A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office of Air and Marine Predator B aircraft successfully completed the first long-range unmanned aircraft patrol to utilise the expanded certificate of authorization (COA) that was issued by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) this week-increasing the effectiveness of homeland security unmanned aircraft missions in support of counternarcotics, counterterrorism and border security operations.
Category Archives: Non-Military & Commercial UAS
Rotomotion Announces World’s Smallest VTOL UAS
Rotomotion has announced what it claims to be “the smallest, most affordable professional short endurance electric Vertical Take Off and Land Unmanned Aerial System (VTOL UAS) in the industry” – the SR5 Parvus. The company describes the SR5 as “the most advanced professional VTOL UAS in its weight and payload class providing military-grade autonomous flight with features such as stable hoover, event-driven automatic craft return and pre-loaded map and flight path tracking that allows in-flight switching between manual and autonomous modes”.
UAS Civil Airspace Integration Webinar
Avionics Magazine is hosting a Webinar entitled: UAS Civil Airspace Integration: Progress and Challenges on Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2011, from Noon to 1 p.m. ET. Continue reading
New President for Unmanned Systems, VT Group
The VT Group has announced that Daniel Bertram has joined the organization as president of the Unmanned Systems line of business and member of the Senior Leadership Team. In this role, he will have responsibility for the vertical and horizontal expansion of the group’s US services offering worldwide. Continue reading
MLB to Supply 5 UAS for US Fire Control
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Building and Fire Research Laboratory Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) Program, in Gaithersburg, MD, has just awarded a contract worth $927,500 to the MLB Company of Mountain View, California for five Unmanned Aerial Systems to collect data characterizing the location of a fire perimeter spreading through wild lands, fuels and atmospheric conditions. Continue reading
FAA Grants COAs to El Dorado, Kansas
The El Dorado Times in Kansas reports that the FAA has granted two Certificates of Authorization (COA) to the City of El Dorado to fly Unmanned Aircraft at El Dorado Municipal Captain Jack Thomas Memorial Airport for the next 12 months. The COAs are renewable and are granted by the FAA to public entities desiring Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) operations and allows the entity to use defined airspace for specified times and include special provisions unique to each operation.
The City of El Dorado applied for the COAs earlier this year after signing an agreement with Flint Hills Solutions (FHS), a local UAS solutions provider. The agreement includes the delegation to FHS by El Dorado to be the COA technical application administrator as well as the UAS designated operator for the City at El Dorado Airport.
Miami Police Buys Honeywell T-Hawk
The Miami-Dade County Police Department has finalised a deal to buy a T-Hawk from Honeywell and officially applied for permission from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) last month to begin flying it around the county. The 20-pound UAS has cameras mounted on the sides, can fly for 40 minutes at a time, reach 10,500 feet, and cruise at up to 46 mph.
Honeywell's T Hawk
Police in Houston have tested UAVs, and a Sheriff’s office in Colorado has a drone to look for stranded hikers, but no one has yet deployed a UAS in a large metropolitan area. The Army and the Air Force have more than 7,000 UAS overseas, and 44 other countries use the devices, but this is new territory for civilian law enforcement agencies. Already a number of parties have voiced concerns about the privacy issues raised by having overhead surveillance of this nature.
DIY Drones Factory Announces New Products
The amateur enthusiasts at the DIY Drones Factory announced that they are working on a dozen new products at the moment, and, in the spirit of the open source community, reveal some details on their blog in the name of transparency.
Read more details here