A tiny plane made by a California-based startup is set to begin making deliveries of blood throughout Rwanda, where roads ‘are washed out 95 percent of the time in the rainy season.’ Inside this tiny plane in wet, windy California sits a bunch of blood. It looks like one of those RC doohickeys, and it can only handle 3 1/2 pounds of the stuff, but it’s an RC doohickey that&...
In the 21st-century version of a land rush, more than 600 companies have received permission to fly drones over farm fields and collect agricultural data. Only one of them is headed by a 27-year-old experimental physicist and headquartered in an old warehouse building in downtown St. Louis. Harrison Knoll, the founder and chief executive of Aerial Agriculture, thinks his company stands out in o...
Commercial drone operators will no longer need remote pilot licences or certificates to use the unmanned aircraft on certain flights when new laws come into force later this year. The relaxed regulations, due to come into force in September, are part of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority's plans to "cut red tape" and accommodate rising popularity in the remote piloted aircraft se...
Four aerospace and security corporations will attempt to make DARPA's "gremlins program" dream a reality. The Department of Defense division has joined forces with its frequent collaborator Lockheed Martin, Dynetics of Alabama, as well as Composite Engineering and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems of California. Dan Patt, the program manager, said these four contractors are &qu...
When it comes to unmanned air vehicle airspace integration, a blame game is typically played out between industry, users and regulators on why these operations still come second to manned aviation. While users are largely at the mercy of all other parties, regulators claim the technology is not safe enough to fully open up the airspace, and industry is refraining from investing significant sums...
The Royal Australian Navy is looking to acquire an interim vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned aircraft system (UAS). A request for tender (RFT) for the Navy Minor Project (NMP) 1942, released on the AusTender website on February 26 (with a closing date of April 11), seeks to procure a “proven” VTOL ‘Maritime Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System &nd...
In the first fully autonomous urban flight, a drone made a parcel delivery to a residence in Hawthorne, Nevada. It wasn’t from Amazon though. A startup company dispatched the package containing bottled water, emergency food, and a first aid-kit. Created by a Nevada-based startup Flirtey, the drone test flight beat out competitor Amazon.com, Inc. “Conducting the first drone delive...
The UK Airprox Board (UKAB) released their reviews of 25 recently reported air proximity occurrences. Four of these cases involved drones. On 13 October 2015, the pilot of an Airbus A380 reported being on the DET 1J SID from London-Heathrow Airport. In the right turn, the crew observed a large object at the same altitude which appeared to be taking avoiding action. The...
Amazon wants a future where drones will drop off practically anything you order within 30 minutes. To push legislation that will ensure the skies are filled with its autonomous, flying delivery robots, the e-commerce giant has ramped up its lobbying strategy in Washington, D.C. Amazon spent $9.4 million on lobbying in 2015, almost twice the total from the year before, according to records from...
European aviation regulators have vowed to implement new rules governing the commercial use of unmanned air vehicles this year in a bid to provide certainty to the fledgling industry. The proposed risk-based regulations were only released 12 months ago, but Trevor Woods, certification director for the European Aviation Safety Association (EASA), believes more needs to be done to bring "cla...
Mountain Aviation of Denver Colorado has received FAA approval as the first FAA certified airline authorized to conduct commercial unmanned aircraft systems (“UAS” or “Drones”) operations. After 23 years of operating private jets for business and leisure travelers, Mountain Aviation is expanding its product offering into the newly regulated field of commercial Drone ope...
Lockheed Martin’s unmanned SR-72 aircraft concept has surfaced again with renewed vigour, with company leadership now pushing a reusable, air-breathing hypersonic vehicle as an “affordable” way to validate a new propulsion concept for achieving speeds within the atmosphere between Mach 6.0 to Mach 20. Speaking at a Lockheed media event in Washington DC on 15 March, company chi...
