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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.
The Fulshear Police Department launched a Drone as First Responder program on April 6, 2026, and the platform doing the work is the DJI Matrice 350 RTK rather than the U.S.-built Skydio X10 that has become the default for many other municipal DFR programs. The choice matters because it cuts against the broader U.S. public…
The UK Ministry of Defense announced on May 15 that BAE Systems, Anduril Industries, Tekever, and Thales UK have been shortlisted to develop autonomous drones that will fly alongside the British Army’s AH-64E Apache attack helicopters. The four firms will share $13 million (£10 million) in investment as the program enters its next assessment phase,…
Flytrex unveiled its new Sky2 delivery drone on Thursday, and the headline number is the payload: 8.8 pounds (4 kg), enough to carry two large pizzas, bread bites, and sodas in a single trip. That is roughly enough food for a family, which is the line Flytrex has been chasing for years. The previous Sky…
The City of Bloomington, Minnesota, will spend the next two weeks running a Drone as First Responder pilot using Skydio X10 aircraft and the Skydio Dock, the city announced on May 15. The testing period begins the week of May 18 and is intended to give city staff a working view of what DFR technology…
A U.S. drone company just landed its first international defense contract, and it came from a customer that has been thinking hard about how to keep ships supplied across the Pacific. PteroDynamics, a Colorado-based developer of autonomous VTOL aircraft, announced this week that it won a competitive Royal Australian Navy contract to supply P4 Transwing…
Autel Robotics filed a reply at the Federal Communications Commission arguing the agency added the company to its Covered List on the basis of classified material Autel was never allowed to see and technical complaints originally aimed at DJI. The reply landed in ET Docket 26-23 for the May 11, 2026 deadline, and it sharpens…
The DJI Mini 5 Pro Fly More Combo dropped to $1,099 on Amazon over the weekend, which is $500 off the $1,599 list and at or near the lowest price it’s been since launch. I fly a Mini 5 Pro almost every week and have run mine hard since release, so this is one of…
Amazon will launch Prime Air drone delivery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana this summer, putting between 12 and 20 MK30 drones into operation from a new facility near the company’s Cortana fulfillment warehouse. The service will deliver packages weighing up to five pounds (2.3 kg) to customers within a 7.5-mile (12.1 km) radius, with Prime members…
UK YouTube creator DM Productions runs a blind camera test between the £369 DJI Lito X1 and £689 Mini 5 Pro, and concludes the price gap is hard to justify.
Sentrycs, the Israeli counter-UAS company acquired by ONDAS last year, debuted a new man-portable cyber-over-RF detector called Scout at SOF Week in Tampa earlier this month. The product compresses the company’s fixed-site detection and mitigation stack into a battery-powered handheld unit aimed at tactical operators. Sentrycs is also fresh off World Cup security contracts and…
A 12-year-old Ukrainian boy snapped a Russian fiber-optic FPV drone's control cable, saving his siblings. The unjammable drone had one physical weakness.
Russia's Monocrystal, a top sapphire supplier for missile and drone optics, files for bankruptcy after Ukrainian drone strikes, sanctions, and lost markets.
The Dallas City Council approved a $10.3 million FEMA grant Wednesday that expands the city’s existing Axon contract to cover counter-drone detection, tracking, and mitigation ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, as reported by Kera News. The grant moves the city’s total 10-year Axon agreement from roughly $267 million to more than $277 million.…
Portage County Sheriff’s Office deputies located a missing 91-year-old woman with a thermal-equipped drone at 11:51 p.m. on May 5, roughly 43 minutes after the initial call came in. She’d walked away from a residential care facility in Plover, Wisconsin sometime after 9:45 p.m. and ended up in a wooded area, as Waupaca Now reported.…
Cuba has acquired more than 300 military drones from Russia and Iran since 2023, and Cuban military officials have begun discussing plans to use them against the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, U.S. military vessels, and possibly Key West, according to classified U.S. intelligence shared with Axios by a senior Trump administration official Sunday…
The FBI will field roughly 60 specially trained state and local police officers across FIFA World Cup 2026 venues to detect and electronically disable hostile drones, according to a Bloomberg report published May 15. The bureau takes direct command of counter-drone operations in three U.S. host cities. Department of Homeland Security components cover the other…
Papa Johns is the second major pizza chain to go airborne this year. The brand teamed up with Wing, Alphabet’s drone delivery subsidiary, to launch a pilot program in Indian Trail, North Carolina on May 11, as PMQ Pizza reported. Customers near Sun Valley Commons can now order three Oven Toasted Sandwiches through the Wing…
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