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.
Mykhailo Fedorov, the man who built Ukraine’s “Army of Drones” from scratch, is taking over as Defense Minister. This isn’t just a cabinet shuffle – it’s Ukraine officially declaring that drone warfare is now the foundation of national defense strategy. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the nomination on January 2, 2026, explicitly stating that Fedorov’s task…
I’ve been tracking the expansion of police counter-drone capabilities for months, and what just happened is bigger than the headlines suggest. Missouri received $14.24 million in federal funding for World Cup drone security, but that’s not the real story. The real story is that FEMA just deployed the first phase of a $500 million program…
I’ve been tracking police drone expansion all year, and the Wall Street Journal just confirmed what we’ve been reporting: this technology is spreading faster than anyone anticipated. But buried in their coverage is a detail most outlets are missing. The same aggressive enforcement model that generated nearly $1 million in California fines is already facing…
President Donald Trump announced Monday that his controversial $400 million White House ballroom will feature bulletproof glass and a “drone-free roof” – vague marketing speak that nonetheless reveals how profoundly the Butler assassination attempt has reshaped his thinking about aerial threats. “It’s got all bulletproof glass, it’s got all drone, they call it drone-free roof,…
I’ve flown many of “DJI alternatives” over the years, and they all failed the same test: obstacle avoidance. The moment you needed to fly sideways through trees or track a moving subject, those budget options revealed themselves as expensive toys. The Skyrover X1 is different. It actually matches the DJI Mini 4 Pro’s professional safety…
The two officials who built the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit and helped create the Blue UAS framework are warning that a drone attack on US soil is coming in 2026. Their analysis exposes a fundamental tension in American drone policy: the same security-first approach that justified expensive domestic alternatives may have slowed the mass production…
I’ve been tracking Ukraine’s transformation from drone importer to NATO’s leading drone warfare teacher for months. This week brought a development that captures how far the tables have turned: Ukrainian officials traveled to Portugal to evaluate autonomous systems from a company that openly credits Ukraine’s battlefield success for its existence. The irony writes itself. But…
While the drone world panics over the FCC’s sweeping ban on foreign drones and components, FPV expert Joshua Bardwell is urging pilots to take a breath. His analysis raises a critical question that most coverage has missed: Does the FCC even have jurisdiction over half the components it listed? In a video published December 23, Bardwell…
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