Mark Zuckerberg announced on Facebook (where else?) on March 26th that the company had successfully completed its first test flight of its unmanned aircraft in the UK.
Department of Justice Audit on UAS Use
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives spent “approximately $600,000” on drones it never flew operationally, according to an audit conducted by a Justice Department watchdog and released Wednesday. Continue reading
Drones Hold Great Promise For Medical Applications
In some remote parts of the world, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are already being field-tested for medical uses. Drones successfully delivered small aid packages after the Haitian earthquake in 2012, and in Papua New Guinea, Doctors Without Borders used them to transport dummy TB test samples from a remote village to the large coastal city of Kerema.
Hexacopter Tracks Whales off California Coast
Wayne Perryman, a biologist and fellow Southwest Fisheries Science Center, researcher John Durban are pioneering the use of drones to track baleen whales. The team’s small hexacopter has already captured amazing images of killer whales of the coast of Canada. Continue reading
Unmanned Helicopters on Mars
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently announced that it is developing a small drone helicopter to scout the way for future Mars rovers. Why would Mars rovers need such a robotic guide? The answer is that driving on Mars is really hard. Continue reading
Swedish SWAT Team Considers Drones for Special Operations
Swedish police are testing the use of drones, with a special emphasis on SWAT and possible search and rescue operations. It’s unknown how many drones the police in Sweden plan to order, but they would be used in select cases, with testing beginning sometime this summer.
nEUron Flight Tests Move to Italy
Testing of the pan-European nEUron unmanned combat air vehicle demonstrator is due to move to Italy following the completion of French testing of the aircraft. Following 100 test flights by Dassault Aviation in France, during which the sensor, data-link and stealth characteristics of the demonstrator were tested, responsibility for the six-nation nEUron aircraft will be transferred to Alenia Aermacchi ahead of a follow-up test phase by Saab in Sweden.
Boeing B-52 Stratofortress Flyover
The United States Air Force flew this B-52 Stratofortress all the way from Guam to Avalon in Australia to provide visitors to the Australian International Airshow with a chance to see this awesome aircraft flyby at speed. Continue reading