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The Pentagon has awarded Perennial Autonomy a three-year contract worth up to $500 million for drone-killing interceptors, the largest single counter-unmanned-aircraft deal the U.S. military has signed. Joint Interagency Task Force 401, the Defense Department organization that tests and buys counter-drone gear, announced the award on May 18. It covers three platforms already in the…
The Coconino County Sheriff’s Office in Flagstaff, Arizona is using the latest AI-capable Skydio drones with the LOC8 G2 image-analysis platform to compress search and rescue photo review from thousands of drone images down to about twenty per mission. The agency also works with a Scotland-based company to build environment-specific AI models for Northern Arizona…
Ukraine spent four years downing Iranian Shahed drones. Now Gulf states and U.S. commanders want its $2,500 interceptors, per a new WSJ report.
On the evening of Wednesday, May 19, 2026, Amazon MGM Studios and Mattel staged 1,600 drones on a light show over Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles to promote the upcoming Masters of the Universe film. The 10-minute display formed Castle Grayskull, He-Man with sword raised, Skeletor’s red-eyed skull, and the phrase “I HAVE THE…
The Dallas Police Department officially launched its Drone as First Responder program on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, deploying eight remotely piloted Skydio aircraft from Dallas Fire-Rescue stations across the city. Each drone covers a two-mile radius from its base, with operators working from the department’s Fusion/Real Time Crime Center. The first operational deployment landed the…
A police drone operator with Nottinghamshire Police located a stolen telehandler hidden under trees near the A46 on May 20, 2026, using a DJI Matrice 300 RTK, five days after the bright-yellow machine had been reported missing from Hawton near Newark on Friday, May 15. Photos from the scene confirm the airframe. The recovered telehandler…
Vanderbilt University Public Safety has launched a drone first-responder program for its Nashville campus, with installation and personnel training completed in April 2026 and initial operations conducted during Commencement week. The fleet is built on Skydio X10 platforms, equipped with high-resolution cameras, thermal imaging, and a parachute recovery system. According to the university, a drone
Amazon Prime Air has filed for a conditional use permit in Nampa, Idaho, asking the city to approve a 21,000-square-foot drone delivery center at its existing fulfillment site on East Franklin Road. The Nampa Planning and Zoning Commission is scheduled to vote on the application on May 26, 2026. If approved, MK30 drones would serve…
The trigger was a single radar signature picked up over Belarus, with characteristics matching an unmanned aerial vehicle. The drone
Good day folks, Shawn here from Air Photography. This is my beginner’s guide for the brand new Lito drone from DJI — both the standard Lito and the Lito X1. When new drones like this get released, I like to create beginner’s guides for those who are brand new to drones to help get them…
Australian aerospace engineer Benjamin Biggs pushed his Blackbird speed drone to 730 km/h (454 mph) on a downwind run and 640 km/h (398 mph) flying back into the wind, for a two-direction average of 685 km/h (426 mph). The average clears the 657.59 km/h (408.6 mph) figure that holds the official Guinness World Record for…
Welcome to your weekly UAS News Update. I have three stories for you this week: Autel is fighting back against the FCC’s Covered List, the Michigan House passed two drone procurement bills while stalling on airspace restrictions, and a drones-for-good story where a thermal drone saved a life in freezing temperatures. Let’s get to it.…
Blueflite, the Brighton-based drone manufacturer that has been flying the Munson pilot, is now integrating its aircraft with medical payload bags
DJI says Ontario's Chinese drone ban is a country-of-origin decision without evidence, citing seven years of audits and warning of public safety costs.
Ukraine's 5th Assault Brigade trades $2,000 Sting interceptors for $50,000 Russian Shaheds in a new Radio Free Europe report. The cost math is breaking Patriot.
Belarus has unveiled a new acoustic drone detection system called Scanner 2.1, developed by the Belarusian company InnoTech Solutions and presented at the State Authority for Military Industry on May 19, 2026, according to Belarusian state media reporting. The system is designed specifically to detect drones that conventional radio-frequency monitoring cannot easily track, including the…
The Ontario government will ban the Ontario Provincial Police from using Chinese-made drones on highly sensitive operations and begin phasing out broader provincial government use of Chinese hardware, the Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery and Procurement announced on May 20, 2026. The press release does not name DJI directly, but the company is…
The U.S. Navy is running an exercise called Arctic Sentry 2026 off the coast of northern Norway through May 24, putting unmanned surface vessels and underwater drones through their paces in cold-climate maritime operations. The two surface platforms identified in the exercise are the Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft, known as GARC, built by BlackSea Technologies…
Estrella Resources has deployed a DJI FlyCart 30 heavy-lift quadcopter in Timor-Leste to fly a drone-mounted geophysical survey that can image manganese mineralization down to 800 meters (2,625 feet) below the surface, the kind of depth that until recently required a helicopter to access. The Australian explorer is using the FlyCart 30 to carry the…
The Corman Park Police Service in Saskatchewan has deployed its DJI Mavic 3 Enterprise drone 37 times since receiving it in April 2025, and one of those deployments involved finding an intoxicated man who had crawled into a dumpster on Highway 41 in -20°C (-4°F) temperatures. The thermal camera on the aircraft picked him up.…
German autonomous aerial systems developer CiS unveiled the ORKA Dock at the Combined Naval Event in Farnborough on May 19, 2026, calling it the world’s first fully autonomous drone launch and recovery system that operates from a moving uncrewed surface vessel without any human in the loop. The system was validated during SeaSEC 2026, an…
CNN's Nick Paton Walsh survived 14 Russian drone attacks on a five-hour walk along Ukraine's 'Road of Life,' validating DroneXL's Donbas kill zone reporting.
Russ from 51 Drones breaks down where local drone bans stop and FAA airspace authority begins, with real examples from NYC, Lakewood, and Lakeville.
Shawn from Air Photography breaks down the DJI Avata 360 vs. Avata 2: image quality, FPV flight, FocusTrack, safety, and which is right for you.
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