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Rafael Suárez

Rafael Suárez

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.

1,178
Articles
144
Beats covered
2025
Writing since
Aug 13
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Zipline Adds Austin to Texas Drone Delivery Push
Zipline

Zipline Adds Austin to Texas Drone Delivery Push

Zipline plans to expand its autonomous drone delivery service to Austin later this year, making it the California company’s third Texas market in under 12 months. Dallas-Fort Worth launched in August 2025. Houston followed in April 2026. Austin is next, and the pace of this rollout tells you more than any single city announcement. Zipline…

Thiel and Sequoia Bet $570M on German Drones
Ukraine

Thiel and Sequoia Bet $570M on German Drones

Stark Defence, the Berlin startup that builds loitering munitions for the German military, closed a €500 million (roughly $570 million) funding round this week led by Sequoia Capital and Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. The deal values the two-year-old company at approximately €3.5 billion ($3.65 billion) and brings total capital raised to €660 million. Stark went…

Osmo Pocket 3 Drops to $378—Still Your Best Gimbal
DJI

Osmo Pocket 3 Drops to $378—Still Your Best Gimbal

The Osmo Pocket 3 is dropping to $378 on Amazon this week, down from its $499 list price. That matters because the Osmo Pocket 4 just launched, and what most people do not understand is that the new model did not make the Pocket 3 obsolete. It made it cheaper without making it worse. Here…

Hayward City Approves Drone First Responder Program
Skydio

Hayward City Approves Drone First Responder Program

Hayward has approved an expanded Drone as First Responder program for 911 calls, putting eight new drones into a Bay Area policing model that promises faster scene awareness while raising familiar questions about privacy, protests, and how far “reactive” drone use can stretch before it starts looking proactive. Hayward Moves Drones Ahead Of Officers Hayward’s…

DJI Mini 4K Fly More Combo Drops to $255 on Amazon—Down From $389
Amazon

DJI Mini 4K Fly More Combo Drops to $255 on Amazon—Down From $389

I grabbed the Mini 4K Fly More Combo last month to see if it deserved the beginner hype, and I flew it for two weeks straight. What surprised me was not the camera quality or the gimbal stabilization, but how much less friction there is when you are actually ready to fly instead of still…

Western Star Maps Nevada Tungsten With Drone Magnetics
Police

Western Star Maps Nevada Tungsten With Drone Magnetics

A junior mining company just used a drone to map a Nevada tungsten property that nobody had explored since the 1950s. Western Star Resources, trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange as WSR, said on June 22 it is running a high-resolution drone magnetic survey across the White Star Tungsten Project in the Charleston Mining District…

Marines Fly V-BAT Spy Drone From Warship in South China Sea
Aloft

Marines Fly V-BAT Spy Drone From Warship in South China Sea

The U.S. Marines just launched a ship-based spy drone into the airspace China considers its backyard. Operating from the USS Portland with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, troops put a V-BAT vertical takeoff intelligence drone over the South China Sea, flying surveillance missions in a stretch of ocean where Beijing has spent more than a…

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8,400+
Articles published
340+
Beats & desks
2020
Covering drones since
100%
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