China-based Da-Jiang Innovations Science and Technology Co., Ltd. (DJI) are the first company to break the magical 1000 registrations. There are now 1033 DJI platforms flying commercially in North America. All of them multirotors.

It only seems a short while ago that the FAA were predicting 8000 licensed UAS total in the NAS how things change.

The growth in registered drones since Jim Williams announced the 333 exemption process for commercial flight last year could be said to be exponential. Speaking yesterday at the start of the UAS Registration Meeting, FAA chief Michael Huerta had this to say

“The holidays are weeks away, and unmanned aircraft are going to be a popular gift item. By some estimates, 700,000 new aircraft could be in the homes of consumers by the end of the year. This means unmanned aircraft could soon far outnumber manned aircraft operating in our nation’s airspace.”

Currently 312 984 aircraft are registered in the USA and already 2563 are drones. So that’s 0.82% and climbing.

The breakdown of DJI craft registered looks like this

Founded in 2006 by Frank Wang DJI have become in nine years larger than some of the military drone vendors that preceded them. All without selling into a war for cast iron contracts at inflated prices.

Remember what we are showing here is registered platforms, there are perhaps 10 to 20 times more flying privately in the USA.