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.
A PolAir Remote drone flown from Bankstown Airport — 300 miles away — spotted a woman leaving a shed during a welfare check in Moree, leading to her arrest for breaching a domestic violence order. Australia's first remotely piloted police drone trial keeps converting flights into arrests.
The Washington National Guard's 10th Civil Support Team trained for two weeks on Anduril's WISP sensor suite, a fused stack built to tell a drone from a bird before a counter-drone response begins — with World Cup security driving the timeline.
Santa Ana PD's Eagle 1 drone found a stolen work truck minutes after patrol lost it, watched two suspects load stolen tools, and guided officers straight to them — the first felony arrests of the $682,900 DFR program a divided council approved 4-3 in February.
The International Association of Fire Fighters is training its HazMat instructors as drone pilots, backed by the largest grant in the union's history — an $8 million NIEHS award. The five-year goal: put a Parrot ANAFI UKR into contaminated scenes before a single firefighter walks downrange.
O'Fallon, Missouri police used a Flock DFR drone to track a fleeing suspect into a storm sewer and guide officers to the exit — search, track, and arrest in under 15 minutes. The two-month-old program has already assisted in 12 felony arrests.
A drone carrying an improvised explosive device was found feet from a Ukrainian Antonov cargo plane on the apron of Leipzig/Halle Airport. A bomb disposal robot removed the detonator, a DHL freighter struck an unknown object aborting its landing, and a counter-terrorism unit is treating the case as sabotage.
Skydio and CentralSquare announced a partnership on August 3 that builds Drone as First Responder operations natively into CentralSquare's computer-aided dispatch software, moving the drone launch button onto the screen every 911 dispatcher already watches.
Quantum Systems gave its Vector reconnaissance drone a yellow fuselage that blends into Ukraine's dry summer fields and a rear-facing thermal camera whose AI dodges FPV interceptors without waiting for the operator. Both ideas were published by nature first.
One email with the drone news that matters — DJI, FAA, public safety, and everything in between, straight from the newsroom. No spam, no fluff.
