sUAS News

II Marine Expeditionary Force CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. – Marines with 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, conducted their initial qualification testing and training with the RQ-11B Raven Unmanned Air Vehicle, Nov. 20. The Raven course is a two-to-three week course that teaches Marines how to properly fly and operate the Raven. The course teaches the…The post A view from above: 3/6 Marines fly UAV appeared first on sUAS News.

A drone has shot footage less than 10 metres above the crashed helicopter on the Fox Glacier, providing mapping vital for recovering the remaining bodies and the wreckage. Seven people died when the helicopter crashed on the glacier on Saturday. Four bodies were recovered the next day, but three remain at the crash site and…The post NZ:- Fox Glacier drone survey completed appeared first on sUAS News.

Launching at a tower site near Vaughn, New Mexico, Insitu accomplished the first commercial beyond visual line of sight operation with an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) in the contiguous 48 states. The October 25th event marked the beginning of a week-long series of flights with BNSF Railway designed to show how unmanned aircraft technology can be…The post Insitu and BNSF ScanEagle first commercial BVLOS flight. appeared first on sUAS News.

Comprehensive GoPro control has arrived in the Solo App! In addition to other feature improvements, version 1.3 brings you in-flight access to GoPro camera settings. In the last release (1.2.1) you got the ability to toggle between standard video mode (shoot up to 4k w/ HERO 4 Black) and photo mode. Now you can use…The post Announcing Solo App Version 1.3: GoPro control appeared first on sUAS News.

As the founder of MLWAir (The Only All First-Class Boeing 767) and DroneData and like most ticketed flyers today, I am concerned how drones will impact air safety. Coupled with all the concerns about air safety, it appears that the FAA UAS Registration Task Force has a serious gap in its representation. With multiple retailers, drone manufacturers, and…The post How Will the FAA Task Force Prevent Drones From Entering Airspace? appeared first on sUAS News.

TEKEVER Group leads consortium that will fight a disease responsible for eliminating 250 hectares of vineyards in the north of Portugal and thousands in all Europe. This project – called PARRA – is starting next spring with a budget of €1 million supported by European Commission structural funds. Lisbon, 24 November 2015 – PARRA project…The post TEKEVER drones to detect vine disease appeared first on sUAS News.

COPENHAGEN, Phase One Industrial today announced the Phase One Software Development Kit (SDK) 8.3.3 in Linux, Windows and Mac OS versions. This SDK provides tools that enable users to build custom applications to control the way Phase One aerial cameras capture and process images. It enables users to precisely control which parameters to apply —…The post Phase One Industrial Releases Software Development Kit 8.3.3 for Developers of Aerial Systems in Linux, Windows and Mac Versions appeared first on sUAS News.

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — An Air Force Research Laboratory-sponsored X-56A unmanned air vehicle crashed Nov. 19 at approximately 9:30 Pacific Daylight Time on Rogers Dry Lakebed test range at Edwards AFB, California. The mishap occurred shortly after takeoff. Initial estimates report severe damage to the vehicle. There are no reports of injuries or property damage…The post X-56A crashes during flight test appeared first on sUAS News.

The Blade® brand and ImmersionRC have teamed up to deliver the cutting-edge Vortex 250 Pro multirotor with Spektrum™ technology. ProTuned for FPV racing, now pilots who want next-level performance can enjoy Bind-N-Fly® convenience. ImmersionRC introduced the original Vortex ARF when the FPV racing phenomena began. Now race seasoned experts across the globe have weighed in…The post Vortex 25 Pro Race Ready 250-Class FPV Quad for the Experienced Pilot appeared first on sUAS News.

Resource Group, the leading UK training organisation for unmanned aircraft has launched a 10% discount for 2016 drone training courses booked in advance of the 2015 festive season. The Remote Pilot Qualification – small (RPQ-s) course is for those who have flown a drone as a hobby and would like to fly commercially for business…The post ‘Make your new year’s resolution now, turn your hobby into a business’ says the UK leading drone training provider appeared first on sUAS News.

MUNCIE, Ind. – Dave Mathewson, executive director of the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) which is the world’s largest community-based organization, today made the following statement on the recommendations released by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Task Force on UAS registration: “As a member of the task force, AMA agrees that registration of UAS makes…The post AMA reacts to DOT task force recommendations on UAS registration appeared first on sUAS News.

We like teasing, so we’ll only reveal what our Black Friday surprise package contains later this week. Wanna know? Join our Black Friday event on FB to be notified first and get your hands on the goods before everyone else. Click Here To Join And better even: we’ll give away one Hexo+ package to a…The post Hexo+ Black Friday suprise appeared first on sUAS News.

By Elizabeth A Tennyson The FAA has accepted the final recommendations of its drone registration task force and begun the rulemaking process, moving the agency one step closer to establishing registration procedures ahead of anticipated record holiday sales of drones. The task force, which included AOPA, focused on producing recommendations that would encourage compliance by making…The post AOPA – FAA releases drone registration recommendations appeared first on sUAS News.

I’m not going to cover the legal issues with drone registration that I made in the previous blog post. I will only briefly discuss (1) the recommendations, (2) a few potential problems with the recommendations, and (3) what happens next in the rulemaking process. The aviation rule making committee’s recommendations on drone registration can be…The post The Drone Registration Committee Turned in Their Recommendations to the FAA. Now What? appeared first on sUAS News.

By Robin Wauters This happened last week but seems to have been largely overlooked by non-French media: Parrot, the publicly-listed, Paris, France-based maker of drones and other consumer electronics, has increased its capital by just south of €300 million. Bpifrance, the French government-backed investment group, is injecting €33 million (PDF) into the company in exchange…The post Banking on drones: France’s Parrot increases capital by €300m; Bpifrance takes 5% stake for €33m appeared first on sUAS News.

Remote control airborne drones are becoming increasingly popular playthings for hobbyists around the world, but not in Uzbekistan. Officials in Guliston, a town some 100 kilometers south of the capital, found and confiscated four small pilotless drones during what appears to have been a major multi-departmental operation. The government’s Electromagnetic Compatibility Enforcement Service produced pictures…The post Uzbekistan Nabs Drone Ban Violators appeared first on sUAS News.

Recommendations to regulator seen as reasonable approach to accountability New York, November 23, 2015 – DJI, the world leader in drone technology, has concluded its participation on the Federal Aviation Administration Unmanned Aircraft Systems Registration Task Force. The report of the Task Force was released to the public today. We share the concerns of many of…The post DJI Concludes Participation on FAA Drone-Registration Task Force appeared first on sUAS News.

Perhaps I am missing the point as ever but any RPA might catch fire in an off. Instantly I saw something that would not fly in South Africa. No requirement for fireproof ID. Here is how its written in South Africa… Small Fireproof Identification Plate It is also required to have a small identification plate that is…The post Unmanned Aircraft Systems Registration Task Force recommendations… not fireproof appeared first on sUAS News.

DJI is pleased to offer the following Black Friday deals: 　 RRP Original (USD) Promotion (USD) Phantom 3 Professional $1,259 $1,159+one free Battery Phantom 3 standard $799 $599 DJI is also offering a Black Friday special on the Ronin-M. Anyone buying the Ronin-M during the BlackFriday promotion period will get a free 1580mAh battery (price in our…The post DJI Announces Black Friday Deals appeared first on sUAS News.

Kansas State University’s polytechnic campus has set a new precedent in the unmanned aircraft systems industry, becoming the first entity in the United States to receive approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to provide UAS commercial flight training to both students and outside companies. The authorization, which is referred to as a Section 333 exemption,…The post Kansas State University’s polytechnic campus receives nation’s first approval for unmanned commercial flight training appeared first on sUAS News.

Without a serial number and without a registration number, how on earth were we supposed to insure these things? How could we know that the aircraft we were insuring even existed? Or ever existed for that matter? That’s a big problem when it comes to insuring something. When Transport Risk Management began insuring drones five…The post Drone registration? We’ve been doing it for years…because we had to appeared first on sUAS News.

by Christian W The traffic authority Traffikstyrelsen will next year unveil a new driver’s licence for drone operators in order to curb the increasing number of reports of illegal flying. Over the last two years, Traffikstyrelsen has registered 27 cases involving people who have flown their drones illegally. Two of the cases involve the national broadcaster…The post Denmark:- Driver licences for drones on the horizon appeared first on sUAS News.

Olive Keogh Award-winning film-makers, Susan Talbot and Steven Flynn, are the brains behindSkytango, a new aerial content service aimed at those producing broadcast or online video content. Skytango was born out of necessity when the couple, who set up Aerial Filming Ireland in 2012 to capture images using remotely piloted aerial systems [better known as drone]…The post Connecting drone flyers with aerial content buyers appeared first on sUAS News.

New calls are being made for tighter regulations surrounding the use of drone aircraft in China. It comes on the heels of a new video making the rounds on the internet. CRI’s Luo Wen explains. The video, captured by a private drone, shows a Chinese fighter jet making a landing while the drone attempts to…The post China:- Stricter Regulation Urged for Drones appeared first on sUAS News.

Is Plexidrone next in line for a fall? Backer Scott Wilkinson posted this Sunday morning in the crowdfunded projects Indiegogo comments Scott Wilkinson Have received a response from them only offering a 50% refund due to development costs. This is all quite tiresome. Getting very nervous that this is a SCAM. I don’t want…The post Plexidrone appeared first on sUAS News.

Earlier this week, the developers of the Sprite, a small, durable drone that offers an alternative to larger, generally more fragile quadcopter drones, was presented with the latest Proto Labs Cool Idea! Award, a service grant given to innovative companies. The Sprite Drone, developed by Arizona-based Ascent AeroSystems, is an ultra-portable drone that collapses to…The post Kickstarter Alum “Sprite” Compact Drone Named Proto Labs’ Cool Idea! Award Winner appeared first on sUAS News.

Scott Kraus The Federal Aviation Administration received at least five reports of drones operating near or originating from Lehigh Valley International and Queen City airports in 2015, posing a potential hazard to air traffic: • May 7: A woman called Queen City Airport at 11 p.m. to report someone flying a drone less than half…The post Lehigh Valley drone incidents appeared first on sUAS News.

At the direction of the Secretary, the FAA announced the formation of a task force to develop a process for owners of small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) to register their aircraft. This group of experts embraced the challenge with the energy and creativity we expected and delivered its report to me today as scheduled. We…The post Statement from FAA Administrator Michael Huerta on UAS Registration Task Force Report appeared first on sUAS News.

By: Carola Vyhnak Special to the Star, Buzzing like a giant mosquito, the black and white YUNEEC Q500 rises up 20 metres — then 30 — in front of the lake house and then heads out over the water. With photographer Murray Hadfield at the controls from the ground below, the drone moves up and…The post Drone technology gives new eyes to size appeared first on sUAS News.

Happy Montgolfier Day Everyone! On the 21st November 1783, Pilâtre de Rozier & the Marquis d’Arlandes, made the first, manned, free ascent in a balloon, flying the Montgolfier Brothers built aerostat for about 5.5 miles (9 km) in approximately 25 minutes. Two hundred and thirty two years later the FAA is set to announce registration…The post Mandatory drone registration appeared first on sUAS News.

When MWH Geo-Surveys International was employed to conduct a micro-gravity survey of an Omani mine, the company’s senseFly eBee drone was the only solution its team trusted to produce the elevation model the client required. According to Kevin MacNabb, a founding partner and owner of MWH Geo-Surveys, the conventional options for obtaining a high-resolution digital elevation model…The post Using an eBee Drone to Boost a Micro-Gravity Survey’s Precision appeared first on sUAS News.

We are looking to hire a sUAS & Robotics Test Pilot to join our Engineering team. You will join our existing team of test pilots who put our products through real world customer experiences every day. Success for this position entails building detailed, complex real world flight scenarios and finding the difficult, obscure conditions, which…The post Aeryon Labs require an sUAS & Robotics Test Pilot appeared first on sUAS News.

Ummmmmm – (ed) By Temkin Jafarov – Trend: An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) Hodhod-3, equipped with an optical tracking device Dideban-1, has been created for the first time in Iran, a member of the research group on the development of the Hodhod-3 UAV Mustafa Hasapanah said Nov.20, the…The post Iran creates first special-purpose UAV with VTOL appeared first on sUAS News.

Dan Caplinger Drones have become increasingly important in a wide range of applications, and as the potential use of drones in military and commercial applications has risen, so too have the prospects for drone makers like AeroVironment (NASDAQ:AVAV). As the release of its fiscal second-quarter financial report approaches, AeroVironment investors have become increasingly concerned that…The post Can AeroVironment Cash In on Soaring Drone Demand? appeared first on sUAS News.

WASHINGTON | BY IDREES ALI The U.S. Navy will likely map out the future for a new armed, carrier-based drone as part of its fiscal 2017 budget proposal after completion of a Pentagon-wide study of surveillance and intelligence needs, a Navy official said on Friday. The official, who asked not to be named, said the…The post Reuters:- Decisions on carrier drone in next budget: U.S. Navy appeared first on sUAS News.

By JOAN LOWY, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — An aviation industry task force is recommending that operators be required to register drones weighing as little as a half a pound, a threshold that could include some remote-controlled toys, industry officials said. Federal Aviation Administration officials who convened the 25-member task force on drone registration have…The post AP sources: Task force backs registration of drones weighing as little as some toy helicopters appeared first on sUAS News.

Posted by Michael Huerta Last month, Secretary Foxx and I announced that the Department of Transportation would work to develop a process for owners of small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) to register their aircraft. Registration will instill a sense ofaccountability and responsibility among UAS pilots, and also will prompt them to become educated about safe…The post Registration process marks significant milestone in FAA’s safe integration of small UAS appeared first on sUAS News.

NEW DELHI: There were meant to be the eyes and ears of the Indian Army – a state of the art unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) meant to give Army commanders high definition images of a battlefield, help designate targets, and provide Electronic and Signal Intelligence information. Instead, the home-grown Nishant UAV, developed by the Defence…The post Homegrown Nishant Drone’s Perfect Crash Record appeared first on sUAS News.

Beth Stevenson The UK’s Military Aviation Authority (MAA) is seeking to allow readily-available commercial unmanned air vehicles to be operated by military personnel, as a lack of aviation experience currently prohibits them from doing so. In order for non-traditional aviation units to be able to operate commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) UAVs, the current MAA classifications for…The post Flightglobal:- UK MAA seeks to allow commercial UAV ops by military personnel appeared first on sUAS News.

Devon and Cornwall Police are preparing to launch their latest weapon against football violence this weekend – drones. The Plymouth Argyle v Exeter City derby regularly sees crowd trouble and additional police units are being deployed for the clash at Home Park on Saturday. The game has been rated as a Category C by police…The post Police drone to monitor Argyle and Exeter match appeared first on sUAS News.

Laser altimeter sensor assists conservation groups to improve the scaling accuracy of photographs. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become an important tool for conservation practitioners and have been successfully applied in game counting in Kenya, seal monitoring in the Arctic and for anti-poaching work in Southern Africa. One area of particular interest is in accurate…The post LightWare’s laser altimeters advance conservation work appeared first on sUAS News.

With the recent release of UgCS 2.6, two new vehicles have been added to the lineup of supported vehicles from DJI in UgCS – Phantom 3 and Inspire 1. As some of you may have heard – DJI will discontinue their support for their desktop mission planning software Ground Station as well as their…The post UgCS broadens support for DJI drones appeared first on sUAS News.

Alan Levin Even small toy drones can pose a significant hazard to conventional planes and helicopters in a collision, according to a study. Drones will “most certainly” cause more damage to aircraft than birds, which have caused airliners to crash, according to the study by Texas group Aero Kinetics Aviation. Drones are made of solid plastics,…The post Toy drones pose more risk to planes than birds, study says appeared first on sUAS News.

Seems I might have been a little hasty calling out the AMA safety video view count yesterday. Jeff Nance the AMAs Director of Marketing and Digital Strategy emailed and explained that the video had been leaked. We were planning on rolling out the video series with one…The post Several messages about drone safety from the AMA appeared first on sUAS News.

by Willy Lowry and Sophie Tremblay – TANZANIA –For the last year, Bathawk Recon, a Tanzanian startup company, has been using unmanned aerial vehicles—i.e. drones—to track wildlife and poachers as part of an anti-poaching initiative. This is part of a larger movement in which drones are increasingly being used…The post This startup wants to launch a major anti-poaching initiative using drones appeared first on sUAS News.

Seems I might have been a little hasty calling out the AMA safety video view count yesterday. Jeff Nance the AMAs Director of Marketing and Digital Strategy emailed and explained that the video had been leaked. We were planning on rolling out the video series with one video a week. Here are all the videos…The post Several messages about drone safety from the AMA appeared first on sUAS News.

All India | Written by Vishnu Som NEW DELHI: There were meant to be the eyes and ears of the Indian Army – a state of the art unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) meant to give Army commanders high definition images of a battlefield, help designate targets, and provide Electronic and Signal Intelligence information. Instead, the…The post Homegrown Nishant Drone’s Perfect Crash Record appeared first on sUAS News.

Alan Levin Even small toy drones can pose a significant hazard to conventional planes and helicopters in a collision, according to a study. Drones will “most certainly” cause more damage to aircraft than birds, which have caused airliners to crash, according to the study by Texas group Aero Kinetics Aviation. Drones are made of solid plastics,…The post Toy drones pose more risk to planes than birds, study says appeared first on sUAS News.

Federal authorities are looking into an incident in Linden, New Jersey, in which a small drone crashed into a car outside a Phillips 66 oil refinery. No immediate threat was identified, but officials are on edge in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris. Security at the Bayway Refinery phoned the Linden Police Department on…The post RT:- FBI investigates drone crash outside NJ refinery appeared first on sUAS News.