Unmanned Vehicles

With drones, as with most things, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. That’s a principal finding of a report by the FAA’s Alliance for System Safety of UAS through Research Excellence (ASSURE), which involved 23 universities flinging drones at crash test dummies. The report uses a lot of academic energy to say that […]

Nobody who attended Uber’s Elevate conference this week — or watched the live online stream — would come away thinking it’s going to be easy to create autonomous flying taxis, but there’s a good chance you’d be convinced it’s doable. If nothing else, the corporate names were impressive — this wasn’t just enthusiasts and academics […]

Lilium Aviation, of Munich, says it has flown a prototype of its all-electric VTOL tilt-engine aircraft that the company says will fly 160 knots in horizontal thrust configuration with a range of 180 miles. A video provided by the company of the first flight shows the aircraft, with what looks like a spacious automotive-style cabin, […]

Metro Skyways said on Monday they plan to develop a four-passenger, hydrogen-powered, autonomous VTOL flying car, the CityHawk. The vehicle will initially use jet fuel, but eventually will be converted to liquid hydrogen and then to compressed hydrogen, the company said. Development is expected to take about five years. The company plans to use a […]

As expected, uAvionix, a manufacturer of avionics for the UAV segment, announced this week four new ADS-B-related products that it hopes will ignite what have been lackluster sales of this equipment as the NextGen mandate looms. The California-based company says it plans to leverage potential volume in the UAS market to drive down ADS-B prices […]

Natilus, a small company with just three employees, based in Richmond, California, is working to launch a transoceanic cargo business with airliner-size drones. They are currently building a 30-foot-long prototype that they plan to test this summer, according to their press kit. They then plan to produce a full-scale, 200-foot-long turboprop drone, built of carbon-fiber […]

Just as the world of manned aircraft struggles to understand drones, the unmanned world is trying to grasp how autonomous or remotely piloted aircraft will fit into the national airspace system. “Most of the activity is in what’s called the Part 107 market, which is the line of sight market,” says Brad Hayden, president of […]

Just as the world of manned aircraft struggles to understand drones, the unmanned world is trying to grasp how autonomous or remotely piloted aircraft will fit into the national airspace system. Duration: 5:45 File Size: 5.5 MB download here

Concept vehicles are a staple of auto and motorcycle shows. These sometimes dingbat creations aren’t meant to be serious design efforts, but flights of fancy intended to create buzz and garner press attention. Aviation shows rarely have the equivalent, at least from major manufacturers. The last one I can think of is the Cessna NGP. […]

When I was preparing this week’s Question of the Week, I was up to the third question when I realized that blood cheering for errant drone pilots to be jailed is not a good thing. In fact, it’s a distinctly bad thing, absent any malicious intent or egregious negligence. To review, this concerns the story […]