It now seems inevitable that a tragic accident involving a commercial plane with hundreds aboard and a drone is only a matter of time. The numbers are troubling with the British Airways encounter Sunday just the tip of the iceberg. Officials: Drone apparently slams into plane Last year, in the United Kingdom alone there was a quadrupling of near misses to 23 in the six month period from A...
The FAA wants people to stop shooting drones. At least 12 drones have been shot out of the sky in five U.S. states and the Federal Aviation Authority says it’s a federal crime, according to a report in Forbes. Even if they’re over your house. Even if they’re carrying running chainsaws. The FAA says you can’t shoot them down and you can’t disturb or interfere with s...
Italy’s ANSV air accident investigation board has opened an inquiry after an accident involving an SD-150 Hero unmanned air vehicle at Siena’s Ampugnano airport. Manufactured and operated by Sistemi Dinamici and bearing the registration I-UASC, the Hero was damaged in the 12 April incident while performing a test flight, says ANSV. However, it does not provide additional details...
Washington has vetoed any further sales of Israeli-made unmanned air vehicles to Russia. For several months Russian companies have contacted Israeli manufacturers in an attempt to reach joint venture agreements. However after checking with the Israeli defence ministry about the potential of formalising any such pact, it became obvious the US administration would be very strongly opposed, and wo...
You’re landing at New York’s LaGuardia Airport on the “expressway” approach—it’s called that because you come in low enough to buzz the Grand Central Parkway and Mets’ Citi Field before dropping down quickly on a runway that perches over the middle of a bay. As it is, it’s one of the more jarring landings in the U.S. What, then, would happen if a...
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...
