Drones

Amazon has made the next leap toward a future reality in which drones drop recently-ordered goodies off in your yard, filing a patent for a “multi-level fulfillment center for unmanned aerial vehicles” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The patent filing emerged on June 22. “A multi-level (ML) fulfillment center is designed to accommodate […]

Republican Congressman Jason Lewis (R-MN-02) led the legislation for the Drone Innovation Act, which looks to define operations of civil UAS under 200 feet and within state, local, or tribal jurisdictions. If that sounds at all familiar, it’s because that’s a very similar idea that the recently proposed Drone Federalism Act offered, which also looked […]

Millions tuned in to ESPN to watch Jordan “Jet” Temkin take home the Drone Racing League’s first ever championship. Millions more tuned in over a season featuring epic LED tracks in stadiums and abandoned shopping malls, and that apparently was a good enough showing for investors. Existing partners Sky, Liberty Media Corp. (owner of Formula […]

Following a recent trend of FPV races being held at air shows like U.S. Sport and Aviation Show in Sebring, Sun ‘n Fun and even a rumored race coming up at Oshkosh, Multi GP seems to have saved the best for last. Following a 5-month Regional Qualifying and Final Series, 150 of the fastest FPV […]

The Wild West of drone regulation as we know it may soon cease to exist. If lawmakers have their way, state and local governments — including Native American tribal authorities — could soon have the power to regulate the use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems as they see fit. At least, that’s what a group of […]

In an effort to reduce the chances of a drone causing injuries or getting into the flight path of manned airplanes, something that has happened even at major international airports, Chicago Executive Airport (KPWK) is sending out flyers to local residents and providing information on its website regarding appropriate drone operations. With the recent legal […]

On Friday, a Washington D.C. court ruled that the FAA’s 2015 small unmanned aircraft (UAS) registration rule violates the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012. Under the rule, owners of drones weighing between .55 and 55 pounds were required to register their aircraft, because, as then-U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in the original […]

The FAA plans to begin publishing airport grid maps on April 27. The new maps break an airport down into one-mile squares that each contain the maximum altitude a drone may expect to be safely flown at when near an airport. Altitudes that exceed those depicted on the maps will require additional safety analysis and […]

Amazon’s Prime Air delivery system moved ever nearer to reality in the United States last week when one of the company’s drones delivered a small box of sunscreen bottles to a pre-established meeting site at an Amazon-hosted conference in Palm Springs, California. Once the drone released its package on the ground, the vehicle disappeared back […]

With an exponential increase in the number of unmanned aircraft flying in U.S. airspace, Leidos Flight Service is in the process of testing its Leidos UAS Notification Service, which was launched in September. The service is being tested as part of the FAA UAS Pathfinder Program with Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, which uses UAS […]