Mavic 3 Pro Price & Release Date, Another DJI Prohibition Bill, Drone Crime Ring BUSTED

This week in drone news, we have four stories for you. The price for the DJI Mavic 3 Pro was leaked; another bill threatens to prevent First Responders from doing their job, this time in California; an organized drone crime ring was busted; and lastly, some upcoming events and more in-depth analysis from us. Let’s dive in.

DJI Mavic 3 Pro price

Our first story this week is a follow-up to the rumors of a DJI Mavic 3 Pro. Vertical Drones has leaked the drone’s price along with an image confirming the three different camera setup. A deluxe combo of the drone plus the RC Pro would cost around $3,600. Interestingly, a screenshot of the leak says, “This product has not been officially announced yet, and details are subject to change.” We’re wondering if this is a purposeful leak or an accidental one. DJI recently sent an email regarding what appears to be the Mavic 3 Pro, set to be released on April 25th at 9:00 am, called “Inspiration and Focus.” We will keep you updated on this development.

California AB 740

The second story this week involves another bill that could prevent public safety agencies from effectively doing their job. This time, it’s in California. AB 740 is working its way through committees and aims to ban DJI drones from being used by the government unless the drone is NDAA-compliant, which we know it’s not. The bill, sponsored by Skyview and supported by AUVSI, would require non-NDAA drones to be phased out by 2025. Government contractors are included in this ban, but it does not apply to consumer or other commercial users. We will keep you informed on any updates regarding this story.

Drone crime rings busted

Our third story this week involves two drone crime rings that have been busted. Federal agents have dismantled two major drone operations that were delivering drugs and Contraband into U.S. penitentiaries in California, Leavenworth, and Pleasant Valley State Prison. The defendants have been charged with various conspiracy and drug possession offenses. They are alleged to have coordinated multiple drone deliveries of contraband to prisons across the states using smuggled cell phones, dropping packages of contraband into the prison for distribution among inmates. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this before, but in this case, they were finally caught. The maximum penalty for these types of charges is $10 million in fines and life imprisonment. As always, don’t be that guy.

Skydio X2 and 2

Lastly, we’ve been working on some new in-depth courses for the Skydio X2 and Skydio 2. You can find them on our website; both are about an hour long and are very similar to our other deep dives.

We also have some upcoming events to share. We’ll be at AUVSI Exponential in Denver from May 9th to May 11th. You can find us at Booth 2643, so come meet the team and talk about drones. We hope to see you there!

Additionally, we will have a live Q&A on Monday at 4 pm Pacific Time on our YouTube channel. The session will be an hour long, and we’ll answer as many questions as we can. We had a great time during our last session and hope to see you there.

As always, have a great week, and we’ll see you next week.