Unmanned Vehicles

The California National Guard has deployed an MQ-1 Predator remotely piloted aircraft to support firefighters in their effort to control the Rim Fire threatening Yosemite National Park. Based out of Victorville, Calif., the aircraft is expected to identify key locations of fire activity, where the fire has been controlled, how it moves, and avenues of […]

The town of Deer Trail, Colo., Tuesday held a vote on a local ordinance that could financially encourage residents to shoot down UAVs operated over their land by the federal government, but the vote was inconclusive in spite of warnings from the FAA. The ordinance was drafted by a town resident and it would offer […]

Sikorsky hopes its newly unveiled Matrix technology suite can bring higher autonomy to unmanned aviation missions, actively guiding aircraft through dynamically evolving situations that could be dangerous for pilots or impossible for a normal UAV to negotiate. The company describes Matrix as advanced algorithms that collect situational data and effectively make decisions, literally on the […]

Deer Trail, Colorado, is expected to vote August 6 on an ordinance that would sell hunting licenses and provide rewards to its citizens for destroying federal property if it appears overhead in the form of an unmanned aerial drone. The ordinance was drafted by town resident Phillip Steel. It states that Deer Trail will offer […]

AVweb introduced readers to Chip Yates in April, and his quest to retrace the steps of Charles Lindbergh, flying more than 3,500-miles across the Atlantic — but in an electric aircraft — is making progress, but is hampered by funding. The engineer’s project currently exists as plans calculations and projections. Among them, Yates proposes to […]

Don’t see a video screen?Try disabling ad blockers and refreshing this page.If that doesn’t work, click here to watch on YouTube. It was 2004 when a small Luna reconnaissance drone almost collided with an Ariana Airbus A300 over Kabul, but the video was posted online this week by Der Spiegel and is adding fuel to […]

The U.S. Navy this week announced it has — for the first time — successfully launched the X-47B combat-capable aerial vehicle from an aircraft carrier and, separately, set a new record for flight endurance with a fuel cell-powered UAV with the Ion Tiger. The X-47B’s testing Tuesday saw it launch from the deck of the […]

Two pilots sat in the cockpit of 16-seat BAE Jetstream 31 and did nothing as it flew for 500 miles from England to Scotland in civil airspace, controlled by an operator on the ground, according to news reports this week. The flight reportedly took place sometime last month. The on-board pilots handled the takeoff and […]

NASA is providing a half-million-dollar prize for Phase 1 of a Centennial Challenge that aims to develop technology to help unmanned aircraft operate safely in the national airspace system, the agency has announced. The first phase of the UAS Airspace Operations Challenge will focus on safe airspace operations and robustness to system failures, NASA said. […]

An unmanned X-51A WaveRider aircraft reached 5.1 Mach, Monday, pushed to more than 3,000 miles per hour over the Pacific Ocean near Point Mugu, Calif., by a scramjet engine. The Air Force said Wednesday that the WaveRider was carried aloft from Edwards Air Force Base by a B-52. It was released over the ocean at […]