On March 12th, 2021, RaceDayQuads (RDQ) and its CEO, Tyler Brennan, filed suit against the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and its recent rule titled Remote Identification of Unmanned Aircraft (RID,originally published 1/15/2021 at 86 Fed. Reg. 4390). The case against the FAA was filed in the United
Commercial
Researchers at the University of Reading have been tasked by the UAE to explore ways to induce rainfall in the Gulf by using drones that beam electricity into clouds. The UAE has paid $1.4 million to the UK team to test how an electric charge can expand and merge
Accidents
An Air Force target drone strayed far from home this week, washing up on the beach at Ocean Ridge Hammock Park in Boynton Beach, Fla., after a test run over the Atlantic Ocean. The orange, 20-foot-long BQM-167A aerial target plane came to rest in South Florida after
Business
Textron Systems Corporation, a Textron Inc. company, announced that it received a contract for up to $607 million from the U.S. Army to provide contract logistics support, field services, and engineering support along with the retrofit of the existing Shadow Block II Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (TUAS) to the
eVTOL
Sabrewing Aircraft plans to perform the first flight of its Rhaegal unmanned heavy-lift, long-range half-scale prototype aircraft by the end of March, says Ed De Reyes, Sabrewing chairman and CEO, according to a recent publication by Janes. This half-scale prototype has an 8.5 m wingspan,
eVTOL
IDTechEx's new report "Air Taxis: Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing Aircraft 2021-2041" is independent research into electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for passenger transport reflects the reality of the eVTOL market at this early stage of its development. IDTechEx's
Testing
Skyfront, a manufacturer of long endurance gasoline-electric hybrid drones, broke the multirotor drone flight time record by staying airborne for 13 hours and 4 minutes and traveling a distance of 205 miles. The world record-breaking flight was achieved by the lightweight, powerful, and efficient Skyfront Perimeter 8—the
Commercial
SwissDrones has successfully delivered the requested results (highest-resolution images of defects captured in a continuous fly-by) in a recent challenge of the French power-line operator RTE. The company thanked Réseau de Transport d'Électricité as well as partners Phase One and GGS Solutions for their positive
Business
Northrop Grumman Systems Corp., San Diego, California, is awarded an $81,992,887 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract. This contract provides for sustainment, engineering, logistics, test, mission control, and operator training systems support for MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). This effort also includes procurement of field service representatives
Drone Light Shows
To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day 2021, St. Patrick’s Festival presented Orchestra of Light, a beautiful film featuring a fleet of 500 drones dancing across Dublin’s night sky. The film presents a heartfelt, uplifting celebration of our national day, and spreads a message of hope to audiences around
Video
This video that turned up TikTok shows what not to do... Sources: Twitter/TikTok
Video
During World War 2, the race for being the most technologically innovative country was more important than ever, particularly in aviation. As entirely new air forces were built from the ground up, almost a million aircraft were produced worldwide for warfare. And even though the United States joined the war