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Shawn from Air Photography compares the DJI Lito X1 with the Mini 5 Pro and explains which first-time pilots need the bigger sensor, stronger wind performance, and true vertical video.
An Ocean County sheriff's drone dropped a Restube flotation device to a young swimmer caught in a rip current off Surf City after lifeguards had gone home for the day.
An Australian Strategic Policy Institute analysis argues Canberra still lacks rules governing where data from thousands of Chinese-made drones can go and who ultimately controls the software.
The Fly Like A Girl academy outside Pittsburgh has trained more than 100 high school girls to fly drones since 2023 and helped nearly a dozen of them earn FAA Part 107 certificates.
HoverAir is teasing a detachable camera module with latch hardware and gold contacts, raising the prospect of a modular self-flying camera and reviving comparisons to GoPro’s Karma.
Seattle Fire’s first public meeting on its proposed ERAT drone program drew just one resident and one child as the department made the case for rescue and fire-scene aircraft in 2027.
California says its AI-enabled ALERTCalifornia cameras have flagged more than 900 fires before any 911 call, while FireSat satellites and drone programs deepen the state’s wildfire tech stack.
Spokane police say four Skydio X10 drones flew about 400 missions in three weeks, including a pursuit where the aircraft tracked suspects overhead after patrol cars backed off.
As Utah’s Babylon Fire nears full containment, incident teams say drones helped locate hot spots, monitor rough terrain, and confirm a fresh lightning strike before it could start another blaze.
Lincolnshire Police used its drone unit to track a mini moto rider across roads and footpaths in Gainsborough, ending the chase with an arrest instead of a dangerous ground pursuit.
Saronic says it will spend $3 billion to build Port Alpha in Brownsville, a Texas shipyard for autonomous and crewed vessels that could reshape the industrial scale of maritime drone production.
New York's $75 million LETECH program funds police drones and counter-drone gear, but an ICE clause locks out Rensselaer County, whose photographed fleet of DJI and Autel aircraft faces a federal squeeze of its own.
Anduril is in talks to raise funding at a roughly $100 billion valuation, per Reuters, just two months after its $5 billion round. Here is what the number really prices in.
Russ from 51 Drones says he got this one wrong. After arguing that DJI-style drones would keep reaching American buyers through shell companies, he now says the FCC’s latest proposal targeting nine covered UAS brands shows just how far regulators are willing to go, with the Sky Rover X1 and Xtra camera line directly in the crosshairs.
This week’s Pilot Institute update covers a Colorado drone pilot facing federal charges after grounding wildfire aircraft, a new FCC request for comment that could restrict some military-grade foreign-made drone imports, and the National Press Photographers Association’s warning that the FAA’s Section 2209 rule could create permanent restrictions with no clear way to challenge them.
DJI confirms the Osmo Pocket 4P worldwide launch for July 30, 2026 at 12:00 GMT. The dual-lens gimbal camera has no US path under the FCC Covered List.
Agri Spray Drones' new maintenance video shows how a worn battery terminal arcs, spreads damage to every charger and drone it touches, and can fuse mid-flight, and the five-minute daily inspection that prevents the crash.
Skydio's X10, Dock for X10, and R10 join the X10D on the Blue UAS Cleared List, unlocking federal grant eligibility and cementing its DFR lead while rivals stay locked out.
Maksim Filchenkov, the GRU officer sourcing Japanese components for Russian drones and missiles, has fled Japan after a press investigation blew his cover. The pipeline he built stays open.
The FCC extended Covered List exemptions for trusted drones through January 1, 2028, but in the same move proposed cutting off imports and sales of foreign-made thermal, LiDAR, docking, spraying, swarming, defense-integrated, and 55-pound-plus drones. That combination gives approved U.S.-aligned manufacturers more runway while putting public safety, agriculture, and survey fleets on notice.
Two hikers who went missing off the Dead Horse Gap track in Kosciuszko National Park were located within five hours after Fire and Rescue NSW deployed a drone team using AI-assisted detection software. The rescue is the agency's first operational AI find, and it offers a rare look at how human pilots and low-threshold machine vision actually work together in the field.
Israel Aerospace Industries has rolled out HYPNOSIS, a soft-kill counter-drone system built to jam and spoof satellite navigation across multiple GNSS bands instead of shooting threats down. The launch sharpens the cost argument for electronic warfare, but the unanswered questions on price, range, and real-world limits are still the important ones.
Cal Fire spent July 15 field-testing Seneca's autonomous firefighting drones with FireWERX in California, giving the nine-month-old startup its clearest public proving-ground yet with a state agency. The five-drone foam strike-team concept now has to prove it can survive real wildfire airspace and turn demos into contracts.
League City Police Department plans to launch a Drone as First Responder program by December after city council approved a Motorola Solutions pilot agreement built around BRINC aircraft, with the first year free and a six-year contract value of up to $1,759,980 if the city keeps the program.
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