Colorado start-up company Iron Ridge UAS sees UAS technology as a huge opportunity economically. And it intends to position itself to be a leader in the industry by the time the Federal Aviation Administration issues its rules governing commercial UAS use in a few years. Which is why Iron Ridge appeared before the Airport Advisory Board and the Longmont City Council. Continue reading
Bloomberg Report on Commercial UAS Applications
Skycatch CEO Chris Sanz discusses the possible commercial applications for drones. Continue reading
Tethered QuadCopters Shoot Aerial Photos
Three UAS on retractable dog leashes fly overhead, capturing live aerial video of the all the faces gaping from auditorium seats below. Welcome to TED 2014.The leashes are held by Sergei Lupshin, the Zurich-based roboticist who invented these tethered quadcopters. He calls them Fotokites, and the idea is to show that a leash can completely change the nature of a UAS. Continue reading
Parrot AR.Drone Films Solo Trek to South Pole
Antony Jinman, British Explorer, teamed with Parrot for an amazing expedition – a 47-day solo trek the South Pole.
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Iranian UAS are Worthy of Serious Consideration
Observers of formal Iranian reports dealing with the development of various weapon systems have been familiar, for years now, with the ritual where various weapons are presented to senior officials, normally in the presence of the Iranian Defence Minister, who has the honour of unveiling “the world’s best and most advanced” weapon systems, as they are normally introduced.
NASA Dryden Students Achieve Proverse Yaw Through Wing Tip Aerodynamics
A group of college aerospace engineering students in the 2012-2013 Aeronautics Academy at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center have proven German aerodynamicist Ludwig Prandtl’s theory on how to overcome one of the thorny problems of flight — adverse yaw due to induced drag — without relying on rudders or complicated computerized flight controls to accomplish it. Continue reading
US Air Force Cadets Hunt Down Pine Beetles
Cadets in the US Air Force Academy’s Systems Engineering 460 course are engineering a remotely piloted aircraft programme and platform to monitor ponderosa pine trees for beetle infestations. They’re set to select a sensor for their RPA that can scan trees in near-infrared and visible light wavelengths to spot ips beetle infestations.
RQ-4B Global Hawk Resurrected for Static Training
During a flight in May 2009, an Edwards RQ-4B Global Hawk Block 20 remotely piloted aircraft (tail number 2016) encountered a complete spoiler communication loss and had to execute an emergency landing on the dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base. During landing, the aircraft sustained major damage to the right main landing gear and wing when it struck a precision approach path indicator light.

