Software
Rapid Imaging Software has announced that SmartCam3D View is currently in flight testing. Tests to date have been successful and Dave Geisler, Vice President of Operations, will be at the NASA UTM 2015 Convention to discuss applications and partnerships for use of this technology with commercial unmanned systems. SmartCam3D View
Agriculture
The National Agricultural Aviation Association (NAAA) has launched a UAV safety campaign to raise awareness and prevent accidents between UAV operators and low-altitude manned aircraft. The first public outreach tool in the safety campaign is a UAV "safety stuffer" designed for aerial applicators to share with farmers
Military
Several new advanced drones will soon enter service with the Russian armed forces with the state-of-the-art S300M UAV slated for mass production already next month.Its name, reminiscent of the legendary S300 air defence missile system, the S300M Burevestnik (Stormbringer) drone, will be unveiled during the upcoming
Sinclair Community College is installing a $750,000 simulation laboratory for unmanned aerial systems as part of its larger development efforts downtown. The community college says its $5 million center downtown devoted to testing and evaluation of unmanned aerial systems will now include a laboratory with five simulator units for
Regulations
The European Cockpit Association (ECA) has published a paper calling for regulations on unmanned air vehicles proposed by EASA to focus on the safety of people and manned aviation, and not the rights of recreational operators to fly such aircraft. First outlined in March 2015, the safety authority’s proposal
EHang's GHOST Drone is controlled with a few taps on a smartphone or tablet – no hard-to-use joystick-like controller is required – and provides a rich feature set including the ability to plot a course simply by touching your device's on-screen map, an auto-
Aerial mapping company Bluesky has produced a prototype map of the UK showing where it may be unsafe or even illegal to fly Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Bluesky has combined an expertise in flight planning and 3D aerial mapping with various geographic datasets to come up with the concept of
The Air National Guard has quietly expanded its fleet of unmanned aircraft in the U.S. A dozen units scattered across the country now have drone-flying missions, and in some places, the Guard is lobbying to use military drones for missions at home. "Most of the time, I
Video
Graeme Frew takes his Yak-3 for a spin at the Classics Of The Sky airshow in Tauranga, New Zealand. The Yakovlev Yak-3 is a World War II Soviet fighter aircraft. Robust and easy to maintain, it was much liked by pilots and ground crew alike. It was one
Business
The US Navy has awarded a contract modification of $78 million—actually, officially 78 million and one dollar—to Insitu for a half-dozen more RQ-21A Blackjack unmanned aircraft systems, small aircraft the Navy and Marines use for tactical reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition at sea and on land.
Regulations
The US Air Line Pilots Association’s (ALPA) white paper published last week, A Flight Plan for Safe and Fair Skies, looks at, among other issues, the safe integration of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) into the National Airspace System (NAS). ALPA is urging the industry not to put economics ahead
Regulations
Responding to recent incidents in which unmanned aircraft systems interfered with manned aircraft involved in wildland firefighting operations, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is supporting the U.S. Department of the Interior and U.S. Forest Service in their simple message to drone operators: