Haye Kesteloo is the Editor in Chief and Founder of DroneXL.co, where he covers all drone-related news, DJI rumors and writes drone reviews, and of EVXL.co, for all electric vehicle news. Haye can be reached at haye @ dronexl.co or @hayekesteloo. Also on LinkedIn, Muck Rack, Instagram and YouTube.
I spent the morning reading a story that should make every drone pilot pay attention to what is happening in Washington, not just with the FCC, but with the broader diplomatic chess game being played between the United States and China. While the FCC’s December 22 ban on foreign drones grabbed all the headlines, the…
I’ve spent months documenting DJI’s network of suspected shell companies, from Skyany to Spatial Hover to Jovistar. What started as investigative journalism became a front-row seat to watching a company outsmart itself into oblivion. Now that the dust has settled on the December 23 FCC ban, one uncomfortable truth has become impossible to ignore: DJI…
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr revealed three new drone exemption pathways at CES 2026, including Blue UAS list approval, 65% domestic content threshold, and a case-by-case petition process. Here's what commercial operators need to know about avoiding Covered List restrictions.
I’ve been reading a lot of optimistic press releases about American drone independence lately. The Pentagon wants a million drones. Executive orders promise to unleash domestic production. Politicians declare that we’re breaking free from Chinese supply chains. Then a defense-tech founder in Silicon Valley writes a Forbes column that quietly demolishes the entire narrative with…
I spent the last few days parsing two very different Amazon announcements, and the contrast tells you everything about why drone delivery remains such a regulatory minefield. Within days of each other, Amazon received approval to launch Britain’s first commercial drone delivery service while simultaneously pulling the plug on its Italian operations entirely. The company’s…
Las Vegas Metro Police flew 10,000 drone missions in 2025, more than any US agency. With plans to double flights in 2026, LVMPD won't disclose program costs or private funding details.
I've read the Air Accident Investigation Branch's newly released findings on the Kent Police drone crash that injured a child last August, and I'm genuinely troubled
FAA designates Choctaw Nation and Indiana as first new drone test sites in nearly a decade. Here's what it means for Part 108 BVLOS and Part 107 pilots.
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