
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc. has announced the successful first flight of its new Avenger Extended Range (ER) aircraft, an extended range version of its multi-mission jet-powered Predator C Avenger which has accumulated over 13,000 flight hours to date. The flight occurred on October 27th at the company’s Gray Butte Flight Operations Facility in Palmdale, Calif. Continue reading

The Maneuver Battle Lab hosted the Technical Cooperation Program for a week of testing unmanned aircraft systems at the McKenna Urban Operations Complex Oct. 17-21.
Launch an unmanned SBXC sailplane into the air with a catapult and it glides lazily down again in about three minutes. But when the sailplane is equipped with software to find plumes of warm air rising from the ground, known as thermals, it can ride them upward and extend its flight to a record-breaking five hours. 
The skies above Facebook’s Silicon Valley headquarters may soon be buzzing with the sound of quadcopter drones. That’s because the company plans to fly at least one small, wireless-beaming drone at an altitude of 400 feet around its headquarters in the coming months.
In mid-October NASA partners will fly five unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), commonly called drones, beyond visual line-of-sight of their human operators-in-command, to test planning, tracking and alerting capabilities of 