Rafael Suárez is a drone journalist and content creator with more than 20 years behind the lens. He began in film photography in 1998, moved to digital in 2005, and has been flying and filming with drones since 2016. As a commercial videographer he has produced work for premium brands including BMW, Porsche, and MINI, and his documentary work champions a #flysafe mentality across the industry. Based in Quito, Ecuador, he covers drone news, hardware, and the policy and business shaping the industry for DroneXL, and shares reviews and cinematic flight on his YouTube channel. A dad and a lifelong aviation nerd, he's happiest when something is in the air.
Colorado Springs police put a drone over a knife fight before a single patrol car arrived, and this week they released the video to prove it. On June 21, a 911 call reported two men fighting at the A1 Mobile Home Park near Cimarron and I-25, with a possible gun in the mix. The department’s…
A child was injured by a drone during the July 4 fireworks at Big Bang Boom in Norfolk, Nebraska, the show billed as the state’s largest, on the night of its 50th anniversary. Event organizers, Madison County deputies and Norfolk police identified the aircraft with specialized drone identification equipment before anyone approached the operator, Sheriff…
Minnesota just published something no other state hands its residents: an itemized receipt for every police drone program inside its borders. The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension’s 2025 Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles report counts 9,080 warrantless flights across 135 agencies, up 38% in a year, and the Rochester Police Department leads them all. Rochester flew…
The most expensive cattle in American history are now being counted from the air. HeadCount Inventory, the drone division of Kansas crop consultancy Crop Quest, flies autonomous DJI aircraft over feedyards and delivers head counts the company says hit 99.997% accuracy. “Nothing is impossible, but getting a whole yard count is close to impossible as…
A senior figure in Japan’s drone industry is pushing for Japan and Taiwan to align their drone rules and deepen manufacturing cooperation, arguing that mismatched regulations and Japan’s limits on defense work are holding the sector back. Kakuya Iwata, executive director of the Japan UAS Industrial Development Association, made the case in an interview with…
The Kent County Sheriff’s Office in Michigan has wired its deputies’ body cameras into its drone fleet. When a deputy presses a button on the camera, the nearest rooftop-docked Skydio X10 launches and flies straight to that officer’s location. The agency stages three of the drones on rooftops across West Michigan, in Cutlerville, Comstock Park…
Steffanie Rivers, who runs TCB Drones Academy in Dallas, announced a national program on July 4 to steer students at historically Black colleges and universities toward careers in drones and aviation. She is calling it the National HBCU Aviation and Drone Leadership Initiative. Rivers, a Tennessee State University graduate who describes herself as the first…
A Pasco Sheriff’s Office drone found a missing man in the woods outside San Antonio, Florida, in the dark early hours of July 2, using a thermal camera to pick his body heat out of the surrounding trees. Deputies got the call around 3:25 a.m., put a drone in the air, and used the aerial…
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