Drones

When we first came across a video last week of a drone’s dramatic encounter with an airliner, like a lot of people we assumed it was fake – or at least impossible to verify as real. Now, the FAA confirms to Flying it is taking the video very seriously, and members of the drone community […]

Although GoPro founder and CEO Nicholas Woodman is taking a pay cut down to $1, it won’t be enough to save GoPro’s Karma drone or any of the employees tied to its production. After reducing its global workforce from 1,254 employees to fewer than 1,000 as of September 30, 2017, GoPro has announced that it […]

The FAA, as ordered by President Donald Trump, will begin charging hobbyist drone operators $5 each to register themselves with the federal government — just in time for Christmas. Congress submitted the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 bill, however, the subsection Restoration of Rules for Registration and Marking of Unmanned Aircraft is […]

Just in time to help the tens of thousands of people around the U.S. who expect to see a drone beneath their Christmas tree comes word that Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University will again launch its free online course to teach new operators how to safely operate their drones once they pull them out of the box. […]

It’s hard to forget the holiday season of 2015. You could walk into a Best Buy and walk out with a DJI Phantom 3 Standard for $250. Black Friday sales had taken an already well-priced drone and made it a must have item for a lot of American households. I remember, because I paid $750 […]

A California man’s multiple attempts at dropping anti-media pamphlets over NFL stadium crowds landed him in jail after flying over Oakland Coliseum and Levi’s Stadium during Sunday’s games. Tracy Mapes, a 55-year-old Sacramento resident, was cited and released by Santa Clara police for flying the drone in violation of a local municipal code, department spokesperson […]

Professional drone racing pilot Ken ‘FlyingBear’ Loo is used to racing the likes of Paul ‘Nurk’ Nurkala, Nick ‘Wild Willy’ Willard and Jordan ‘Jet’ Temkin through extravagant tracks in cool locations, later to be aired on ESPN. Racing a NASA-built autonomous drone? Not so much. “We pitted our algorithms against a human, who flies a […]

Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao’s office sent out a memo announcing new information about the FAA’s state program to allow state and local governments to control their own drone regulations. It will also allow them to partner with private sector entities such as UAS operators or manufacturers to accelerate safe UAS integration. “Entities that wish […]

Waiting three months for drone authorization from the FAA may soon become a nightmare of the past. Get ready for instant approval to fly in controlled U.S. airspace thanks to AirMap and the LAANC (Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability) program. The launch of the LAANC pilot program is the culmination of a year of […]

President Donald J. Trump’s memorandum to the U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine L. Chao called for an initiative to safely test operations for drones in partnership with state and local governments in select jurisdictions. The Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Integration Pilot Program will be used to accelerate the integration of UAS into the national airspace […]