Declassification of Drone Security Risks, DJI Air 3S Leaks, & Arrest for Shooting Drone

Welcome to your Weekly UAS News update. We have three stories for you this week. First, we have the DJI Air 3S leaks. Second, the chairs of the Homeland Security and Energy and Commerce committees are calling for declassification of national security risks for Chinese drones. Lastly, a man was arrested for shooting at a drone. So let’s get to it.

First up this week, the DJI Air 3S or Air 4 – we don’t know what it’s called, but in this case, we have more leaked images that show the possible drone with the exact same body style, it seems, as the Air 3. This might lead to calling it an Air 3S, who knows. The leaked images also appear to retain the dual camera setup that we’ve seen, as well as obstacle avoidance. It’s unclear at this stage what kind of upgrades we may have on the drone, but speculation includes a larger sensor (probably a 1-inch sensor, maybe because that was missing from the Air 3 but was on the Air 2S), longer flight time, and potentially even some more smart features. We’ll have to wait for more leaks or an announcement from DJI, but my guess is that it probably will be coming pretty soon now. We’ve been seeing more and more if we follow the pattern from what we’ve seen in the past.

Next up, the chairs of the Homeland Security and Energy and Commerce committees have called on the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Energy to declassify security risks that are posed by Chinese drones. Their names are Mark Green and Cathy McMorris Rodgers. They’re House Representatives, and they requested the declassification of the security threats found by the government. If you remember, all of this DJI ban we’ve been talking about is based on security threats that we have yet to see officially from the government. So these people are asking for that information to be shown to the general public. Their letter includes the publication of found issues to law enforcement agencies, the federal government, and the American public for a better understanding of possible security threats found in the drones. I, too, am very interested in getting the official word from the government. The two committee chairs requested a briefing no later than July 2nd of this year, which is right around the corner. So we’ll keep you updated if we hear more and if we can finally get the truth because the truth is out there.

Finally, a man was arrested this week in New York after shooting down his neighbor’s drone. His name is Joseph Desjardin. He was arrested for menacing and criminal possession of a weapon after state troopers responded to a report of a drone being shot down. Desjardin allegedly became angry when his neighbor flew his drone over his property and shot down the drone using a shotgun. It’s unclear at this stage if there will be any federal charges for shooting the aircraft. We’ll keep you updated if we hear more on this one.

And that’s it! Have a great week, and we’ll see you all on Monday for the live show.