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China Turns Trucks Into a Runway-Free Drone Catapult
China

China Turns Trucks Into a Runway-Free Drone Catapult

China has shown a launch system that turns a line of flatbed trucks into an electromagnetic catapult for fixed-wing drones, with no runway required. Beijing Institute of Technology posted video on June 30 of three eight-wheeled trucks linked end to end into a single launch rail, accelerating a fixed-wing UAV off the back and into…

Drones Aid 3,000-Acre Search for Missing 4-Year-Old
DJI

Drones Aid 3,000-Acre Search for Missing 4-Year-Old

Javeayah Harris, a 4-year-old girl, has been missing from Aiken County, South Carolina since the night of June 30, and the search for her now covers more than 3,000 acres. She was last seen around 8:15 p.m. near Hillsboro Street and Ridgecrest Road, wearing Minnie Mouse pajamas with pink beads in her braided hair. Drones…

DJI Mic Mini 2S Records Internally, China First
China

DJI Mic Mini 2S Records Internally, China First

DJI launched the Mic Mini 2S on July 2, and the headline change is simple. The tiny clip-on wireless mic now records inside itself. It carries 14.5GB of built-in storage, captures 32-bit floating-point audio, and pairs up to four transmitters to a single receiver. DJI shipped it in China first, with global pricing and dates…

Armed Police Drones, a JFK Drone Strike, and Alarming World Cup TFR Violations
Skydio

Armed Police Drones, a JFK Drone Strike, and Alarming World Cup TFR Violations

Welcome to your weekly UAS news update. I have four stories for you this week. First up, the EFF is warning about arming police drones. Then a JetBlue pilot reporting a drone strike at 3,000 feet over JFK. Also, another JFK drone sighting that turns out to be just normal operation. And then lastly, we…

Redmond Police Buy Six Skydio Drones on a 5-Year Plan
Skydio

Redmond Police Buy Six Skydio Drones on a 5-Year Plan

Redmond, Oregon, is replacing its DJI police drones with six Skydio aircraft, and paying for them the way a city buys a fleet of patrol cars: on a five-year financed contract. The city council approved the $410,762 deal with Axon on June 23. The department calls its old fleet obsolete, but the bigger force behind…

Amazon's Prime Air Drones Head for the Omaha Suburbs
Amazon

Amazon’s Prime Air Drones Head for the Omaha Suburbs

Amazon has confirmed that its next drone-delivery market is the Omaha area, with Prime Air aircraft set to fly out of the company’s warehouse in Papillion, Nebraska. The service will carry items under five pounds (2.3 kg) that fit in a shoebox, to homes within a 7 to 8 mile (11 to 13 km) radius…

IISS Report Names Real Russian Drone Incidents and Phantom Ones, and the Difference Is the Story
Russia

IISS Report Names Real Russian Drone Incidents and Phantom Ones, and the Difference Is the Story

A London think tank has assembled the fullest picture yet of the drone incursions that rattled European airbases, airports and nuclear sites since late 2024, and its central claim is serious: Russian intelligence ran a coordinated surveillance campaign launched from vessels in Moscow’s sanctions-dodging “shadow fleet.” The 144-incident dataset is real, the pattern is unsettling,…

Overhead black-and-white view of a DJI Phantom quadcopter surrounded by folding DJI Mavic drones and other multirotors arranged on a white surface
Skydio

Santa Maria’s Police Drones Come From Donors, Not City

Santa Maria’s police department is getting its drone-as-first-responder program off the ground with money raised at a charity gala, not a line in the city budget. The Santa Maria Police Council, a nonprofit booster group, pulled in about $95,000 at its annual fundraiser and is handing the department a $97,869 donation to buy the aircraft.…

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