to 1,320 lbs. Frontier has been one of those participants on those waivers before, too. So, having that surveillance aspect of things, too, can enable BVLOS for much higher altitudes and much larger aircraft other than just 55 pounds themselves. 

Collin (15:36): 

Yeah. Yeah, and I'll add too, I meant the other thing that we want to try to do that I didn't mention is, you know, ag [agriculture] has become a very hot topic as well. So, that's something else we'd like to try to utilize on the network. You know, once we can kind of get the app all approved and whatnot on our manufacturer side, you know, doing more swarm testing and things like that, in a true BVLOS fashion. 

Hunter (16:04): 

Sweet. 

All right. So then with this partnership, we've been trying to plan it for a while now, but we're planning a Vantis fly day May 28th this year. A opportunity to see the Vantis system itself, at Gorman Field, the whole host of aircraft that that Collin's bringing and then how BVLOS is going to be in action, come part 108. So just want to elaborate on what you guys are hoping to get out of the fly day or what you guys think it's going to all entail. 

Collin (16:30): 

Yeah. So, we're bringing a number of aircraft. Obviously, we have to be a bit select because there's only a certain amount of daylight out there that we can that we can fly to. We're going to bring a host of aircraft out, a host of different sensors. We want to be able to really, you know, show the power of Vantis and what's possible. We'll have our mobile command trailer out there. Do some flights, show some data at different heights as well. So, it should be a really good time. As well as the other thing to note as well, you know, NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act] has become a huge topic this year. I mean, every single conversation that I have with a customer is around NDAA. Um, and there's a lot of folks that have only been familiarized with DJI. So, I think the other portion to this as well is show that NDAA compliant aircrafts are fully capable and maybe get some hands-on experience with some of those for folks. 

Hunter (17:30): 

Yep. I 100% agree on that. Could you see or could you elaborate a little bit too? Maybe this might be a little off tangent, but just how many of these aircraft are you're seeing on the blue and green list now? It seems like there it's been exploding on those list. Um more and more have been approved each and every week or day it seems like. 

Collin (17:45): 

Yeah. Yeah, I meant pretty much any manufacturer that's not Chinese uh is working towards that process. I know April 7th, I think we saw another 5 to 10 get approved on both blue and green. It's a long process to get it on there. A lot of them actually put in last year. So, Iwe should keep seeing that expand. We're seeing some great aircrafts get on that list now. And really give people some confidence in the ability to utilize them for these NDAA compliant projects. 

Hunter (18:17): 

Perfect. Yeah. So, advice to everybody else, if you haven't checked the list in, you know, a couple months or so, highly advise you guys go check it out. Again, list just keeps growing and growing and the capabilities keep expanding as time progresses. All right. What advice to others would you would you have when trying to navigate the BVLOS process? Um, you know, you said you did it yourself, um, and then you've done it with us, too. So, maybe some tangents there or just advice in general. 

Collin (18:44): 

Yeah. Um, I would 100% utilize Vantis for the waiver process. Like I said, the FAA is a is a finicky beast. Um, you could put one or two things wrong in a waiver and be, you know, not get it approved. Um, so you guys have been very essential in that. Unless you're a person that's reading the regs and running through them day in and day out. Um, you know, again, I can't, you know, stress enough to utilize Vantis for that process just because you guys are super helpful. Um, able to, you know, take the wants and needs and kind of navigate what's possible and what's not possible today. So, that would be my biggest thing for people to note. Um, as well as make sure that the other thing that we're seeing is make sure your aircraft is capable for what you're trying to achieve in the future. Don't limit yourself there. Um, so those would be kind of my two big things for uh for getting into BVLOS. 

Hunter (19:47): 

Perfect. All right, with that, I'll kind of just tie everything together for a quick synopsis but was joined here today with Collin from Frontier. We just got their BVLOS approval for all four Vantis volumes in North Dakota. That's over 5,000 square miles up to 400 ft UAS agnostic. Great step in the right direction when it came to navigating a new portal and a new pretty much safety process when it came to having that agnostic aspect of it. But yeah, Collin, any other thoughts? 

Collin (20:21): 

No. Really just appreciate you guys having us on. Really appreciate the partnership. Looking forward to where we can push things in the future. Um yeah, and thanks for having us on. 

Hunter (20:34): 

Perfect. I'll open it up to any questions in the chat right now. Otherwise, thank you guys for taking the time out of your day and look forward to the next Beyond the Buzz. Want to give a shout out to the Hive for hosting us once again. You'll see us continue to post and you'll continue to see us post successes whether it be waivers or exemptions or just operations in general. So, take a look, follow us on LinkedIn, and you'll see all about what the test site and Frontier are trying to do in the UAS world. 

Spectator Question (21:10): 

I want to know more about Friday. Where do I go or how do I want to if I want to take part in? 

Hunter (21:35): 

Yeah. So, for Friday, uh, if you want to go on to the test site or Vantis LinkedIn, um, it'll be there. Otherwise, we can drop the link in the chat for you guys to RSVP um and see it there as well. Okay, have no questions. Appreciate you guys. Thank you.