Search Results for: drones

Unmanned aircraft systems are becoming more and more common, and could pose a threat to public safety particularly in the hands of inexperienced and uneducated operators. For example, as you may have read in several of Flying’s news stories, UAS have gotten in the way of airliners near major airports. There have been other cases […]

A video has just been released of a Guinness Record-breaking flight for the most drones airborne simultaneously, set in November at Flugplatz Ahrenlohe in Tornesch, Germany, a few miles northwest of Hamburg. “Drone 100” coordinated 100 UAS and provided a terrific show with multicolored aircraft creating patterns in the night skies. The patterned flight took […]

The NTSB says general aviations loss-of-control accident rate is too high, and held a day-long Humans and Hardware forum on the issue in October, in Washington, D.C. As the FAA worked last year to develop new rules governing the use of small drones in the National Airspace System, a Google executive said the company plans to launch commercial drone home deliveries in 2017. NBAA called its 2015 convention, held in November in Las Vegas, enormously successful on a business and community level. A group of NASA engineers and private-sector partners working in California is creating an X-Plane demonstrator, based on a Tecnam 2006T, that they hope will prove the efficiency of using an array of small electric-powered propellers for general aviation aircraft. The nonprofit group working to get the B-29 Doc back in the air exceeded their Kickstarter goal, raising $159,151 from 1,007 backers, and said they now have the funds they need to complete the flight-test program. And Jet Pack Aviation, of Australia, introduced its lightweight jetpack with a flyby of the Statue of Liberty.

The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) on June 23, 2015, wrote U.S. Senators saying it is fundamentally opposed to the dangerous policy shift proposed by the Pilots Bill of Rights II (PBOR2). Reader Martin Brookes writes that every instructor he has flown with couldnt resist adding their control input on landing via subtle, unannounced control inputs to help the student. This is an unfortunately common practice, sometimes called control riding. While its easy to bash the FAA efforts to regulate drones, its important to note Congress in 2012 told the agency to come up with a regulatory scheme allowing UAS operations in the national airspace.

“Swarm Man” takes to the sky — er, several feet off the ground — in a DIY super drone that sounds like an army of bees. The homebuilt flying machine is equipped with 54 counter-rotating propellers fastened in a hexagonal pattern, with a chair in the center. It’s also rigged with a polycarbonate dome, which […]

I awoke to the faded pastel orange of a rising sun. The sun’s glow was making a feeble attempt at blending into a dominant gray winter’s overcast. Only seconds into the transition from sleep to reality, my eyes began to track a pair of pinpoint amber lights. The lights moved at a rapid pace from […]

A tiny aircraft, too small to carry a person, flashes past your left wing. You never saw it; neither did ATC. You just had a near miss with a drone.There are large, heavy commercial and military drones capable of flying in the flight levels. Then, there are little drones that range from toys up to Amazons proposed single-package delivery device. While similar, each presents different challenges.

Putting ADS-B aboard small drones is not only possible, its already out there in limited volume. Sagetech Corp., which makes the Clarity and Clarity SV ADS-B portable receivers, has a line of micro transponders and ADS-B equipment. And we do mean micro. These devices are the size of a business card and about 0.7-inch thick. They weigh 100 grams, less antenna. Thats about the weight of a GoPro camera.

After a continued battle between UAV operators and the FAA, the agency has reached a decision to allow for more extensive commercial use of drones for the purpose of film production. The agency said today it has granted regulatory exemptions to six video production companies, the first step in allowing the film and television industry […]

Arguing that the safety of other aircraft and people on the ground is in jeopardy, the FAA said it will appeal a judge’s ruling that the agency lacks the legal authority to impose a total ban on commercial drone flights. The FAA’s action arose from a case involving Raphael Pirker, who was fined $10,000 for […]