Air Force Special Operations Command plans to buy small unmanned aerial systems to survey airfields and determine whether aircraft can land there, the service said this week. Continue reading
US Marine Corps Orders 800 InstantEye Systems
InstantEye Mk-2 -GEN3
InstantEye Robotics announced that it has received an order from PMA-263, the Navy and Marine Corps Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program Office, for an additional 800 InstantEye Mk-2 GEN3-A0 sUAS systems. The systems delivered under this contract will support deployed Marine infantry squads, providing organic surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. Continue reading
Ground Control to Major Tom – Starman Drives his Tesla to Mars
The first Falcon Heavy rocket built by the private spaceflight company SpaceX soared on its maiden voyage today (Feb. 6) — a historic test flight that also sent a car toward Mars and included two confirmed booster landings. Billed as the world’s most powerful booster since NASA’s Saturn V, the Falcon Heavy rocket lifted off from Launch Pad 39A here at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) — the same site used by NASA’s Apollo moon missions and space shuttles — at 3:45 p.m. EST (2045GMT). Continue reading
Airports Council International Europe Publishes Drone Position Paper
The European Union’s Aviation Strategy has been a major driver of the development of new regulation on the use of drones, since its announcement in December 2015. With the political agreement on the new EASA Regulation, and the endorsement of the Helsinki Declaration by the aviation community late last year, the prospects for the EU’s rulebook on the use of drones have gathered further momentum. Continue reading
U.T.SEC 2018: “UAS will change our lives fundamentally – including in the security field”
The second edition of U.T.SEC – Unmanned Technologies & Security Expo & Conference will take place on Wednesday and Thursday, 7-8 March 2018, at the Exhibition Centre Nuremberg, in parallel with Enforce Tac, the special exhibition for police equipment. The entire focus of this still quite new trade fair is on drones and unmanned systems, how they can be used to improve security, and also how to defend against these technologies in structures that are relevant from a security perspective. Continue reading
US Drone Drug Smuggler Gets 12-Year Sentence
In Aug. 2017, Border Patrol agents arrested 25-year-old Jorge Rivera, a man who used a remotely operated drone to smuggle 13 pounds of methamphetamine into the United States. Rivera’s trial concluded last week and the jury sentenced him to 12-years in prison. Continue reading
AMA Takes Flight With AirMap
The Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA), the nation’s largest organization for model aircraft enthusiasts, has partnered with AirMap, an airspace management platform for unmanned aircraft. Continue reading
Delair Introduces Advanced Fixed-Wing UAV for Lidar-Based Aerial Surveying and 3D Mapping
Delair, a supplier of drone solutions for commercial industries, has introduced the next generation of its high-performance Delair DT26X LiDAR UAV, the industry’s first long-range fixed wing drone to combine highly accurate Light Distance and Ranging (LiDAR) sensing capabilities with an integrated high resolution RGB (red, green, blue) camera, dramatically increasing the precision, efficiency and cost effectiveness of surveying and 3D mapping. Continue reading