A press of the wrong button resulted in the crash of an $85,000 police drone in the United Kingdom. The ground station of the Aeryon SkyRanger R60 displayed an error message prior to the crash. The drone pilot wanted to dismiss the message but accidentally switched off the engines.
Do you want to conduct (thermographic) inspection flights within an urban area? Then the Anafi USA from Parrot is definitely a drone to consider. Because with its weight of less than 500 grams, the drone is currently in Open subcategory A1 (European drone rules). Nevertheless, the drone has a FLIR thermal imaging camera and an RGB camera with 32x zoom. But how does the device perform in practice?
Thanks to Skytools for making a Parrot Anafi USA drone available for this review.
A hostage situation in the Belgian town of Halle ended in a very remarkable way last weekend. The police used a drone to drop handcuffs on a hostage-taker who was about to surrender. After the suspect handcuffed himself, the police were able to arrest him. As far as is known, it is the first time that a police drone has been used in this way.
Want to make a sightseeing flight by passenger drone? Nowadays it is possible in the Chinese city of Henqin. Last week, 36 tourists made a scenic flight in the EHang 216 AAV, an electrically powered multirotor drone with room for two people. EHang wants to start offering scenic flights in more Chinese cities in the near future. EHang is also becoming active closer to home: the company received permission to operate flights in Austria in December last year.
A 19-year-old student from the Indian province of Kerala uses his drone to save the lives of four sea fishermen whose trawlers had capsized. Initially, rescue workers did not want to take the juvenile drone pilot with them on their search, but a local official convinced them to take the boy anyway.
DJI has released a new firmware update for the popular DJI Mini 2 drone and its controller. The update brings a lot of improvements, including the ability to film up to 60 fps in 2.7K resolution and the option to zoom in while shooting. DJI has also fixed a number of bugs.
As you are used to, we regularly post beautiful drone videos on DroneXL. In 2021, we will broaden this tradition by also sharing “regular” videos that stand out for the creative use of drone shots. A good example of this is a short documentary about the French quad rider David Tharan. Thanks to the cinematic FPV drone shots you get a unique impression of his stunts.
Telecom provider T-Mobile partnered with the Drone Racing League with the aim of streaming the live camera image from racing drones via 5G to millions of viewers during the 2021 DRL Allianz World Championship Season. The goal is to underscore what 5G is capable of. T-Mobile also wants to promote the adoption of 5G technology among potential user groups.
To celebrate the New Year, the City of Rotterdam in The Netherlands does not opt ​​for a traditional fireworks show during the upcoming New Year, but for a drone show. The drone light show will not be performed live in view of the corona measures, but has already been recorded in secret in recent weeks. Just before the countdown time at noon, viewers can watch the final result via a live stream.
It has been four years since the world’s best-known vlogger Casey Neistat performed a remarkable stunt: in Finland, he was pulled by a bulky multirotor on a snowboard. The images of that drone-board stunt went all over the world. In a series of tweets, Neistat looks back at the stunt, which he says cost “millions of dollars” to produce.
The Dutch Ministry of Defense will purchase 16 million euros worth of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the coming years. Civilian drones from DJI and other manufacturers are no longer available as they do not meet the strict requirements set by the military. Instead, there will be tricopters from AtlasPro and a new series of Black Hornet nano drones from FLIR Systems.
France’s highest administrative court, at the urging of privacy activists, has banned the use of drones by police to monitor public protests in Paris, reports the BBC. According to the activists, the use of drones with cameras goes against individual freedom of expression.
Last weekend, a girl was chased while on her way home at night. the drone incident took place in the municipality of Midden-Drenthe, in The Netherlands. The police reported the news on Facebook. The drone flew after the girl for some time on Sunday night. After she arrived home, the drone hovered above the house for a while. The drone pilot could not be traced by police officers who responded to the incident.
The German aviation authority LBA has postponed the upcoming registration requirement for drone pilots by four months. According to the European regulation, which comes into force on December 31, all pilots of drones and model airplanes must be registered from that day before flying. However, the LBA states that this is “technically and administratively not possible.”
In the future, we will increasingly see that drones perform certain missions completely independently, such as routine inspection flights or ad hoc missions during calamities. But that can only take place safely if the drone is able to independently detect and avoid static and moving obstacles in varying conditions. For this reason, the Directorate-General for Public Works, part of the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management of the Netherlands, asked a number of companies to come up with innovative solutions.
The German emergency response organization ADAC Luftrettung has placed an order for two electrically powered VoloCity air taxis with Volocopter. These are two-person aircraft that can take off and land vertically, just like a helicopter or drone. The first test flights are planned for 2023. The air ambulances are expected to be operational from 2025 onwards.
In Japan, mini-drones weighing less than 200 grams have less strict rules than “normal” drones. But the Japanese government is going to reduce that lower limit to only 100 grams, now that more capable drones weighing just under 200 grams are appearing on the market, including a special version of the DJI Mavic Mini. That reports the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun.
The European Aviation Safety Agency EASA has published new rules and guidelines for drones transporting goods over urban areas. Inspection flights over greater distances from, for example, high-voltage lines and pipelines are also within reach. With the new rules, EASA wants to guarantee the safety of such drone operations and address concerns among citizens.
The use of police drones to enforce corona measures or to monitor demonstrations is increasing resistance. According to privacy experts, the risk of invasion of privacy is increasing. In Belgium, the Minister of Justice has even protested against the intention of the police to use drones to monitor compliance with corona measures during New Year’s Eve.
Moth control is a high priority for Dutch greenhouse growers because of the damage the caterpillars cause to the crop. Sure, you can address this problem with pesticides, but that is not the preferred method for various reasons. The Dutch company PATS is developing a unique solution in the form of moth-killing drones.