Unmanned Vehicles

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 […]

The pilot of a drone that hit a building, then fell into a crowd watching a parade and hit a 25-year-old woman, knocking her unconscious, has been sentenced to 30 days in jail by a Seattle municipal court. Paul Skinner, 38, of Washington, who owns an aerial photography company, was convicted of reckless endangerment, which […]

Pilots continue to report increasing numbers of suspected in-flight sightings of small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) to air traffic control, says data released Thursday by the FAA. Pilots reported 1,274 sightings of sUAS in areas where those systems are not authorized to operate for the February 2016 through September 2016 reporting period. Those figures are […]

Consumer drones have attracted millions of users, and created a conundrum for general aviation — are they friend or foe? On the one hand, many pilots have embraced the technology and enjoy it; on the other hand, the small flying machines can pose a threat to aircraft if operated irresponsibly. AOPA on Tuesday took a […]

What a difference a year makes. At last year’s Sport Aviation Expo in Sebring, the drone display was imprisoned in a large hangar and the demos were contained inside a netted area. This year in Sebring, for the first time, the show, in conjunction with a drone racing league, is conducting open air racing of […]

At the 2017 Sport Aviation Expo in Sebring, open air–as in not netted or caged in drone racing–debuted. AVweb’s Paul Bertorelli covered some of the races and filed this video report. view on YouTube

The contenders in the international Lunar XPrize have been narrowed down to five finalist teams who will attempt to be the first to launch and land a robot on the moon by the end of the year. XPrize.org, which is offering a grand prize of $20 million sponsored by Google, announced this week that each […]

Airbus will begin test flights of its flying taxi prototype by the end of the year, the company’s chief executive said this week. Speaking at the technology industry’s DLD Conference in Munich, Tom Enders said the company’s Silicon Valley arm is developing a multi-rotor, autonomous vehicle that would ease traffic congestion in the world’s major […]

The Russian government is looking into the source of a military-grade drone discovered in the sand along the Black Sea. Media outlets in the region near the town of Anapa published photos this week of the mysterious 6-foot, black unmanned aircraft, which is missing part of its right wingtip but otherwise appears undamaged. Lettering on […]

A Canadian company is expanding its unmanned test flights with plans to be the country’s first commercial drone-delivery operation by next year. Drone Delivery Canada of Ontario will soon begin flight trials at the Foremost Aerodrome in Alberta, headquarters of the Foremost Centre for Unmanned Systems — Canada’s first government-approved drone test site. DDC, which […]