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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.

1,179
Articles
144
Beats covered
2025
Writing since
Aug 18
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Munich Airport Shut Down By Drones, Again
Police

Munich Airport Shut Down By Drones, Again

Munich Airport went dark again on Saturday morning. Shortly after 9 a.m. local time, two pilots reported a possible drone near the airfield, and German air traffic control shut the runways down cold. Flights resumed about an hour later, but the day was already wrecked: 33 cancellations and 114 delays rolling well into the afternoon.…

Minneapolis Studies DFR Pilot in North Minneapolis
DJI

Minneapolis Studies DFR Pilot in North Minneapolis

The Minneapolis Police Department presented an exploratory proposal to the city council’s Public Health, Safety and Equity Committee in May 2026 to launch a Drones as First Responders pilot program. The pilot would deploy two drones, marked as police vehicles with red and blue lights, out of Fire Station 14 in the Fourth Precinct on…

Palm Desert Eyes Police DJI Drones Amid Privacy Questions
DJI

Palm Desert Eyes Police DJI Drones Amid Privacy Questions

Palm Desert is the latest Coachella Valley community where police drones are moving from “something other cities do” to “something coming here,” and a local NBC Palm Springs commentary framed the arrival with the question every city eventually has to answer: smart safety tool, or one more eye in the sky? That’s the right question,…

Palm Beach Fire Rescue Adds Drones for Hurricane Season
First Responders

Palm Beach Fire Rescue Adds Drones for Hurricane Season

Palm Beach County Fire Rescue announced this week that it has stood up a dedicated drone fleet for disaster response, with hurricane season starting June 1, 2026. The agency is flying the Skydio X10, the American-made autonomous platform that has become the default choice for public safety agencies operating under Florida’s restrictions on Chinese-manufactured drones.…

Walmart Hits 1M Drone Deliveries, 40% This Quarter
Walmart

Walmart Hits 1M Drone Deliveries, 40% This Quarter

Walmart announced on May 29, 2026 that it has crossed the 1 million drone delivery mark across its U.S. operations. The headline number is the kind of thing every press release reaches for, but the line buried in the announcement is the one I want to focus on. 40% of that million happened in a…

Basalt PD Pitches $50K Drone Stations to Council
Drone as First Responder

Basalt PD Pitches $50K Drone Stations to Council

Basalt, Colorado is the latest mountain town to look at the Drone-as-First-Responder model, and the price tag they’re putting on the table tells you exactly where this category has settled. Chief Aaron Munch presented to the Basalt Town Council on May 27, 2026, asking them to consider roughly $50,000 per drone and docking station, plus…

Bat-Inspired Drone Navigates Smoke, Snow, Darkness
Drone Research

Bat-Inspired Drone Navigates Smoke, Snow, Darkness

A team at Worcester Polytechnic Institute just pulled off something that sounds simple until you actually think about what cameras and lidar can’t do. They built a palm-sized quadrotor that flies by listening, the same way a bat does, and they got it to dodge obstacles in fog, snow, and pitch darkness with a success…

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8,400+
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