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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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Agri Spray Drones and WinField United Team Up
Specialist

Agri Spray Drones and WinField United Team Up

Agri Spray Drones and WinField United have entered a new co marketing agreement aimed squarely at accelerating the adoption of spray drones across modern agriculture, blending hardware, chemistry, and agronomic know how into a single, more polished pitch for growers, as Michigan Farm News reports. The partnership focuses on awareness, education, and practical deployment, which…

DHS Drone Video Accidentally Advertises DJI
Department of Homeland Security

DHS Drone Video Accidentally Advertises DJI

The Department of Homeland Security recently released a short promotional video highlighting its drone operations, complete with soaring music, slow motion aircraft, and bold on screen language about innovation and airspace security, as reported by Futurism. It is exactly the kind of polished clip meant to project confidence, control, and technical dominance. Then someone noticed…

Western Chips Power Russia’s New Geran 5 Drone
Russia

Western Chips Power Russia’s New Geran 5 Drone

Russia’s drone program just revealed another uncomfortable truth for the West. Even under heavy sanctions, American and European microchips are still showing up inside Russian weapons, this time inside a new high speed attack drone called the Geran 5, as Kyiv Independent reports. As we previously wrote on DroneXL, Ukrainian forces shot down two of…

Lasers Could Keep Military Drones Flying Forever
Technology

Lasers Could Keep Military Drones Flying Forever

Lasers usually show up in military headlines as weapons, not as power supplies. PowerLight Technologies is flipping that expectation by using lasers to keep drones alive instead of shooting them down, as Techspot reports. The company has confirmed successful subsystem testing of its end to end laser power beaming system, designed to wirelessly recharge unmanned…

Ukraine’s Pay Per Kill Drone Program Scales Fast
Ukraine

Ukraine’s Pay Per Kill Drone Program Scales Fast

Ukraine has quietly turned battlefield necessity into a brutally efficient incentive system. According to newly appointed Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, a pay per kill program targeting Russian Shahed style attack drones has helped Ukraine secure roughly 40,000 interceptor drones in a single month, as Business Insider reports. The idea is simple and ruthless in execution.…

DJI Drone Helps Save 96 Year Old Woman From Fire
DJI

DJI Drone Helps Save 96 Year Old Woman From Fire

A 96 year old woman is alive after a DJI Matrice 30T drone gave firefighters critical early intelligence during an apartment fire in Euless, Texas, as FOX4 News reported. Fire crews were dispatched to an apartment complex in the 1200 block of El Camino Real around 1 a.m. Wednesday. Before engines arrived, a drone was…

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