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:
Northrop Grumman expects to start demonstrating a universal payload adaptor for the RQ-4B Global Hawk with various sensors carried by the Lockheed Martin U-2 after signing a cooperative research and development agreement on 14 July with the US Air Force. The payload adaptor should allow the RQ-4B
Drones have become one of the most ubiquitous weapons to come out of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have given battlefield commanders unprecedented situational awareness and struck key targets all while keeping soldiers out of harm’s way. In the future, unmanned aerial systems will hold even more
Testing
During the first two weeks of July, Meteomatics performed a drone measurement campaign for meteorological soundings in the eastern part of Switzerland. Over 450 sounding flights were conducted with drones flying on five locations simultaneously: Altenrhein, Amlikon, Bad Ragaz, Oberriet and Schänis. During the campaign, the self-developed Meteodrone
Yesterday at NASA's UTM Convention, Amazon laid out its vision for a multi-tiered superhighway in the sky, one in which all drones flying above 200 feet would have the ability to communicate with — and ideally sense and avoid — other aircraft. It’s an attempt to put an
The Defense Intelligence Agency conducted the first Black Dart exercise in 2002 under a veil of secrecy, and the annual event stayed veiled through 2013. Now run by the Joint Integrated Air and Missile Defense Organization (abbreviated JIAMDO and pronounced “jye-AM-doe), Black Dart’s existence was revealed in
Seattle based Transtrex released the beta version of the first dynamic geospatial restriction system for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), at the NASA UTM Convention at Moffett Airfield, yesterday. Transtrex provides a highly reliant and scalable system to ensure safe and compliant UAS operations in the airspace up to 500 feet.
Regulations
International law firm Dentons named Jim Williams, formerly manager of the FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Integration Office, as a principal in its public policy and regulation practice. Based in McLean, Va., Williams will advise clients on “aviation technology, regulatory and compliance issues with particular emphasis on the military,
A team from the University of Southampton has successfully launched an unmanned air vehicle produced via 3D-printing from the bow of a Royal Navy ship, demonstrating the potential of lightweight platforms to be utilised for short-range surveillance. Produced under the institution’s Project Triangle, the Southampton University Laser
An 18-year-old from Connecticut has posted a video on YouTube showing a small drone hovering about ten of fifteen feet above ground in a wooded area while a gun strapped to it was firing shots. The FAA said it was investigating whether Austin Haughwout of Clinton violated the