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.
Flying indoors with a drone requires a different kind of discipline. No GPS lock, no obstacle avoidance to lean on, confined spaces where prop wash bounces off stone walls and wooden pews. Father Mitchell Bechtold, a 40-year-old Catholic priest serving parishes in central Minnesota, logged roughly 100 hours of outdoor flight time before he ever…
The Safer Skies Act is now law, giving trained law enforcement counter-drone authority at amusement parks. But the FAA's Section 2209 rulemaking will determine whether permanent airspace restrictions follow. Here's what Part 107 pilots need to watch.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed Wednesday that the United States has formally asked Ukraine for help defending against Iranian-made Shahed drones in the Middle East. “We received a request from the United States for specific support in protection against ‘shaheds’ in the Middle East region,” Zelenskyy posted on X. “I gave instructions to provide the necessary…
Full rotorcraft integration on NASA’s Dragonfly octocopter began in early 2026 at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland — the same facility where engineers spent the past three years validating rotor performance in simulated Titan conditions. The timing matters because this is the phase where problems get expensive fast. And according…
The economics finally broke. Gulf states spent the last week firing Patriot interceptors worth over $13.5 million each at Iranian Shaheds that cost $30,000 to build. Now, according to reporting by the Financial Times, the Pentagon and at least one Gulf government are in active talks to buy Ukrainian drone interceptors that do the same…
Representative Eric Burlison (R-MO) has introduced H.R. 7525, the Counter Drone State and Local Defender Act, a bill that would permanently authorize state, local, Tribal, and territorial law enforcement agencies to operate counter-UAS (C-UAS) systems against unauthorized drone operations. The bill was received in Congress on February 12, 2026, and currently has no cosponsors. H.R.…
Poland’s Civil Aviation Authority (ULC) has issued a temporary exemption that lets FPV pilots in all three Open Category subcategories fly without a visual observer, effective February 12, 2026, through October 12, 2026. The decision, reference number LBSP.503.1.2026.ULC.1, was signed by Paweł Szymański, Director of the ULC’s Unmanned Aircraft Department. You can read the full…
Two days ago, The National published a detailed breakdown of how to counter Iran’s Shahed-136 drone threat now hitting Gulf states. Fighters, heavy machine guns, Skyranger 35 systems, Gepard tanks, jamming guns — the full conventional toolkit. It’s a solid piece. But it has a notable gap. The word “interceptor” does not appear once. That’s…
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