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A routine afternoon walk in LaGrange, Kentucky turned into a 29 hour fight for survival, and a drone roughly the size of a pizza box ended up being the difference between a recovery and a rescue. On December 20, Oldham County search and rescue teams were alerted that a local man had gone missing. He…
From a distance, the scene looked almost relaxed. A large black drone rested on grass. A small fire crackled on stacked pallets. Hanging underneath the drone was a red balloon filled with water, looking less like cutting edge technology and more like something borrowed from a very nervous birthday party. But appearances lie. The drone…
I’ve been tracking Ukraine’s transformation from drone importer to NATO’s leading drone warfare teacher for months. This week brought a development that captures how far the tables have turned: Ukrainian officials traveled to Portugal to evaluate autonomous systems from a company that openly credits Ukraine’s battlefield success for its existence. The irony writes itself. But…
The day we’ve all been dreading is finally here, but it came with a pretty big unexpected surprise that I don’t think anybody was expecting. Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, recently announced that the FCC has added foreign-produced drones and drone components to the covered entity list. We all knew it was…
I’ve been going through the FCC’s official order and their accompanying Fact Sheet on foreign drones. The FCC created a deliberate gap in their ban that allows existing products to stay on shelves. But the gap between regulatory permission and practical enforcement at the border could cause real problems. Here’s what you need to know. What the…
Yesterday, I wrote about the FCC’s sweeping ban on all foreign-made drones and critical components. Today, the New York Times published an article that exposes a fundamental problem with the administration’s “American drone dominance” strategy: the batteries don’t exist. The FCC’s National Security Determination explicitly lists “batteries and battery management systems” as covered critical compon
Mexico’s Cartels utilizing drones pose a huge risk not just for rival cartel members, but for civilians and security forces as well. Drone warfare is no longer something that only happens “over there-” typically referring to the ongoing conflicts in Europe. Since Ukraine and Russia adopted quadcopters, Mexico’s cartel-related drone use has moved well beyond…
We’ve been tracking the December 23 deadline for months, expecting DJI to land on the FCC’s Covered List through bureaucratic default. What the FCC actually did today goes far beyond anything we predicted. They didn’t just ban DJI. They banned all foreign-made drones and critical components. Every single one. And they did it in the…
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