Welcome To Drone-kota

A cottage industry wants to put North Dakota on the map.

- Mark Sundeen

IN the downtown Fargo office of the startup Botlink, engineers, code writers, and executives huddled around me, thrusting a tablet to show off their app, an air traffic control interface that allows even the least skilled to fly a drone without crashing it into a plane.

“Real-time data distribution,” said one. “The orange circles show restricted airspace around airports. You want a beer? A Coke?” With the exception of the executives, all sharp smiles and good hair, the entourage was pure geek: sneakers and hoodies that limited exposure to sunlight and, in the Zuckerberg era, seemed to suggest imminent innovation and subsequent riches.

I had arrived in North Dakota last June, in the same week MarketWatch declared it the “Silicon Valley of drones.” At each stop I was regaled with the vocabulary of promise—disruptive tech, green fields, incubators, and accelerators. In the booming economy of drone technology, North Dakota has been an early and enthusiastic adopter. The Federal Aviation Administration chose it as one of six official drone test sites, and the entire state permits unmanned flights at night and at altitudes of 1,200 feet (as opposed to daylight and up to 200 feet, as per the rest of the nation). The U.S. Air Force, Air National Guard, and border patrol all pilot drones from Grand Forks Air Force Base. Adjacent to that, Northrup Grumman is building a facility as the anchor tenant at the Grand Sky unmanned aerial systems business and aviation park—the nation’s first. And the University of North Dakota launched the nation’s first undergraduate program in drone piloting in 2009.