January 13, 2017

Drone company creates a buzz

LAFAYETTE — With four years of research and development under his belt, Allen Bishop is gearing up to take orders for his commercial drones in February.  His company, Reference Technologies Inc., known as ReferenceTek, has developed a series of drones named after the only bird that can fly one-quarter of a mile backwards: the Hummingbird.

Unlike hobby drones, which typically have flight times in the five- to seven-minute range and can carry little extra weight for add-ons such as cameras, Reference Technologies’ Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can carry 50 pounds and spend about six hours in the air.

“They could be parked above a fire like the one that was in Fourmile Canyon and feed live video back to the station, for example, or be used for search and rescue to find lost people,” Bishop said, adding that Hummingbird UAVs can cover a wide area of square miles in minutes.

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Bishop, whose background includes starting and selling successful companies in both software and storage, 40 years as a pilot, and a career in Air Force reconnaissance, started looking seriously at drones in 2011.

“I learned that most UAVs were able to be in the air for only 15 to 20 minutes — not long enough to make a profit,” he said.  His solution was to create a central ducted fan with six additional cylinders around it. The design allowed the drone to run more like a hybrid car, switching back and forth between engine power and battery power.

“We built a prototype, but it needed a lot of electrical power, and in 2012 there was nothing available. We had to wait another year for a company back east to develop the kind of power system it needed.”

One of the boosts Reference Technologies got early on came from a $250,000 grant from the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade’s Advanced Industry Accelerator Grant Program.

Technically, the program awarded the funds for Bishop’s system because it uniquely increased air time and payload capacity for battery powered UAVs. He, on the other hand, believes it was because of his 10-minute elevator pitch.

One graphic showed Reference Technologies in the center surrounded by 30 cells that listed companies Bishop does business with in Colorado — from machine shops to hardware suppliers.  The next picture added onto the 30 cells with 10 Colorado aerospace companies that were interested in Reference Technologies’ products.

Adding in the number of statewide jobs as well as revenue streams for taxes and payroll taxes that would be bolstered by Reference Technologies’ work sealed the deal.

“Colorado is very much behind unmanned aircraft,” Bishop said.

And the aerospace industry is already a major contributor to Colorado’s economy, accounting for 66,000 employees and $16 billion in revenue, so the potential was somewhat of an easy sell.

“About 85 percent of the products we use are manufactured in Colorado,” Bishop said.  “It’s easier to be local and drive to have face-to-face meetings with suppliers than it is to fly to meet with out of state companies.”

Early on, Bishop hired graduate student interns to work part-time between classes in the University of Colorado’s Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles.

Today, he continues to run a lean business by hiring more contractors than employees.  “I would have had to let employees go or find other jobs for them if I would have initially hired people.  Doing it this way, I’ve gotten a lot done for hundreds of thousands of dollars rather than for millions.”

He now works with 15 contractors.

Bishop is currently getting calls of interest in his Hummingbirds from places such as Chile, Israel, Mexico, Peru and Africa, in addition to the United States.  He expects to produce upward of 100 aircraft, which will each sell for about $300,000, in 2017.

LAFAYETTE — With four years of research and development under his belt, Allen Bishop is gearing up to take orders for his commercial drones in February.  His company, Reference Technologies Inc., known as ReferenceTek, has developed a series of drones named after the only bird that can fly one-quarter of a mile backwards: the Hummingbird.

Unlike hobby drones, which typically have flight times in the five- to seven-minute range and can carry little extra weight for add-ons such as cameras, Reference Technologies’ Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can carry 50 pounds and spend about six hours in…

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