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Northwestern State University’s ARGO Lab just ran its first drone training program for soldiers at Fort Polk, Louisiana. The two-day course took troops from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division through the fundamentals of UAS operations, flight planning, sensor work, and field maintenance, as reported by National Today. What the Training Covered JD…
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) gave the U.S. military formal clearance on Friday to use high-energy lasers against suspected drones in U.S. airspace, ending a two-month interagency dispute that twice shut down commercial flight operations over the Texas-Mexico border. FAA administrator Bryan Bedford said in a joint statement with the Defense Department that the agency…
US defense startup XDOWN has unveiled the STUD (Small Tactical Unmanned Drone), a hand-launched UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) designed to reach active flight from a stowed position in two seconds. According to NextGen Defense, a single soldier can carry 8 to 12 units in a standard tactical backpack, launch them by hand, and let the…
The Colorado Springs Police Department (CSPD) is telling the full story of what seven drones stationed across the city are actually doing, and the numbers are hard to argue with. In an interview with KKTV published April 6, 2026, CSPD Sgt. Jeff Edmonds said the drones, part of the department’s Real Time Crime Center Unit,…
The FAA’s eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP) is now doing something U.S. aviation regulators have never done: letting companies fly commercial missions with uncertified aircraft, then using the data to write the rules afterward. A detailed report from Aviation International News published March 31 breaks down how the eight selected projects, spanning 26 states, will…
Welcome to your weekly UAS news update. We have three stories for you this week: a report that confirms that, sadly, nobody is coming to replace DJI in the consumer market; the FCC has opened public comments on drone spectrum reforms; and Oregon is telling the FCC to build drone test sites in the mountains…
The U.S. Army is finally moving past two decades of failed grenade launcher programs, and this time it’s baking counter-drone capability directly into the weapon from the start. A new solicitation published April 6, 2026, asks defense contractors to submit prototypes for the Precision Grenadier System (PGS), a man-portable weapon that will replace the aging…
Yaroslav Azhnyuk went from building a smartphone-controlled laser toy for bored pets to manufacturing AI-guided kamikaze drones that fly their final attack run without human input. The New York Times profiled Azhnyuk and his two defense companies today, documenting how his team at Odd Systems and The Fourth Law repurposed the same core technology stack,…
Skyrover posted a “We’re Here to Stay” announcement to its official Reddit community this week, formally titled “A Letter to Our U.S. Customers: Our Long-Term Commitment to the Drone Community.” The statement lays out a five-year roadmap covering FCC compliance, US-based customer support, and a promise to “explore US-based manufacturing and a localized supply chain.”…
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr scaled the WCTI broadcast tower in Jones County, North Carolina, on Thursday, riding a hydraulic hoist most of the way up before climbing the final 101 feet by hand. Carr posted video and photos on X showing his ascent with tower crew members, as part of a Fox…
Two Harvard mechanical engineering seniors have built a fixed-wing VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) drone from scratch to help marine biologists locate sperm whales tagged with VHF (very high frequency) transmitters off the coast of Dominica, according to a project profile published by Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Kuma McCraw…
Avinox, DJI’s e-bike drive system brand, has announced its next-generation M2S and M2 drive units, targeting the high-performance end of the e-bike market with peak outputs that put them closer to light electric motorcycles than traditional mid-drive systems. The M2S tops out at 1,500W and 150 Nm of torque, while the M2 reaches 1,100W and…
Jamie Dimon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of JPMorgan Chase, used his annual letter to shareholders, released April 6, 2026, to call explicitly for the United States to rapidly develop and produce drones domestically, and to announce a $1.5 trillion, 10-year initiative that names drones as one of five priority investment areas. The full letter…
DJI officially announced the Osmo Pocket 4 launch event via a teaser posted to DJI’s X account on April 9, 2026. The post carries the tagline “The World In My Pocket” and sets the reveal for April 16, 2026, at 12 PM GMT. The teaser confirms what months of leaks already showed: the Pocket 4…
Ukraine’s anti-monopoly committee sent back an application for a $760 million acquisition of a 30% stake in FirePoint, the country’s top long-range drone and missile maker, according to a written response the committee gave to Reuters on April 8, 2026. The committee confirmed that the counterparty was EDGE Group, the Abu Dhabi-based state defense conglomerate.…
Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence has codified the Vidun fixed-wing interceptor drone for operational use by the Armed Forces, according to Defender Media, a Ukrainian defense publication that reported on the codification on April 4, 2026. The article’s title, “Fixed-Wing Interceptor Vidun Codified: Can Reach 6 km Altitude and Stay Airborne for Over Two Hours,” was…
Terra Drone Corporation has announced a strategic investment in Ukraine-based Amazing Drones LLC and the joint launch of a new interceptor drone called the Terra A1, according to a company announcement. The deal was structured through Terra Drone’s subsidiary Terra Inspectioneering and combines a capital stake with a full business alliance. Terra Drone formally entered…
The DJI Osmo Pocket 4 showed up in close-up photos posted today by OsitaLV (@OsitaLV on X), a verified DJI BBS pilot and aerial filmmaker with 24,000 followers. The two images show the camera body and quick-start guide inside what appears to be a carrying case, giving the clearest look yet at the physical hardware.…
The DJI Neo 2 ships with three preset tracking distances in follow mode, and most pilots never go beyond them. A new tutorial from Stewart Caroll of Drone Film Guide shows there is a way to override those limits using nothing but a phone — no controller required — by combining Spotlight mode with the…
Daniel Riley of RCTESTFLIGHT built a 41-inch variable pitch quadcopter using belt-drive reduction and fixed-RPM motors, measuring 18.1 g/watt in hover flight.
A hit-and-run suspect who crashed into two cars and ran through residential yards in Beaverton, Oregon, didn’t get far. Washington County’s new Drone as First Responder program tracked him from above and guided deputies straight to him. The arrest on April 2 gave the six-week-old trial program one of its most visible results yet, as…
The DJI Osmo Pocket 4 just went from packaging leaks to hands-on video. The first unboxing footage of the upcoming gimbal camera has surfaced on YouTube, and it includes a specific claim: the official launch date is April 16, 2026. If that holds, DJI’s most anticipated camera of the year arrives sooner than most of…
Hermeus, the Atlanta-based defense aviation company developing high-Mach unmanned aircraft, has closed a $350 million Series C round that values the company at $1 billion. The round, announced today, was led by Khosla Ventures and brings Hermeus’ total capital raised past $500 million. The funding arrives weeks after the company’s Quarterhorse Mk 2.1 completed its…
Ukraine’s General Cherry and Croatian drone manufacturer Orqa have signed a memorandum of cooperation to jointly develop and manufacture interceptor drones and counter-drone systems in Europe, according to Unmanned Airspace. The agreement pairs General Cherry’s three years of live C-UAS combat knowledge with Orqa’s established production infrastructure in Croatia. Joint manufacturing facilities ar
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