The U.S Ex-Im Bank

The Export-Import bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) assists in financing the exports of U.S goods and services to international markets. The Ex-Im Bank enables U.S companies to maintain and create U.S jobs and contribute to a stronger national economy by turning export opportunities into real sales. It provides export-financing products that fill gaps in trade financing. They assume credit and country risks that private sectors are unable or unwilling to accept. The Ex-Im Bank also matches the financing that other government provides to their exporters. The services that the Ex-Im Bank provides include: Working capital guarantees (pre-export financing), export credit insurance, and loan guarantees and direct loans (buyer financing).  More than 85% of transactions directly benefit U.S small businesses.

            Marion C. Blakey, President & CEO of Gulfstream supports the Ex-Im Bank by saying that it is “an essential partner for American job creating manufacturers, and for many supply chain companies that support them.”  The Ex-Im Bank has made a strong commitment to supporting not only GA, but also space systems and commercial aviation. The Ex-Im Bank actually returned more than $1.1 billion last year to the treasury.

            The Ex-Im Bank is under criticism for allegedly favoring special interests ahead of that of the U.S. taxpayer. Aside from the criticism I find that the Ex-Im Bank is more good than it is bad. The Ex-Im Bank support is the only way many U.S aerospace manufacturers have a fair fight. The biggest beneficiaries of these sales are small and mid-sized companies that supply major manufacturers with parts, systems and equipment. Also that fact that it actually returned $1.1 billion to the U.S treasury heavily supports its existence.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

            When you think Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) you are generally thinking about military or special ops applications, but they have more uses then just military. The civilian applications for UAVs consists of remote sensing, commercial aerial surveillance, commercial and motion picture filmmaking, domestic policing, oil and gas exploration and production, disaster relief, scientific research, search and rescue, conservation, maritime patrol, and archaeology. The only way those civil operators of UAVs are obtaining an experimental airworthiness certificate. The certificate regulations preclude carrying passengers and property for hire, but do allow operations for research and development, flight and sales demonstrations and crew training.

 The FAA is currently working with operators to collect information to develop a future path for safe integration of civil UAVs into the NAS. The problems I foresee in civil UAVs is the potential for terrorism through hacking the aircraft. Amazon has already released that the company plans on using UAVs to deliver packages from their warehouses to the customer’s front door and plane on doing this potentially in less than 30 minutes. Although I find it a good idea there are some problems I see in the choice in delivery. There is potential for possible thievery, as in someone might shoot down the UAV and steal the packages.

I support the military application of UAVs because of the dangerous situations that pilots or soldiers could be put in. I find it much safer to send in a UAV over a pilot in some cases to be beneficial because of potential loss of life. In 2012, the United States air force actually trained more UAV pilots then actual fighter jet pilots.

In my research I found multiple job postings for UAV pilots. On of the jobs I found was for a Sensor Operator in palmdale California.