Most drone use cases fail for a surprisingly mundane reason: they can’t safely or legally scale past a few hundred meters. The aircraft are capable of flying kilometers, but operations collapse once you factor in regulatory limits, detection physics, and fragile surveillance infrastructure.

James Dunthorne has encountered this constraint from every angle. From PhD research on collision avoidance to early agricultural drone deployments and high-precision surveying over railways and landmark sites, he’s seen exactly where theory breaks when exposed to real airspace.

This conversation digs into what actually blocks BVLOS operations: mixed transponder environments, latency requirements measured in seconds, why centralized flight-tracking systems struggle under regulatory scrutiny, and how edge-based sensor networks change what’s possible for drones, aviation, and AI-driven systems in the physical world.

What You’ll Learn

• Why BVLOS is an infrastructure problem, not a drone problem: Aircraft capability is rarely the constraint; reliable surveillance and separation in mixed low-altitude airspace is.
• Why visual line of sight is a weak safety mechanism: Human vision and standard cameras fail at meaningful ranges given aircraft closing speeds.
• How electronic conspicuity fragments the airspace picture: Multiple non-interoperable transponders and non-transponding aircraft create unavoidable gaps.
• Why multilateration enables detection without GPS: Legacy Mode S aircraft can be located using precise timing across multiple ground sensors.
• Why centralized flight-tracking systems fail safety-critical tests: Single points of failure, variable latency, and opaque architectures undermine regulatory confidence.
• How edge networks localize failure and reduce latency: Direct sensor-to-consumer connections keep surveillance resilient and deterministic.
• Why incentives matter when scaling physical networks: Revenue sharing turns infrastructure deployment into a distributed, maintainable system.
• How this architecture extends beyond aviation: A real-time physical-world data layer becomes foundational for AI, robotics, and autonomous systems.

Time-Stamped Highlights

• (01:10) Aerospace Engineering and Autonomous Systems Origins
• (03:10) Collision Avoidance and Regulatory Safety Limits
• (05:10) Agricultural Drones and NDVI in Practice
• (07:10) The 500-Meter Constraint and Operational Inefficiency
• (09:15) From Drones to GIS and Surveying
• (12:10) High-Accuracy Rail Inspections From the Air
• (14:30) Discovering the BVLOS Bottleneck
• (18:10) Why Closing Airspace Doesn’t Scale
• (22:00) Radar, Cameras, and Detection Physics
• (26:15) Transponder Fragmentation in Low Airspace
• (30:15) Multilateration and Time Synchronization
• (34:20) Why Surveillance Must Be Ground-Based
• (37:40) Latency, Reliability, and Centralized SaaS Limits
• (41:30) Edge Networks and Failure Localization
• (46:10) Cyber Risk in Safety-Critical Systems
• (51:05) Scaling Sensors With Economic Incentives
• (54:30) From Local Coverage to Global Networks
• (58:10) AI, Software Moats, and Physical Data
• (01:03:40) Travel, Trust, and the Return of Face-to-Face

Guest

James Dunthorne — CEO & Co-Founder, Neuron
James is the CEO and co-founder of Neuron, where he leads the development of edge-based sensor networks and surveillance infrastructure that enable beyond-visual-line-of-sight drone operations in mixed airspace. He brings over 15 years of experience across aerospace engineering, autonomous systems, drone operations, and high-accuracy surveying, with a background spanning academic research, regulated aviation environments, and real-world deployments.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesdunthorne/

About the Podcast

Travel Tech Podcast features long-form conversations with leaders across travel and technology. The show explores how software, data, operations, and distribution come together in real businesses, with an emphasis on tradeoffs, incentives, and lessons that transfer beyond any single company or role.

Host

Alex Brooker — Founder, Airside Labs
Alex is an engineer, technology leader, and founder with deep expertise in mission-critical systems and AI oversight. He leads Airside Labs, a consultancy that applies aviation-grade testing and compliance rigor to enterprise AI systems, helping organizations uncover bias, privacy risks, and governance gaps in regulated environments. Before founding Airside Labs, Alex built and scaled complex software in aviation and safety-critical domains, blending product innovation with disciplined engineering practices. He also invests in early-stage technology ventures and advocates for thoughtful, real-world AI deployment strategies.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-brooker-2280002/

Links & References

• Neuron: https://neuron.world
• Neuron on X: https://x.com/neuron_world
• Jet Vision (flight surveillance partner referenced)
• NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index)
• ADS-B, Mode S, and multilateration (aviation surveillance concepts)
• 4D Sky: https://4dsky.com
• Land’s End Airport (operational deployment referenced)
• NATO (project referenced)
• Gatwick Airport drone incident (airspace security reference)

Brought To You By

Airside Labs — Airside Labs supports aviation and travel operators with tools to test, deploy, and scale modern data and AI systems in safety-critical environments. Learn more at https://airsidelabs.com.