Insta360 Antigravity A1, DJI Mini 5 Pro Leaks, AVSS Avalanche Control

Welcome to your weekly UAS news update. We have three stories for you this week, and they’re all pretty happy. Look at that. First off, we have the Antigravity A1 from Insta360 that’s out. We have the DJI Mini 5 Pro specs that have been leaked. And then lastly, AVSS has a new drone system for avalanche control. Pretty cool. Let’s get to it.

Insta360 Anti-Gravity A1 Drone

First up, Insta360, a name that we all know and love for its 360° cameras, has launched a drone brand called Antigravity. And they’ve just unveiled their new product called the Antigravity A1. Now, Antigravity is making a bold claim here. It’s the world’s first drone that has a built-in 8K 360° camera. The A1 features a dual-lens camera with one lens on top and the other lens at the bottom of the drone. Now, this allows for capturing a complete spherical view with no blind spots whatsoever. The software then stitches the footage together and it even renders the drone itself invisible, which is a feature Insta360 is famous for.

Now, what really sets it apart is the flight experience. It’s designed to be fully immersive using goggles and a grip controller that responds to natural hand movements instead of using traditional sticks. With their Free Motion technology, you can freely look all the way around in any direction using head tracking, completely separate from the direction in which the drone is flying. Now, that’s got to be a little bit trippy if you ask me, but I’ve always wondered if this could actually be done. We’ve had drones in the past that had this system. We built an FPV drone that actually used an Insta360 camera and it made the drone disappear and the effect was really cool, but I always wondered what it would look like if you could actually look around as you flew. I guess we’ll find out pretty soon. That’s really, really neat. And the cool thing is that it’s shooting 360°, so you can reframe the shot in post, creating these like tiny planet effects or pulling multiple shots from a single flight.

Here’s the kicker. The drone reportedly weighs only 249 grams, which is also really neat. But don’t get the credit cards out just yet. The scheduled launch is for January 2026, which is still a pretty long ways off. For now, they’re opening applications for a co-creation project, inviting creators to test the pre-production units and to help shape the final product. And they have a $20,000 reward for the best idea, which I think is a pretty good incentive.

DJI Mini 5 Pro Leaks

Next up this week, we’ve got some major leaks courtesy of Jasper Ellens over at DroneXL about the DJI Mini 5 Pro. And if the rumors are true, this drone is going to be an absolute beast. The biggest news here is that DJI has reportedly managed to put a 1-inch sensor inside of this sub-249g drone. The leaked photos also show a C0 class sticker right on the battery. Let that sink in for a minute. A few years ago, 1-inch sensors were a big deal when they came out in the Mavic 2 Pro. And now we have this thing in a sub-249g drone.

Now, because of its size, it does not require registration or Remote ID for recreational flyers in the United States, and it has fewer operational restrictions in many parts of the world. Although this is not really true in the United States, you still have to follow all of the rules. Speaking of the different specs, the camera itself is said to have the 1-inch sensor with a 24mm equivalent lens and a fast f/1.8 aperture, which would be fantastic for low-light performance. It can also reportedly shoot up to 4K video at 120 frames per second, and it has a 48mm medium telephoto mode. The drone is also set to feature forward-facing LiDAR for obstacle sensing. Leaks also show that the camera is getting an upgrade with a rotation up to 330 degrees, allowing it to do some, well, hopefully pretty creative shots.

And for those of you that have a collection of batteries, it seems like the Mini 5 Pro will use the same type of battery as the Mini 3 and the Mini 4 Pro, which means you can reuse those, which would be really nice as well. The release is rumored for September of 2025 with a possible price point around $1,200 with the DJI Mini 5 Pro Fly More Combo. We’ll have to wait until the official word from DJI, but I’m pretty excited actually about this one and hopefully it makes it to the US.

Commercial UAV Expo Workshops

Before we get into the last story, a quick word about Commercial UAV Expo, which is right around the corner. Pilot Institute is hosting three different separate workshops, and I look forward to seeing you over there. We’re offering a free drone landing pad if you purchase any of these workshops, if you sign up before August 20th, which is just one week from now.

So, as far as the workshops, on Tuesday, September 2nd, you can join me, Vic Moss, Amy Wiegand, and Jared Janacek for a deep dive into regulations, technology, and business strategies that are going to shape the future of the drone industry. And then the next day, on Wednesday, September 3rd, I’m going to personally be teaching a workshop on how to build your drone business. And then also the following day after that on September 4th, Jared is going to be teaching his professional mapping process. Spots for each of these are limited and they are starting to fill up quite a bit. So go to pilotinstitute.com/cuav to see all the details and to secure your seat.

AVSS Snow Dart System for Avalanche Control

All right, next up we have a real-world drones-for-good story. This is coming from Canada. They’ve given the green light for a new drone-based system for avalanche control. For nearly 80 years, believe it or not, this has not really changed. Safety crews have been using pretty risky methods using helicopter drops or even sometimes World War II-era artillery in order to trigger controlled avalanches.

Now, AVSS, you may know them, the Canadian company that’s famous for putting parachutes on drones to make them compliant to fly over people. Well, they have a much safer and much more efficient solution. Transport Canada has issued a nationwide special flight operation certificate or SFOC for the AVSS Snow Dart system. That’s what they call it. Now, this is a big deal because it opens the door for commercial use across the country, but hopefully also coming into the US.

The system itself is called the Precision Avalanche Management System, and it uses a drone to fly to a precise location where it’s going to drop that small, low-cost, eco-friendly explosive device that they call a snow dart. These darts trigger controlled snow releases that prevent larger, much more dangerous avalanches from forming. The whole mission can be planned and flown autonomously, keeping the human crews far from any danger.

This is a massive improvement in safety, and it’s more flexible and more cost-effective than traditional methods. As you can expect, helicopters are pretty expensive, and they really can’t fly in bad weather. And fixed installations are another option, but those are costly to build and to maintain. Drones here can fly in more challenging conditions. They require a much smaller team to operate and they can be deployed in minutes. I love this because this is a fantastic example of how our drone industry is providing innovative solutions for some real-world problems and I’m sure this will undoubtedly be saving lives.

Postflight and Closing

And in Postflight this week, the show where we share our opinion in the premium community, we’re going to be discussing all of these stories and we’re going to be talking more about the Part 108 and PRM, which we finally finished digesting and that was, well, yeah, that was a bit of work. We just posted a video on that as well. So, make sure you watch that video right here and we’ll see you next week.