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Amazon's Westborough Drones Need Own FAA Review, Markey and Warren Say

Haye Kesteloo — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 14:46:00 GMT

Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren and Representatives Jim McGovern and Lori Trahan asked Amazon and the Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday, October 14, to put Prime Air’s proposed drone hub in Westborough, Massachusetts, through its own environmental assessment, with a public comment period, before any drone flies from it. One letter went to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and one to FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford, and both ask for a written answer by October 29.

The letters come 16 days after state lawmakers who represent the area wrote to Amazon. State Sen. Michael Moore and Reps. Hannah Kane and Kate Donaghue asked the company to pause on September 28, as DroneXL reported in Amazon Drone Hub Faces Pause Call From Lawmakers as State Sues FAA. By then, Westborough residents were circulating a phone script that named both senators and McGovern, as DroneXL reported the same day in its story on the resident survey.

The letters say Amazon is moving ahead without a site-specific environmental assessment. Amazon’s own airspace team told a Westborough room on September 23 that the FAA was already reviewing a site-level environmental filing for the hub.

Lawmakers Say No Earlier Drone Review Looked at New England

The lawmakers argue that the FAA’s July 28 nationwide finding rests on 23 earlier site reviews in 11 states, none of them in New England. Westborough’s historic town center, its forests and wetlands, and Massachusetts weather and daylight differ from the places those reviews covered, they write.

Both letters take the 23 from Section 3.9 of the FAA’s December 2025 draft, and the final assessment counts more than 20. The letter to Bedford asks the FAA to require the review, and the letter to Jassy asks Amazon to work with the FAA on one.

The second argument is local opposition. The letters cite the Moore letter, a resident survey with more than 1,200 responses and 92% opposed as of early October (a self-selected count, which DroneXL put at 853 responses on September 28), and Massachusetts’ place among the 15 states that sued the FAA in the Second Circuit on September 28.

For the community meeting on September 23, the letters cite DroneXL’s September 29 article and describe the event as one held “to authorize the zoning changes needed” for Amazon’s drones. The town’s Prime Air page says Amazon hosted it “to present the project, answer questions, and hear from residents,” and I was in that room for Amazon’s community meeting at the DoubleTree. No town board presided and nothing was put to a vote, though the letters are right that residents packed it. No zoning amendment for the pad is before the town. Westborough’s building commissioner ruled on August 26 that the drone operation is an accessory use of the fulfillment center, which sent the pad to the Planning Board for site-plan approval, and that ruling is what residents appealed, as DroneXL reported in Amazon Drone Pad Appeal Set for Nov. 2 as Westborough Drafts Bylaw.

The third argument is fire. The FAA’s final assessment lists hazardous materials among the categories it did not analyze in detail, because the operations are “not expected to include any activities that would use hazardous materials.” The letters answer that drone package delivery depends on lithium-ion batteries and cite the October 2025 collision in Tolleson, Arizona, where two MK30s hit a crane and one caught fire on the ground.

Markey, in a statement to MassLive and Boston.com, said Amazon cannot be allowed to “treat our skies like a testing ground.”

The FAA Is Already Reviewing Westborough Against Its National Study

Amazon files a separate environmental review for every new site, a member of its airspace team told the September 23 meeting. The FAA was reviewing Westborough’s. That review checks a hub’s noise data, delivery count and setbacks against the July 28 study, with no site-specific comment period.

The national analysis covers up to 1,150 average daily deliveries from one hub, with a 600-foot (183-meter) setback from noise-sensitive land at that volume and shorter setbacks for smaller hubs, as DroneXL reported when the FAA signed the nationwide finding. A hub past either limit, or one sharing airspace with hubs whose combined deliveries would pass 1,150, needs a more detailed noise analysis. The setback table counts each delivery between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. as ten. Amazon’s FAA approval allows up to 1,000 flights a day per site, and Tareq Wafaie, who presented the plan, called that ceiling aspirational for Westborough, where Amazon would start with about six drones and several hundred deliveries a day. The letter to Bedford asks for a full review even where a hub stays under those thresholds.

Two site-level consultations survive in the national assessment, and neither letter mentions them. Historic properties still get an individual Section 106 consultation in any state without a signed Programmatic Agreement, and Massachusetts is not among the eight states where the FAA has started negotiating one. Wildlife consultations with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stay site by site until a national agreement is signed.

The FAA’s drone environmental review page listed no Massachusetts or Westborough document when DroneXL checked it on October 14. The town’s Prime Air page says Amazon is seeking the site-specific FAA approvals it needs to fly from 64 Otis Street. Amazon did not immediately respond to Boston.com or MassLive, and none of Wednesday’s reports from Boston.com, MassLive, WBUR or the Telegram & Gazette carried an FAA response.

The local dates come first: Town Meeting votes on a drone bylaw on October 19, the Zoning Board of Appeals hears the appeal on November 2, and the Planning Board resumes on November 10. The Drone Delivery Tracker lists the hub as in review. Residents can call Amazon at 1-888-280-4331 or open the customer-service chat and pick “Something Else,” then “Amazon Drone Delivery,” and DroneXL’s guide for residents covers what a town can still do once a hub is proposed.

DroneXL’s Take

The most useful answer Bedford could send by October 29, in my view, is the Westborough review the FAA already has open. Amazon’s team described it to a packed room in September, and nobody in Westborough can read it. The lawmakers asked for a new assessment with public comment, and I’d settle for the FAA publishing the noise data, delivery count and setback figures it is checking now, so the town can see whether the hub fits the national study.

The fire argument is narrower than the letters make it. As I read the assessment, its hazardous-materials category is about handling, disposal and contaminated ground, and battery safety on a flying aircraft is a Part 135 question. It is still a fair one. DroneXL’s position is that the MK30 is too heavy to fly consumer orders over homes without a parachute, and Tolleson is the record of what a collision does to one. Drones that carry medicine and lower it on a tether, the way Zipline’s P2 does, make the case for this technology. Five-pound consumer orders across a 7.5-mile (12-kilometer) circle that takes in Westborough’s historic town center make the case against it.

Sources: Letter to Andy Jassy, October 14, 2026, Letter to FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford, October 14, 2026, FAA Final PEA and FONSI/ROD, July 28, 2026, Town of Westborough, Prime Air page, Boston.com, MassLive, Telegram & Gazette, WBUR.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

DJI Dock 4 Swaps Batteries in 25 Seconds, but Its Specs Skip the FCC

Haye Kesteloo — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 12:46:00 GMT

DJI Enterprise launched Dock 4 and the Matrice 5TD on October 14, 2026, and the dock is the first DJI has built that swaps the aircraft’s battery automatically. Every earlier DJI dock could only charge the pack inside the landed drone. DJI puts the swap at 25 seconds once the lid closes and the full turnaround, landing to takeoff, at 45 seconds. The Matrice 5TD flies up to 59 minutes on a pack, and DJI is selling the pair as a dock-as-first-responder (DFR) system for police, emergency crews, utilities and overnight security.

The launch confirms the Dock 4 name from a September leak and the Matrice 5TD’s registry weights, both in DroneXL’s October 8 teaser report. DJI published no price and says the dock is sold through its enterprise dealers.

Dock 4’s spec sheet lists transmitter power for Canada, the European Union, China and Japan. Dock 3’s sheet lists the same figures for the FCC.

Dock 4 Holds Three Spare Batteries and Charges Two at Once

Dock 4 has four battery compartments but holds no more than three packs, because the swap mechanism needs one empty slot. It charges two at a time, each from 15% to 95% in 27 minutes. A returning Matrice 5TD gets a fresh pack automatically when it lands below 79%.

The Dock 4 FAQ also corrects the count in our teaser coverage: the render looked like a carousel of five or more bays, and the production dock has four. The packs also double as the dock’s backup power. Each one runs the dock for about 4.5 hours after a grid outage, and the dock can keep swapping on battery power as long as at least two packs are loaded. It cannot charge the aircraft until power returns.

Each pack is 260 Wh, against 149.9 Wh for the Matrice 4TD battery that Dock 3 charges in place. Dock 4 works only with the Matrice 5TD, so a 4TD fleet cannot move into the new dock. The new dock uses the same 400 by 400 mm (15.7 by 15.7 inch) mounting pattern as Dock 3, though, and it needs the DJI O4 Ground Station, an optional add-on for Dock 3 that now carries Dock 4’s video link, RTK base station and network connection. The dock weighs 66 kg (146 lb) without batteries and runs from -40°F to 122°F (-40°C to 50°C).

The Matrice 5TD Builds LiDAR and Radar Into the Airframe

The Matrice 5TD specifications list 2,600 g (5.7 lb) and 3,050 g (6.7 lb) at takeoff, matching the China registry entry DroneXL reported on September 27. The 750 g gain covers a heavier battery plus the rotating LiDAR and mmWave radar the 4TD lacks.

The thermal camera is the biggest upgrade: 1280 by 1024, four times the pixels of the 4TD’s 640 by 512, with a 2560 by 2048 high-resolution mode. It shares the gimbal with three 50 MP cameras (wide, 70 mm and 252 mm, up to 176x hybrid zoom) and a laser rangefinder that reaches 3,000 m (1.9 miles). The cameras shoot 4K color night video without a spotlight. Onboard AI picks out 17 object types, including cars, boats and animals, and two built-in 4G modules back up the video link. The drone carries up to 450 g (1 lb) of accessories on three mounts, including a new speaker, spotlight and parachute. The spotlight has a catch in the spec notes: switching it on turns off the visual obstacle sensors and leaves only radar and LiDAR. The aircraft cannot be flown with a remote controller at all.

DJI’s press release says the drone reaches a scene at up to 21 m/s (47 mph). The spec sheet limits that speed to FlyTo tasks and caps every other mode at 15 m/s (34 mph). The 59-minute flight time was measured at 15 m/s with no payload, and the Matrice 4TD’s 54 minutes was measured at 12 m/s.

Dock 4’s Radio Specs Name Canada, Europe, China and Japan, Not the US

Dock 4 and the Matrice 5TD have no path to US sale. They launched after the FCC put foreign-made drones on its Covered List on December 22, 2025, and no new DJI model has received FCC authorization since. Dock 3, authorized before that date, lists the FCC on every band.

The Covered List action blocks new grants for as long as the designation stands, which is why Dock 4’s sheet gives transmitter power for Canada’s IC, Europe’s CE, China’s SRRC and Japan’s MIC and nothing for the FCC. DJI’s release names no market, and its product page tells buyers to contact a local dealer. The aircraft’s new sub-2 GHz video link includes 902 to 928 MHz, the same band American unlicensed radios use, and the sheet lists that band for Canada and Japan only.

The bigger threat for the US is a proposal that also reaches hardware already on sale. The July 21 notice two FCC bureaus issued in Docket 26-189 defines “military-grade” drones by seven capabilities and proposes barring the import and sale of foreign models that have them. Thermal imaging, LiDAR and a docking station are three of the seven. Dock 4 with the Matrice 5TD has all three, and the Dock 3 and 4TD that US departments can still buy already have two. DJI asked the bureaus to rescind the notice in comments filed September 2, the day the comment period closed, and the proposal has not been finalized.

DroneXL’s Take

I think the swap carousel fixes the weak spot in every DJI dock so far, a box that answers one call and then charges for half an hour. DJI built Dock 4 for the DFR work American police buy docks for, and they can’t buy it.

Canada is on Dock 4’s spec sheet, so a department there running Dock 3 can unbolt the old dock and set a Dock 4 on the same mounting holes. A US department on the same roof keeps its 2025 hardware, and if the FCC adopts the Docket 26-189 definition, it may not be able to buy another Dock 3 either. El Paso’s 22-dock program, the case study DJI still sells to US police, applied this spring for federal money to replace its DJI fleet. The FCC’s case against this hardware rests on where it was made, not on anything a rooftop dock has been shown to do. My read is that provenance alone is a thin reason to leave American departments a generation behind the rest of the DFR world.

Sources: DJI press release, DJI Dock 4 specifications, DJI Dock 4 FAQ, DJI Dock 3 specifications

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

MI5 Chief: Iran Hasn't Shown the UK Drone Reach That Sent B-1s Home

Haye Kesteloo — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 16:29:00 GMT

MI5 Director General Sir Ken McCallum said on Tuesday that the Iranian operations Britain has seen in recent years have “not been anywhere near the level of capability” for a sophisticated drone attack on British soil, according to The New York Times. He was asked about that doubt, which British security experts have raised since the US Air Force pulled all 12 of its B-1B bombers out of RAF Fairford this month. The Times reported that the US acted on intelligence about a possible Iranian-led drone attack on the base.

McCallum spoke at his annual threat update at Thames House, MI5’s London headquarters. He said Iran-linked operations had led to more than 50 arrests in Britain in the past 12 months, that Iran now wants to come at harder targets such as military sites, and that live investigations limit what he can say. A day earlier, Prime Minister Andy Burnham told the House of Commons that the Fairford incident was highly likely coordinated in Iran.

Police found petrol and no explosives in the three vans at the center of the September 27 arrests near Fairford. All seven men arrested in the investigation remain on police bail, and police have announced no charges.

Iran’s UK Campaign Has Run on Hired Proxies and Arson

McCallum said Iran subcontracts its violence in Britain, using criminal proxies against dissidents, Iranian media outlets and Israeli sites. A spring wave of arson and sabotage against Jewish communities in Britain and Europe was claimed by a front group, and McCallum said members of the Revolutionary Guards sat behind it.

The attacks claimed by that group did not kill anyone and were generally unsophisticated, The New York Times reported. They were generally carried out by local criminals or teenagers hired online, who often said they did not know who had recruited them. In London, four Hatzola ambulances, which serve mainly Orthodox Jewish communities, were set on fire in late March. In the published text of his speech, McCallum named the front as the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right. Britain has now designated both it and the IRGC under the National Security Act.

Security experts cited by the Times suggested the Fairford incident may have been a botched arson attempt, similar to earlier Iran-linked incidents. In the Commons on Monday, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the government’s assessment is that it was highly likely coordinated by a known individual based in Iran. Burnham added that it was “almost certainly directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard.” Iran denies any role.

The Foreign Office sanctioned two men the same day for hostile activity on behalf of the Iranian regime: Ruhollah Bazghandi, head of counterespionage operations in the IRGC, and Shahram Ali Reza Tamarzadeh Jakki, a facilitator of the Zindashti criminal network. Neither government statement links either man to Fairford. Both face an asset freeze, a travel ban and director disqualification, which bars them from running UK companies.

McCallum’s Drone Warnings Named Russia and AI-Enabled Drones

In the published text of the speech, drones come up several times and never in the section on Iran. McCallum cited a Russian attempt to destroy a cargo plane in Germany with an explosive-laden drone. He also named a Swindon drone factory sabotage case and terrorist interest in AI-enabled drones.

The German case is one DroneXL has followed since August. Berlin formally blamed Russia for the explosives-laden quadcopter found beside a Ukrainian Antonov An-124 at Leipzig/Halle Airport on August 4, and ordered the Russian consulate in Bonn closed over it.

The Swindon case is closer to home. Joshua Cammidge, 31, was charged in September under the National Security Act with assisting a foreign intelligence service and preparing an act of sabotage. The charges state he sent Google Maps screenshots of four drone manufacturing sites in Swindon to a contact believed to be linked to the GRU Volunteer Corps, ITV News reported. Swindon has become a hub for military drone production. Cammidge did not enter a plea at his first hearing.

McCallum told defense suppliers, large or small, to follow MI5’s counter-drone guidance, and Mahmood told MPs the government is tightening security around military bases. British troops still lack a general legal power to bring down drones over their bases. The Armed Forces Bill that would give them one is still in the House of Lords awaiting report stage, according to the Parliament bill tracker on October 13. DroneXL reported 340 drone incidents at UK military sites in a year on September 19, and the Ministry of Defence named no culprit for any of them.

DroneXL’s Take

To me, McCallum’s answer makes the Fairford pullout look like a reaction to a capability Iran hasn’t shown in Britain in recent years, though he can’t say everything. I still think the US was right to go, because a base whose guards lack a general power to bring down a small drone has to treat a credible warning as the attack.

I suspect Iran wouldn’t need a team able to copy Ukraine’s truck-launched Spiderweb raid to exploit that gap. One hired courier with a quadcopter could do it, and McCallum’s own speech says Iran already subcontracts its UK violence to criminal proxies.

I’ll treat the B-1s’ return to Fairford, or their absence, as the clearest signal of whether Washington thinks Mahmood’s tighter base security is enough.

Sources: The New York Times, MI5, Prime Minister’s Office, Home Office, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Euronews, ITV News.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

Drone Pilots Who Don't Adapt Won't Last Two Years: A 90-Day Plan

Greg Reverdiau — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 12:33:00 GMT

The drone industry is changing fast, and the drone pilots who don’t adapt will not be here in two years. It’s about strategy. It’s about staying ahead of regulation and making the right decisions. I sat down again with Amy Wiegand, the revenue operations consultant behind Earhart Alden & Associates, to break down what it actually takes to build a successful drone operation in this industry.

If you missed part one of our conversation, go take a look. This time we get into the part most people struggle with: how to handle regulatory obstacles, what actually makes a service provider stand out, and how to build a 30, 60, 90-day plan in order to succeed.

A Circle of What You Control Beats Worrying About the FAA

Amy’s first exercise is a circle. Put everything you can control inside it: pricing, operations, training, service innovation and, above all, your current relationships. Park the rest outside, then build a 90-day plan around what is inside, which takes a lot of the anxiety out of change.

Regulation exists. We know that, and regulation typically gets more restrictive. But we used to not be able to fly at night, and now we can. We could never fly over people, not even with a categorized drone, and then the FAA added categories that allow it. We used to not be able to fly beyond visual line of sight at all, and now there is a pathway. It’s not an easy one, but there’s a pathway. I’m not saying everything is becoming easier, but it seems like the FAA is listening and finding pathways. Part 108, if it comes out the way it should, should help loosen the regulation and make it more achievable. You have to stay on top of that, and it’s pointless to spend time on the things you can’t control.

So go all in on what you can control, and if the drone space is getting tighter, look at what else you can do. The drone is a tool. If tomorrow we couldn’t buy hammers anymore, do you think carpenters would stop building houses? No, they would use a different tool. There are ground robots now that are becoming more and more popular, and there is no regulation on ground robots, at least at the moment.

Diversify. Reinvest some of the money you’re making into making your business more complex, where there is less competition. We said that before the DJI thing and before the FCC thing: a bigger investment and a bigger risk typically lead to more money at the end. Mapping takes investment, learning and more knowledge, but the payouts are higher. NDVI for golf courses or agriculture requires a higher investment, and the payouts are higher too. There are drones available in those niches.

When I started Pilot Institute, I wanted to do drone and airplane training, and that’s it, because that’s what I knew and loved. Now we have helicopter training, and I’m not a helicopter pilot. We figured out how to do it. We added flight attendant training and dispatch training, because other opportunities popped up that are related to what we do, which is aviation in general. And it’s working.

The 30, 60, 90-Day Plan Is One Plan You Keep Repeating

Amy’s 30-day starting point is your operations and your finances, and what you can control in each, so stay focused and don’t hesitate to act. Keep current clients informed, because they are your partners, and use the time to become more of an expert or diversify.

Quite frankly, I don’t know that it’s a different plan going forward. What you learn in the first 30 days, you implement in the next 30, and then in the 30 after that. Don’t niche yourself into just one thing, and when an opportunity knocks, go for it. That means taking a risk, a controlled one, maybe a little money or a lot of extra time. There’s no reward without it. And as Amy said, if you bought a drone, you’ve already taken the risk.

Amy sees a lot of people get intimidated by the words “business plan.” She runs her own consulting company, and her business plans live in a journal, sometimes in pencil, sometimes in pen. As an aviator, she treats them like checklists: here is what I’ll accomplish in the next 30 days. Some items get crossed off, some move to 60 or 90, and some get eliminated altogether.

The business plan doesn’t have to be formal. It needs to make you answer the questions you haven’t thought about. When I taught at the university, students built a business plan for a fictitious business in groups of four or five, and week after week they said, “Oh, I would have never thought of that.” Most people never hand the plan to a bank. It’s for you, so that “I’m going to sell pictures to a client” turns into an answer for how. Then, as Amy says, take micro actions, one step at a time.

Drone Service Providers Doing the Same Thing Will Not Make It

The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Drone service providers who keep doing what isn’t working will not succeed. As our host pointed out, even those that succeeded for years face a year of uncertainty that forces them to change.

If we cannot get these drones, you will either get a drone that does something different, or you will learn different skills. I hate to say it, but it’s almost like AI right now: some people’s jobs may become irrelevant, and they either keep doing the same thing or learn new skills. That’s a very negative way to look at the drone space, but you have to be realistic. If the opportunities aren’t where they are today, you have to go somewhere else.

Amy’s answer to whether it’s time to re-evaluate your niche is that you have to put in the work. Do your market research, understand the market, understand your client’s market and understand their customer. That takes time, especially while you’re building, but it is how you become an authority and a value partner to your client.

Our host’s niche is real estate, so take that one. Say tomorrow you can’t find a consumer drone that does it. People will fly drones not built for the purpose, or buy a very expensive drone that can carry a camera, and the realtor and the client pay for that. A realtor with 30 years in the business will tell you they sold houses without drone photos 10 years ago. The $400,000 and $500,000 houses won’t get them, because it’s not in the marketing budget, and drone photography becomes a high-end service for million-plus listings. Then it’s up to you: serve the $400,000 market from the ground, or invest in a more expensive drone and go after the high-end realtors. I would argue for the high-end.

Our host doesn’t think we’re there yet, and nobody should obsess over it. You plan for it by building your business plan to save money for when it happens. An expensive drone might be $10,000 to $15,000, one you can put your Sony camera on. Put a little of what you make aside, and when that day comes, that’s your out. It’s easier said than done, because it is hard to make a dollar, but that’s the way I would do it.

Sales and Marketing Generate the Revenue, Not the Drone

Amy says hardware and software are tools, while revenue growth comes from sales and marketing, which solopreneurs and larger companies should stop fearing, learn for their niche, and automate. She talks about how solopreneurs can build AI agents, and she sees enterprises scrambling, because that shift has already happened.

Your strategy from six months ago is probably not your strategy today. Amy re-evaluates every six months, like any company: audit the key performance indicators, check whether the campaign, the social post or the blog got engagement, and pivot. Follow-up is huge. Many drone service providers she meets are retired or running a side hustle with little time, so paying a consultant for the initial setup is worth it.

Yes, a consultant costs money. But how much would it cost you to learn all of that yourself? You don’t have to become a marketer either. Pay people who are good at it. The difficulty is that the space has a lot of snake oil salesmen, and I’ll use that term because that’s what it is, selling you the moon when they can’t. Find someone experienced who won’t take advantage of you and who gets results. Amy adds that hiring marketers from outside drones and aviation is a huge mistake: people in the industry speak the language, so you go faster and save money in the long term.

We’re working on marketing campaigns for flight schools right now, and I manage a flight school. When the first draft comes out, I can add what will ring true for flight school owners, because I built this company to solve the problems I was having at a flight school. At conferences I ask owners whether they’re struggling with this and this, and they say yes. When your marketing people know this stuff, it’s a lot easier to sell.

Your Comment on an FAA Rule Gets Read

Advocacy starts with education, Amy says: understand the issue before you comment in a forum or write a letter. She leans on experts like me, Vic Moss and Kyle Nordfors outside her lane. If you’re not the right person to answer, get involved with the associations and people who are.

Once you’re educated, be vocal, because your voice matters. Every time the FAA puts out a new regulation, it goes through a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). I know people say the FAA doesn’t listen, but it does. I saw the NPRM for Remote ID, for those of you who have been in the industry long enough, and it was a show. The final Remote ID rule did not come out perfect, but it was not as bad as the proposal, and that is because there were more than 53,000 comments. The Part 108 proposal came out and drew a lot of comments too, not as many, and we have been told that some changes were made based on them. A lot of those comments came from individuals.

When you comment, make it personal. “I’m a solopreneur. This is my bread and butter, and this rule is going to make my company go bankrupt.” That means something, and if 100,000 of you say it, it means a lot more.

The second avenue is your elected officials. I know how we all feel about this, but there is a pathway to tell them when a local regulation is dumb. We’ve done it here in Arizona. Send it on your company letterhead, because they don’t know you’re a solopreneur, they see a company, and tell them politely but directly how it will affect you.

Amy and I have both done this. She led the charge on a letter package to the White House and the Department of Homeland Security. They asked for a meeting and didn’t get one, but they got a letter back saying thank you very much. Amy’s view is that they were heard and that these efforts are cumulative.

The other one is data. Before the FCC did what we were expecting it to do, we ran a survey of drone operators on how losing access to the drone they want would affect their business and their hobby. Reporters still call us for the detail, and we use the data in our NPRM comments because it comes from the industry. We will run a follow-up a year after the first, because it’s not a what-if anymore. It happened, and we want to know how you’re dealing with it. The results are eye-opening and not pretty, but we can’t look at them through pink glasses.

For more on building and marketing a successful drone business, Amy recorded three workshops for our premium community on getting clients, pricing services, and marketing and sales. The link is in the video description.

This article is based on a video from our YouTube partner Greg Reverdiau. Watch the full video on the Pilot Institute YouTube channel, and find more of Greg’s work on his DroneXL author page.

Flock Bets on Police Drones as San Francisco Weighs Drone Limits

Haye Kesteloo — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 12:23:00 GMT

Flock Safety, the Atlanta company whose license plate cameras have been banned by cities and blacked out or painted over across the country, now calls police drones its fastest-growing business. CEO Garrett Langley says drones are set to account for nearly half of the company’s future revenue. Flock, valued at $8.4 billion, has roughly 175 Drone as First Responder customers in the United States.

The bet lands in San Francisco on Wednesday, October 14, when the Police Commission takes up a drone policy for the San Francisco Police Department. The commission put off a vote on an earlier version on September 2. The version posted for Wednesday’s meeting still does not define “public safety response,” the broadest of its grounds for sending a drone up.

Flock’s spokesperson says its drones can’t run automated plate scans. Flock’s own marketing says the Alpha’s camera can read a license plate from up to 2,000 feet (610 meters).

Flock says its drones don’t scan plates, but it sells the camera on reading them

Both claims hold at once because a person does the reading. Paris Lewbel, Flock’s public safety manager, told Fast Company the drones can’t do ALPR scans on their own, and conceded that an officer watching the drone feed could simply call in the plate number.

DroneXL reported the 2,000-foot plate-read claim on June 2, when Flock pushed a new Alpha camera campaign, and noted then that Flock’s product pages for its broader Aerodome platform cited 1,000 feet. Others, Fast Company reports, argue that typing a plate seen through a drone camera into an ALPR system is trivial. Fast Company also describes the link already in use: an ALPR camera flags a plate on a hot list, an officer presses a button to launch the drone, and the drone can then track the car.

Flock’s drone business grows as the company cuts staff

Langley told the All-In podcast that drone tech is Flock’s “fastest-growing business unit right now.” Flock moved into drones by buying Aerodome in 2024. It now sells them to private companies and prisons as well as police departments, and plans to open a factory in Georgia by 2027.

The Aerodome deal was worth more than $300 million, and the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office has since put a Flock drone over its jail. Flock rates the Alpha at 60 mph (97 km/h) with up to 45 minutes of flight between charges. Fast Company says building at home helps Flock win market share after the FCC added foreign-made drones, DJI included, to its Covered List in December 2025, a move it describes as a Trump ban on DJI sales.

Reuters reported on October 9, citing people with direct knowledge of the plans, that about 270 employees, roughly 18% of Flock’s staff, will leave after a voluntary buyout program. Lewbel told TechCrunch it was “a voluntary program, not a layoff.”

Retired Chief Charles L. Werner, founder of the DRONERESPONDERS group, told Fast Company the FAA now issues about 125 new approvals for DFR programs a month. The FOIA list of more than 1,000 agencies the FAA cleared for waivers between April 2025 and February 2026 works out to at least 100 a month, though the two counts don’t measure exactly the same thing.

San Francisco’s rewritten drone order lets pilots clear calls from the air

The amended General Order 10.12 lets SFPD fly drones for “a public safety response,” to assist an active criminal investigation, or for training, and lets pilots clear a call for service with no officer on scene. Footage with evidentiary value is kept for at least two years.

The order posted for Wednesday requires a warrant, or a recognized warrant exception, before an operator intentionally focuses a drone on the inside of a home or an enclosed yard that can’t be seen from ground level in public. It bans “general surveillance,” defined as sweeping, non-targeted observation with no stated purpose. The program manager may share any footage collected during drone operations with “public safety partners.” Public footage can’t be kept past 30 days unless a captain or higher finds a longer period necessary for an open criminal investigation, a limit taken from the city’s Administrative Code. Among its six definitions, the order includes “general surveillance” and “Drone as First Responder” but not “public safety response.”

Commissioner Kevin Benedicto asked for the September delay after the ACLU and the Public Defender’s Office objected, the SF Standard reported. The Electronic Frontier Foundation flagged the same undefined phrase in an earlier revision in a September 28 post, warning that drones could be sent to every call. Beryl Lipton, a senior investigative researcher at EFF, told Fast Company the city’s proposal is a “really atrociously inadequate drone policy.”

The fleet includes Flock models, according to Fast Company, and District Attorney Brooke Jenkins, who puts it at nearly 100 drones, backs the program. SFPD figures cited by Fast Company say its DFR drones responded to 4,000 incidents between March 2024 and August 4, 2026, assisting in more than 1,550 cases and more than 655 arrests. In 2026 alone, drones supported 40 search warrants and more than 70 chases. “We can’t go back to that place out of fear,” Jenkins said.

SFPD’s data handling has a track record. In June, the department disclosed that a May audit found 299 improper inquiries on its Flock plate reader network over about a year, made for out-of-state and federal agencies through two regional information-sharing centers. It cut off their access and said no out-of-state or federal agency ever had direct access. In July, live feeds from five of its Skydio drones turned up on the open internet, where they had been for about six months.

Drone video outlives deletion once it becomes evidence

Flock deletes drone video after seven days by default, but Lewbel told Fast Company that flight records stay in public transparency portals and that drone video often gets classified as evidence and uploaded to agencies’ own evidence systems, where it is kept far longer than any deletion window.

Bryan Cox, head of police accountability at the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, and others ask whether the analysis drawn from the video (where cars went, which suspects met, where people gathered) is stored somewhere else, which would make deleting the video a formality. Cox argues that surveil-first policing lets police “collect all the data and figure out what the problem is.”

Jenkins argues the opposite. A drone only sees what is visible in public, she says, so there is no expectation of privacy to violate and no warrant to get.

DroneXL’s Take

I’ve backed Drone as First Responder from the start, and SFPD’s numbers show why it works. But San Francisco is weighing rules for nearly 100 police drones, and it has left the broadest reason to launch one undefined. “Public safety response” could cover nearly any call, and a deletion clock means little for footage that is shared with partners or filed as evidence.

My read is that Flock’s plate reader business ran into bans because plate data went places residents never signed up for, and San Francisco’s own audit found inquiries on its Flock network reaching out-of-state and federal agencies. If drones are going to be nearly half of Flock’s future, Flock has as much at stake as anyone in San Francisco defining that phrase on Wednesday.

Sources: Fast Company, San Francisco Police Department General Order 10.12 (amended proposal), SF Standard, Electronic Frontier Foundation, NBC Bay Area, Reuters, TechCrunch

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

DJI Curbs Hit Police Budgets: $10,500 Matrice vs. $21,000 US Rival

Haye Kesteloo — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 05:29:00 GMT

The drone kit one Ocean County Sheriff’s Office deputy carries in his vehicle costs $29,427.99. It is built around a DJI Matrice 300 RTK carrying a thermal camera. Section 232 tariffs now tax imported drones with integrated thermal imagers at 100%, and a pending Federal Communications Commission proposal would bar foreign thermal drones from import and sale. Chief Warrant Officer Kevin Fennessy, who runs the New Jersey office’s drone program, itemized the kit for NPR in a report published October 12.

It is the same Matrice 300 and Restube setup DroneXL covered in July, when an Ocean County pilot dropped a rescue tube to swimmers caught in a Surf City rip current. NPR priced a comparable American-made drone at about twice DJI’s Matrice 400. The FCC proposal would not apply to imports for federal government use. County sheriffs get no such carve-out.

Ocean County Pays for Its Drones From Forfeiture Money and Its Operating Budget

Fennessy’s list runs $13,699 for the Matrice 300 RTK, $1,400 for two batteries, $11,499 for the thermal camera, $1,600 for the controller, $1,099 for a payload release and $130.99 for the Restube. The office funds its fleet from asset forfeiture proceeds and its municipal operating budget.

NPR counts that fleet at 25 drones. As of October 13, the sheriff’s own drone unit page lists 16 aircraft and 13 FAA-licensed pilots, the figures DroneXL reported in July. Fennessy calls the gear a huge investment that is well worth it, especially in summer, when Ocean County’s population nearly doubles and the office watches big crowds from the air. About three years ago he flew a small camera drone through a shot-out window of a house where, by his account, a murder suspect had fired at officers 41 times. The drone found the man dead in a back bedroom. “No one’s hurt. Everyone’s safe,” Fennessy told NPR.

An Elizabeth, N.J., police officer with the DJI RC Plus controller for the department's Matrice 30 at a DJI Enterprise media event in Elizabeth in March 2022. Photo credit: DroneXL

A Comparable American Drone Costs Twice as Much, and Police Say More

NPR compared two drones with similar features. The DJI Matrice 400 retails for about $10,500, and Inspired Flight’s American-made IF800 TOMCAT was listed at a retailer for $21,000. Fennessy, who says he has flown almost all the American models and likes them, puts their cost at about three times DJI’s.

Jon Beal, head of the Law Enforcement Drone Association, gives a wider range. He told NPR that DJI sells a drone with a high-resolution thermal camera for under $10,000, while American drones usually run $20,000 to $50,000 with worse flight time, thermal imaging and zoom. LEDA estimates that about 6,000 U.S. law enforcement agencies now fly drones and that 80% to 90% of them fly DJI. Weber County Search and Rescue’s Kyle Nordfors put the American premium at three to eight times in The Hill this month.

Beal also says moving the supply chain home is harder than it sounds. “Even the American companies are using Chinese batteries,” he told NPR.

A Phoenix Fire Department firefighter with a DJI controller beside a department van. Fire departments and search teams fly DJI too. Photo credit: Phoenix Fire Department

Florida Already Showed Who Pays for a Forced Switch

NPR reports that agencies in Florida, Texas, Mississippi and Tennessee ended drone programs, or plans for one, after state bans on foreign drones. In 2023, DroneXL reported Florida’s Orange County sheriff was replacing 16 DJI drones with 18 Skydio aircraft, with $25 million in grants toward replacing more than 500.

That 2023 reporting found most of the replacement cost would still fall on taxpayers. Beal says some departments in the ban states were left scrambling when their budgets couldn’t cover the American alternatives. Federal and state grants for American-made drones exist, NPR notes, but agencies compete for them.

Sheriffs Asked the FCC for the Carve-Out It Proposed for Federal Users

The National Sheriffs’ Association, which represents more than 3,000 sheriffs, asked the FCC in Docket 26-189 to confirm that American drones can do the work before restricting drones that meet its military-grade definition, and to exempt state, local, tribal and territorial law enforcement until the domestic market can supply them.

Its filing asks the agency to “confirm the adequacy of the domestic market” for public safety drones. The definition comes from the FCC’s July 21 notice, which names thermal imaging among seven “military-grade” capabilities alongside lidar and aerosol spraying, and exempts imports for federal government use. DJI’s lawyers attacked that federal carve-out in their own comments.

Comments closed September 2, the day I filed DroneXL’s own comments in the docket. As of October 13, the Federal Register shows no order from the bureaus, which can issue one without a Commission vote. The tariffs are already in force: the Section 232 proclamation has taxed thermal drones at 100% since September 3, with lower rates for other drones and allied imports.

The administration’s case is security. The December 2025 national security determination, issued by an executive-branch interagency body and published by the FCC, treats foreign-made drones as an unacceptable risk. DJI denies sharing user data with the Chinese government, points to an independent security assessment it commissioned, and denies the forced-labor allegations behind Customs and Border Protection’s 2024 hold on some of its imports. Beal told NPR he has seen no hard evidence that China uses the drones to spy on the communities flying them. The FCC told NPR the American drone industry is “booming with new investment.” DroneXL found in September that the FCC’s own $5 billion tally counted pledges alongside money raised.

DroneXL’s Take

Washington wants local police off DJI, and I’d say it is handing them the bill. The tariff adds a duty equal to a thermal drone’s declared import value. The FCC proposal would end those imports outside federal use, and replacement money comes from competitive grants a sheriff may never win.

If Ocean County has to replace its fleet with American aircraft, I expect forfeiture proceeds and the county operating budget to cover a federal policy goal. Fennessy expects the same: “The taxpayers of Ocean County are going to absorb that.”

Birdstop founder Keith Miao told NPR the restrictions give American manufacturers an opportunity to build out drone manufacturing, and a domestic supply chain for public safety hardware is worth having. My view is that the country should pay for it the way Florida at least tried to, with grant money on the table, and not by sending the difference to a county budget.

The sheriffs asked for something modest: proof that American drones can do the job, or permission to keep buying until they can. I think the bureaus owe them one or the other before any order takes effect.

Sources: NPR, National Sheriffs’ Association comments in PS Docket 26-189, National Security Determination, Ocean County Sheriff’s Office, DJI.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

DJI Mini 5 Pro Stays at a Record-Low $679 After Prime Big Deal Days

Haye Kesteloo — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 03:13:00 GMT

The DJI Mini 5 Pro is $679 at Amazon, $80 under its $759 list price and the lowest the standalone drone has sold for. The cut arrived on October 6 with Prime Big Deal Days. That event ended on Wednesday, October 7, and the price was still on the listing when DroneXL checked it at 10:25 p.m. Eastern on Monday, October 12.

For $679 the box holds the drone, the DJI RC-N3 controller, one battery and spare propellers. The listing shows 500 or more sold in the past month, but the price tracker Keepa records no $679 offer from Amazon itself. Its chart last shows Amazon’s own stock at the end of September, at $759.

Get the DJI Mini 5 Pro for $679 at Amazon

The Mini 5 Pro in flight, forward LiDAR and vision sensors facing the lens. Photo credit: Air Photography

DJI’s First 1-Inch Mini Drone Had Never Sold Below $683

The Mini 5 Pro was the first mini drone with a 1-inch CMOS sensor. It shoots 50-megapixel stills, 4K HDR video at 60fps and 4K/120fps slow motion behind an f/1.8 lens. The gimbal rolls 225 degrees, so vertical video uses the full sensor instead of a crop.

Keepa’s price history has the standalone package at $683 from mid-July to August 1, again for the last week of August, and again from September 1 to 9. It went back to $759 after each of those stretches and sat there from September 9 until Prime Big Deal Days opened. DroneXL covered the first $683 drop on July 25 and its return on August 26. Shawn of Air Photography, who took the photos on this page, flew the drone for over a month before his launch-day review.

The RC-N3 Fly More Combo Costs $170 More and Adds Two Batteries

On October 12 the listing showed four configurations. The standalone kit was $679, the Fly More Combo with the RC-N3 $849, the version with the screen-equipped RC 2 $979, and the Fly More Combo Plus with the RC 2 $1,029, against struck-through prices of $959, $1,099 and $1,159.

The Fly More kits add two batteries, for three in total, and a charging hub that fills all three in about 115 minutes. DJI rates the standard battery at 36 minutes. Mihail Svilenov’s long-term review got 20 to 25 minutes depending on the weather. The Plus combo swaps in DJI’s Intelligent Flight Battery Plus, which DJI rates at 52 minutes, for $50 over the standard RC 2 combo.

The RC 2 puts the live feed on a built-in screen, and it is the whole $130 gap between the two standard Fly More combos. Photo credit: Air Photography

O4+ transmission is rated to 20 km (12.4 miles), and 42 GB of internal storage covers a forgotten microSD card. Read the “Sold by” line before you pay. Android pilots should also note the listing’s own warning that DJI Fly is no longer on Google Play and has to be downloaded from DJI’s website.

Production Units Weigh 252 Grams, So FAA Registration Applies

DJI markets the Mini 5 Pro at 249.9 grams, and its Amazon listing allows 4 grams either way. A DroneXL industry source weighed production units at 252 to 253 grams. The FAA allows no tolerance at 250 grams, so Remote ID and registration apply even to recreational flying.

Two late design changes put the aircraft over its printed weight. Europe gives the drone a manufacturing buffer, but US rules count any weight at or over 250 grams. Registration costs $5 at FAADroneZone.

The forward LiDAR also puts the drone inside the FCC’s proposal to end imports and sales of previously authorized foreign drones with LiDAR, where comments closed September 2. The proposal covers importing and marketing, so a drone you already own keeps flying.

DroneXL’s Take

I’d buy at $679. Our deal tracker tells readers to buy at $683 or under, and this price has now held five days past the end of the sale that brought it. I bought one through this same listing on October 21, 2025, and in April I called it the drone I reach for first. Black Friday could go lower. Waiting is a gamble on this listing, though, because every earlier dip ended back at $759 rather than lower. Most buyers should take the $849 RC-N3 combo, since one battery buys you roughly 20 minutes in the air. If the listing reads $759 when you click through, hold off for the next dip rather than pay $80 more for the same box.

Sources: Amazon, Keepa

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

Amazon Drone Pad Appeal Set for Nov. 2 as Westborough Drafts Bylaw

Haye Kesteloo — Tue, 13 Oct 2026 02:14:00 GMT

Westborough’s Zoning Board of Appeals will hear the residents’ appeal against Amazon’s Prime Air drone launch pad on Monday, November 2, at 7:05 p.m. in the Forbes Municipal Building, according to an agenda the town posted on Friday, October 9. That is the hearing DroneXL told readers to watch for on October 3 in Amazon’s Westborough Drone Launch Now Hinges on a Zoning Appeal, and it lands eight days before the Planning Board’s November 10 date for the site plan itself.

The town votes on a second front first. A Special Town Meeting on Monday, October 19, takes up a new general bylaw on unmanned aircraft, and the Select Board meets Tuesday, October 13, to decide whether to back it and whether to write to the congressional delegation and the FAA. Worcester, whose council asked for a legal report on its own powers on October 6, is covered in Worcester Asks If It Can Stop Amazon Drones. Shrewsbury Says It Can’t, where Shrewsbury Town Manager Kevin Mizikar said local regulation of the flights is preempted.

The warrant says the bylaw’s draft will be placed on file with the Town Clerk and handed out at the meeting, and the warrant itself carries no text. It also says any bylaw on this topic must be approved by the Massachusetts Attorney General and the MassDOT Aeronautics Division.

Residents Filed the Appeal on the Last Day the Law Allowed

Several residents appealed the building commissioner’s August 26 letter on September 25, the town’s Prime Air page says, the 30th and last day Section 15 of Chapter 40A allows. The ZBA has 65 days from receiving notice to open the hearing, November 29 if notice arrived on the filing day.

The November 2 agenda lists the case as “Rod Jane – Appeals Application – 64 Otis Street,” at 7:05 p.m. in the Great Hall at 45 West Main Street. The meeting opens at 7 with a 10-minute open forum, and the agenda calls all times approximate. The board then has 100 days from the filing to decide, January 3, 2027, unless the appellants and the board agree in writing to extend either clock. The commissioner’s letter classified the pad as an accessory use of the fulfillment center on the same lot, which the zoning bylaw allows as of right as a manufacturing, processing and warehouse use. That ruling is what put the pad in front of the Planning Board for site-plan review instead of a special permit.

If the ZBA finds the commissioner wrong, the town page says Amazon would need the approvals the bylaw then requires, which could include a special permit and site plan through the ZBA rather than the Planning Board. Select Board member Patrick Welch has asked the ZBA to decide whether the drones are “aircraft” under the bylaw, the Community Advocate reported, because, Welch said, a use classed as an “airport” may need a special permit where an accessory use does not. Westborough’s bylaw defines an accessory use as an incidental or insubstantial part of the activity on a lot, and an airport as any area on a lot used for the landing and takeoff of aircraft on a regular or intermittent basis, as DroneXL reported on October 3. Planning Board vice chair John Gelcich said at the September 15 hearing that the board is “almost required to approve it,” as DroneXL reported on October 2.

Amazon Asked for Its Own Delay Three Days After the Appeal Was Filed

Amazon told the town on September 28 that it wanted its Planning Board hearing continued until after the ZBA considers the appeal, the town’s page says. The Planning Board voted on October 6 to continue to November 10. The town expects that date to fall after the ZBA’s decision.

The October 6 agenda had carried the request without a reason when DroneXL reported it in Amazon Asks Westborough to Delay Drone Pad Vote as Board Says No.

September 28 was also the date on the letter from state Sen. Michael Moore and Reps. Hannah Kane and Kate Donaghue asking Amazon to pause, covered in Amazon Drone Hub Faces Pause Call From Lawmakers as State Sues FAA. The town page says Amazon is now seeking the site-specific FAA approvals it needs to fly from 64 Otis Street. The MK30 it would fly weighs 77.9 pounds (35.5 kilograms) empty and carries no parachute, as DroneXL reported in Amazon’s 83-Pound MK30 Heads To 500 Cities.

Town Meeting Votes October 19 on a Drone Bylaw the Warrant Left Blank

Article 8 of the Special Town Meeting warrant, signed October 1 by five Select Board members, asks voters to add Article 34, “Aircraft, Unmanned,” to the bylaws by majority vote. The board was still developing the text, and the bylaw may address privacy, public safety, noise and enforcement.

The Select Board’s October 13 agenda, revised October 9, has the board voting on whether to support Articles 7 and 8 at 7:25 p.m. and taking up a communication to the congressional delegation and the FAA on unmanned aircraft at 8:25 p.m. The Community Advocate says the bylaw follows North Reading’s 2017 example. DroneXL argued on October 2 that such a bylaw would bind the hobbyist next door and not a Part 135 carrier, and a federal judge struck down parts of Newton’s drone bylaw in 2017.

“The risk does not match the want,” Westborough resident Jen Parent said at one of the town’s public meetings, MassLive reported, adding, “We do not need 30-minute deliveries for any reason.” Castle Rock, Colorado, pulled a different lever and froze drone hub applications for six months, as DroneXL covered in Castle Rock Froze Walmart’s Drone Hub 7-0. The Drone Delivery Tracker lists the Westborough hub as in review.

Residents can call Amazon at 1-888-280-4331 and say it is about drone delivery, or open the customer-service chat and pick “Something Else,” then “Amazon Drone Delivery.” DroneXL’s guide for residents covers what a town can still do once a hub is proposed, and the tracker’s Westborough page carries the local dates.

DroneXL’s Take

In my view the appeal the ZBA opens on November 2 is the only local proceeding that can stop this pad, and as I read the two agendas, most of the town’s energy is going into October 19. A town bylaw on unmanned aircraft has to survive the Attorney General, MassDOT Aeronautics and the same federal preemption argument that beat Newton in 2017, and the warrant asks voters to approve a text it does not contain. The ZBA question is narrower, and I think harder for Amazon to attack in court: whether a fenced lot built to launch aircraft is accessory to a warehouse under Westborough’s own definitions. My read is that it is not, and that a special-permit track gives the town the vote Gelcich says the Planning Board does not have.

I’d want a drone bringing medication flown the way Zipline flies its P2, which lowers the package on a tether from altitude, and I’m against a 77.9-pound aircraft with no parachute carrying consumer orders over Westborough’s homes. Amazon’s own request to wait for the ZBA tells me the company treats this appeal as one that can change its permit path, not as a formality. If the ZBA upholds the commissioner, the Planning Board’s power on November 10 shrinks, as I read Prudential v. Westwood, to attaching conditions, and Westborough’s fight ends where Mizikar said it would.

Sources: Town of Westborough, Prime Air Drone Delivery Service Application page, Zoning Board of Appeals agenda, November 2, 2026, Select Board agenda, October 13, 2026, 2026 Special Town Meeting warrant, M.G.L. c. 40A, § 15, Community Advocate, MassLive.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

Drug Traffickers Could Become Africa's Drone Arms Dealers, Paper Warns

Haye Kesteloo — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 15:29:00 GMT

Robi Sen, who has been a senior partner at Department 13, the company behind the MESMER counter-drone system, published a paper on LinkedIn on October 10 warning that drug-trafficking networks could become suppliers of weaponized drones and drone expertise to armed groups in Africa. The paper is titled “Drone Warfare in Africa.”

His argument is about incentives. Sen writes that states often restrict sensitive capabilities to keep a military edge and insurgents may hide their methods from rivals. A profit-driven trafficking network, in his words, may instead sell access to aircraft and technicians when the return beats the risk.

The paper’s verification note says the most specific version of that warning, that African drug markets trade weaponized drones directly for drugs, could not be verified and “remains an investigative lead, not a confirmed finding.”

Armed Drones Killed More Than 940 Civilians in Six African Wars

SIPRI’s 2025 Yearbook says armed drones were confirmed in at least six sub-Saharan conflicts, in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan, killing more than 940 civilians between November 2021 and November 2024, a figure Sen cites with the warning that it is not a running total.

The SIPRI chapter matches the count in Drone Wars UK’s Death on Delivery report from March 2025: more than 943 civilians killed in at least 50 incidents across the same six countries. Five of those six states fly Turkey’s Bayraktar TB2, and the report also names China’s Wing Loong II and Iran’s Mohajer-6. Its Nigeria cases include the December 2023 army strikes on a religious gathering in Tudun Biri, which killed at least 85 people.

Sudan is Sen’s lead case, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have stepped up their strikes there. Reuters reported on September 24 a drone hit a crowded courtroom in government-held Um Ruwaba, North Kordofan, on September 8, killing about 10 people according to the monitor Emergency Lawyers. Another struck a college in al-Obeid the next day. The RSF did not comment to Reuters but says it does not intentionally target civilians. The UN says drone attacks by both sides killed more than 1,000 civilians in the first half of 2026. In May 2025, satellite images showed the RSF had long-range attack drones at Nyala airport.

Sen Builds the Trafficker Case on Mexico, Colombia and a Spanish Workshop

Sen’s evidence for traffickers as drone operators comes from Latin America. NCITE, funded by the Department of Homeland Security, counted 221 weaponized drone incidents attributed to Mexican cartels from 2021 to 2025, and ACLED has logged about 670 weaponized drone events there since 2018.

Sen cites both. The NCITE study at the University of Nebraska Omaha, first covered by DroneXL in February, found 27 of those attacks were fatal and killed 77 people. The attacks were concentrated in Michoacán and Guerrero. The ACLED analysis shows how fast it is spreading: more than 72% of its events happened between January 2025 and August 2026, and the number of armed groups using drones went from 5 in 2024 to 19 this year. Colombia holds 97 of the 182 municipalities where drone attacks were recorded.

The Spanish case is closest to the business model Sen describes. In July 2022, Spain’s Policía Nacional arrested eight people and broke up a workshop in Castellar de la Frontera, Cádiz, that was building underwater drones for other drug gangs. The drones were built to cross the Strait of Gibraltar with drugs aboard. Police seized three of them, each designed to carry up to 200 kg (441 lb), and six large aerial drones. Sen’s paper calls it a business model in which specialist fabricators build uncrewed technology for criminal customers.

The Paper’s Verification Note Sets Aside Its Unsourced Figures

Beyond the barter claim, the paper’s verification note says the draft it reviewed cited UNODC, the Africa Center, AllAfrica, ACLED and Small Wars Journal in brackets without bibliographic entries, so manufacturing figures and 2024 strike counts tied to them were not retained as verified facts.

Sen treats the Latin American record as a mechanism to investigate, not proof of a pipeline to Africa, and he lists the reasons a cartel might not sell. Arming a rival threatens market control, drone attacks bring enforcement, and conspicuous violence disrupts profitable routes. He writes that there is not yet enough evidence to say traffickers are more likely to spread armed drones than states, insurgents or other brokers. His research priorities start with documented transactions rather than claims of affiliation.

Two Documented Cases Link Africa to Iranian and Russian Drone Programs

Two cases with paper trails link Africa to state drone programs. A federal criminal complaint accuses Shamim Mafi of brokering an Iranian drone deal worth more than $70 million for Sudan’s army, and GI-TOC documented Russia recruiting young African women into drone production.

Mafi, a Woodland Hills resident, was arrested at LAX in April. Prosecutors allege she brokered the Mohajer-6 contract with Sudan’s Ministry of Defense through Atlas International Business, an Oman-based company they say she ran. She is charged with one sanctions count and is presumed innocent.

The Russian case is in the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime report from May 2025. It found that the Alabuga Start program recruited women aged 18 to 22, first from African countries, for jobs at the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in Tatarstan without telling them they would work in weapons production. DroneXL has reported on the Alabuga recruits since October 2024. Sen includes the case in his paper and says it shows the cost of fast drone production landing on vulnerable people far from the war.

DroneXL’s Take

I think the verification note is the most useful part of Sen’s paper. It treats a drugs-for-drones trade in Africa as a lead to chase rather than a trend, and the record in this story backs that call. The criminal drone workshop in his own paper, in Castellar, was building for drug smugglers crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, not for armed groups. The drones Drone Wars UK names in Africa’s civilian toll are Turkish, Chinese and Iranian, and the one drone broker here facing a US courtroom is accused of trafficking arms on behalf of Iran’s government. My read is that cartel supply to African wars is plausible and unproven, while state supply is on paper. Until a named trafficker transaction shows up in a court file, the attention belongs on sanctions cases and the brokers who move state-built drones into African wars.

Sources: Robi Sen, “Drone Warfare in Africa”, SIPRI Yearbook 2025, Drone Wars UK, Reuters via The Star, NCITE, ACLED, Diario Bahía de Cádiz, GI-TOC

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

Gastonia Tells Residents Why Walmart Drones Will Be Over Their Homes

Haye Kesteloo — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 13:47:00 GMT

Walmart has finished a drone delivery site at its Supercenter at 223 N. Myrtle School Road in Gastonia, North Carolina, and the City of Gastonia has put out a notice so residents know why delivery drones may be flying over or near their neighborhoods. The aircraft will serve eligible customers within about 6 miles (9.7 kilometers) of the store.

Walmart plans to explain the service itself, with information tables at the Myrtle School Road store and at upcoming community events, WSOC-TV reported Sunday. That report gives no start date and no flight count. The FAA review that covers Gastonia clears up to 400 deliveries a day from a single hub.

The FAA Sets Wing’s Ceiling at 400 Deliveries a Day per Hub, Gastonia Included

The 400 figure comes from the FAA’s April 29, 2025 review of Wing’s Charlotte-metro operations. It allows up to 25 Wing hubs, each flying up to 400 deliveries a day, for a metro ceiling of 10,000. The FAA’s map of the operating area runs west past Gastonia to Shelby.

WSOC-TV’s text does not name the operator, though it ran Wing’s expansion video above it. Walmart picked Wing for Charlotte when it announced the metro in June 2025, the FAA approval for the metro is Wing’s, and Wing’s Walmart page lists Charlotte as now serving. Charlotte was one of five metros already flying when the two companies added Denver and Seattle on October 5.

The Charlotte metro operating area from the FAA's April 2025 review of Wing's operations. Gastonia sits west of Charlotte, inside the dashed boundary, which stops at the South Carolina line. Image credit: FAA

The FAA document also says what residents under the flight paths should expect. Wing’s aircraft cruise at an average of 165 feet (50 meters) and 59 mph (95 km/h), and lower packages on a tether while they hover. The approval covers deliveries from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week, plus up to 24 checkout flights at the hub between 6 and 7 a.m.

On noise, the FAA cites direct measurements of Wing’s Hummingbird aircraft: a location overflown 800 times stays at or below 40.7 decibels on the day-night average the agency uses. The FAA’s threshold for noise-compatible residential land use is 65. Hubs must sit at least 74 feet (23 meters) from noise-sensitive sites, or 199 feet (61 meters) inside controlled airspace near an airport, and Wing must plan routes to cut down on repeat overflights.

Gastonia Joins Walmart Drone Stores in Kings Mountain and Shelby

Gastonia is not the first Walmart drone stop west of Charlotte. The Kings Mountain store at 1011 Shelby Road started drone delivery in December 2025, and the East Dixon Boulevard store in Shelby followed on February 3, 2026, Wise News Network reported.

Lincoln County, to the north, went through a zoning fight first. Walmart’s store at 7131 N.C. 73 in Denver needed a conditional zoning amendment for its drone site, and more than 200 people signed a petition against it. Commissioners approved it 3 to 1 on June 15, with Chair Jamie Lineberger voting no, the Lincoln Times-News reported.

DroneXL’s Take

Gastonia got the order right by telling residents before the drones started showing up, and Walmart will put people at tables in the store to answer questions. Lincoln County residents met their hub at a zoning hearing with a petition already circulating, which is a worse way to start.

But WSOC’s account of the notice leaves out the two things a neighbor asks first: how many flights, and who to call about the noise. Round Rock, Texas, put a complaint contact on its city page. I’d want Gastonia to put Wing’s contact and the FAA’s numbers in front of residents, because up to 400 deliveries a day from one parking lot is a figure residents should hear from their city instead of digging it out of a federal PDF.

Sources: WSOC-TV, Axios Charlotte, Wing, FAA written re-evaluation, Wing Charlotte metro, April 29, 2025, Lincoln Times-News, Wise News Network

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

Harmattan AI's 2,000 km Drone Doesn't Need GPS, and Morocco Wants It

Haye Kesteloo — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 13:17:00 GMT

Harmattan AI, the Paris defense startup that Dassault Aviation backed with $200 million in January, unveiled IRIFI on October 6. It is a one-way attack drone the company says can hit targets up to 2,000 km (1,240 miles) away without relying on GPS and without a human flying it after launch.

The next day, at the Marrakech Air Show, Harmattan signed a letter of intent with the Kingdom of Morocco to develop IRIFI as a Moroccan system, with its critical components produced in the country. The first government publicly attached to the French drone is not France.

Harmattan’s spec sheet for IRIFI has three entries: range, a combustion engine, and a payload listed as “undisclosed.”

IRIFI Navigates Without GNSS and Uses Cameras for the Final Approach

Harmattan says IRIFI navigates with an onboard system that does not rely on GNSS satellite signals and switches to visual terminal guidance for the last stretch to the target. It launches from a mobile canister, and Harmattan calls it an attritable one-way effector: it does not come back.

The company also claims IRIFI can fly under radar and hit within meters. None of that has been shown in a public test. The IRIFI announcement and the product page give no speed, no unit cost, no warhead size and no flight-test footage. The pitch is about where IRIFI sits on price and precision. CEO Mouad M’Ghari called Iran’s Shahed “imprecise and easy to shoot down” and said Tomahawk and Storm Shadow cruise missiles are survivable but expensive and built in small numbers. IRIFI, he said, combines the two.

GNSS independence is the part of the pitch with the most behind it. Russian jamming has pushed Ukrainian builders toward the same answer for years, from drones that fly through jamming to fiber-optic FPV aircraft that carry no radio link at all.

One Commander Can Launch Dozens of IRIFI Strikes After Two Human Approvals

Harmattan describes a two-layer authorization process. Command level approves the targets, launch positions and mission parameters, and a final launch authorization follows at the point of release. From there IRIFI flies the entire mission with no human control, and Harmattan says the choice of target stays human.

Harmattan AI pitches IRIFI for coordinated saturation strikes. Image credit: Harmattan AI

The volume claim is the bigger one. Harmattan says a single commander, informed by an AI system that processes large amounts of satellite imagery, can launch dozens of autonomous strikes at once. That is a saturation attack: enough simultaneous arrivals to overwhelm air defenses, the same logic Russia uses with Shahed waves against Ukraine.

Harmattan’s Shipped Products Are Short-Range Drones, Not Deep Strike

Harmattan’s best-documented deliveries are short-range reconnaissance drones: France’s DGA procurement agency ordered 1,000 Sonora ISR systems in June 2025, received them within six months, and ordered 5,000 more in June 2026. Its Paris-region plant, the company says, can build 10,000 units a month.

The UK Ministry of Defence signed for 3,000 systems in September 2025, as DroneXL reported when Harmattan was chasing a $1 billion valuation. Dassault’s January round then valued it at $1.4 billion. A 2,000 km strike weapon is a different class of aircraft from either program, and IRIFI is the company’s first announced product in it.

Morocco Signs to Develop IRIFI With Critical Parts Made at Home

The October 7 signing took place in front of Abdeltif Loudyi, minister delegate in charge of the National Defense Administration, and Gen. Mohammed Berrid, Inspector General of the Royal Moroccan Armed Forces. The release gives no contract value, no quantity and no delivery schedule.

Harmattan’s press release calls IRIFI “a sovereign Moroccan autonomous deep-strike system” and says critical components will be developed and produced in Morocco, mostly by Moroccan talent, through the local subsidiary Harmattan AI Morocco. It builds on a June 2026 partnership that aims to establish a Harmattan R&D center in Rabat.

Morocco has gone this route before. In 2024 it field-tested the SpyX loitering munition, made in Morocco with BlueBird, a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace Industries.

DroneXL’s Take

I think the letter of intent tells you more than the spec sheet does. Washington answered the Shahed by copying it: LUCAS, a $35,000 reverse-engineered Shahed-136 built by Arizona’s SpektreWorks, flew its first combat mission against Iran on February 28. The US builds that drone for its own forces. Harmattan is selling a different product to countries that want long-range strike without depending on someone else’s stockpile: a design they help develop and critical parts made in their own factories. Morocco wanted that badly enough to sign one day after the reveal, before Harmattan had published a single flight test. The question for France now is whether its own DGA buys the drone that Morocco has already put its name on.

Sources: Harmattan AI, Harmattan AI and Kingdom of Morocco press release (via Defense Arabia)

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

DJI Ends Phantom 4 Pro V2 Repairs Oct. 31 and Tells Owners to Buy New

Haye Kesteloo — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 12:54:00 GMT

DJI will stop servicing the Phantom 4 Pro V2 on October 31, 2026. From that date the company will no longer answer product inquiries, provide technical support or repair the aircraft and its accessories. Two days later, on November 2, the same end-of-service list cuts off the Agras T16 and Agras T20 spray drones, the MG-1P series and the original Osmo Action.

DJI’s notice closes by recommending that owners “upgrade to an alternative product of a new model.” In the United States, no new DJI model has been able to get FCC authorization since December 22, 2025, when the FCC added all foreign-made drones to its Covered List.

The Phantom 4 Pro V2 Gets Four Years of Service, Three Fewer Than the Original

DJI’s end-of-service table lists August 2022 as the month Phantom 4 Pro V2 production stopped, so service ends about four years and two months later. The original Phantom 4 Pro and Pro+ left production in April 2018 and kept DJI service until June 1, 2025.

That gap is the shortest DJI has given any Phantom since the Phantom 1, which left production in April 2015 and lost service in February 2019. Most products DJI cuts off in 2026 get about five years. The Mavic 2 Pro, the Osmo Action and both Mavic 2 Enterprise models land almost exactly on five.

The V2 outlived its siblings on the production line by more than four years. When DroneXL covered the June 2025 cutoff for the Phantom 4 Pro and Advanced, the V2 was still on DJI’s service books. It also keeps flying legally after October 31. DJI shipped Remote ID broadcast firmware 01.00.70.17 for the V2 and V2+ in November 2023, and end of service does not switch that off.

Agras T20 Owners Lose DJI Service Nov. 2 as the FCC Weighs Barring Spray Drones

DJI names no successor for the Agras T16 and T20, which lose service on November 2, 2026, and every newer Agras is a foreign sprayer. A pending FCC proposal, PS Docket 26-189, would bar the import and sale of those already approved. MG-1S Advanced sprayers lose support then too.

The T16 left production in September 2020 and the T20 in July 2021. Newer models have US paperwork. The Agras T55 cleared FCC equipment authorization on December 19, 2025, three days before the Covered List cutoff, and the base T100 holds its own grant.

The FCC’s July 21 public notice, DA 26-758, would bar the continued import and marketing of any foreign drone on the Covered List that is capable of dispensing “economic poison” under FAA rules, while leaving existing authorizations in place. That is the FAA’s term for pesticides and defoliants, and the category applies at any weight. Drones already in a farmer’s shed would keep flying, because the proposal covers import and marketing.

Comments closed September 2. Pilot Institute’s count of the record found 3,770 of 3,824 readable filings opposed the proposal (Pilot Institute is a DroneXL partner). As of October 12, neither the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau nor the Office of Engineering and Technology, which released the notice, has issued an order in the docket.

DroneXL’s Take

I have no quarrel with DJI retiring a drone that left production four years ago. My problem is the advice to buy new. For an American farmer whose T20 loses DJI service on November 2, buying new means an Agras model that cleared the FCC before December 22. The FCC’s own proposal would stop dealers from importing or selling those, while calling a crop sprayer military-grade. That is protectionism dressed up as security, and farmers are the ones who pay for it. If the FCC adopts the sprayer category as written, losing DJI service on an old T20 will be the smaller problem on that farm.

Sources: DJI Support, Notice of Suspension of Service and Support for Old Product Series; FCC Public Notice DA 26-758, PS Docket 26-189.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

DroneXL Adds 20 Drone Delivery Town Guides as Local Votes Pile Up

Haye Kesteloo — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:50:00 GMT

DroneXL published 20 new resident guides on its Drone Delivery Tracker today, one for each town or metro where Amazon Prime Air, Wing or Zipline is flying, has filed paperwork, or has named the area. With the Belvedere, California guide published Saturday, the town guides section now covers 21 places in 16 states, plus the Kansas side of Kansas City.

Each guide is written for residents who have never thought about drones. Eight of the 21 have a dated step on the calendar before November 10: a council vote or reading, a planning or zoning hearing, a city town hall, a comment deadline, a permit-review deadline or a federal court deadline.

The Guides Separate the FAA’s Flight From the Town’s Ground

Every guide uses the same six parts: the town’s situation, the operators with a map of their delivery circles, who decides what, what residents can do, a survey, and the sources. The who-decides part separates the Federal Aviation Administration’s flight from the town’s ground and the state’s rules.

Where a town has written rules, the guide walks through them section by section. Where it hasn’t, the guide lists the record document by document, and says where DroneXL searched and when for anything it could not find.

The guides also say what no town can do. A federal court struck down Newton, Massachusetts’ overflight, altitude and registration rules in 2017 (Singer v. City of Newton), and the FAA has restated its position since.

Eight Towns Have a Dated Step Before November 10

Belvedere’s council takes its final vote on Marin County’s first drone delivery ordinance Monday, October 12, and Northglenn, Colorado, which Walmart approached about a Wing nest, is scheduled by its staff to hold the first reading of its own hub ordinance that night.

The Northglenn staff memo expects a public hearing and final vote October 26. Comments on the FAA’s request to Connecticut’s environmental department about Amazon’s proposed North Haven hub close October 15.

City reviewers’ comments on Walmart’s building permit application in Tacoma are due October 17, according to The News Tribune. North Myrtle Beach’s Planning Commission is set to take up Amazon’s drone pad application on October 20, per the city’s October 6 staff report. The City of Tracy, California hosts a town hall on Amazon drone delivery on October 22.

Westborough’s Zoning Board of Appeals hears residents’ appeal on November 2 of the ruling that put Amazon’s 64 Otis Street launch pad in site-plan review. Under Massachusetts case law, that review lets the Planning Board attach conditions but deny the plan only if no condition could fix its problems. An independent online survey of Westborough-area residents, which says it is not a scientific poll, counted 853 responses on September 28, 92 percent of them opposed.

In Papillion, Nebraska, the window to challenge the FAA’s Omaha environmental decision in a federal appeals court closes November 9 if the 60 days run from the September 9 signature, or November 23 if they run from the FAA’s September 22 notice.

State Law Decides How Much Room Each Town Has

Eight of the states in the guides, Texas, Illinois (Chicago excepted), Connecticut, Michigan, Louisiana, Florida, Oregon and Arizona, bar cities from regulating drone operations. In those states a town holds zoning, building permits and the conditions on them, and little else that touches the drones.

Florida and Arizona narrowed even that. A Florida county may not refuse a drone port over its location, and Arizona’s June 2026 delivery law bars a city from withholding a permit for a site outside residential zoning.

California, Massachusetts, Washington, Colorado, Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas have no statute taking drone rules away from towns. Their towns can write ground rules of the kind Belvedere and Northglenn have drafted, as long as the rules stay on the ground. Ohio’s 2025 drone law lists two things cities may regulate, their own drones and hobby flying over public property, and says nothing about delivery; whether that list shuts out other local rules has not been tested in court. South Carolina’s new drone law takes effect January 1, 2027.

The other guides cover Baton Rouge, Cincinnati, Hazel Park, Houston, Kansas City, Maricopa, Matteson, Mesquite, North Randall, Portland, Richardson, Ruskin and Waco.

Every Guide Carries a Local Survey and a Way to Fix Errors

Each guide has the same anonymous two-minute survey, and the guide page shows only its own town’s results. The tracker’s main page adds every town together. Answers are not tied to a name, email or street address, and the results count who answered.

Each guide also has a section on how to report a mistake: the correction form on the page, or an email to contact at dronexl.co. Confirmed errors are fixed on the page and logged with a date.

Residents who already have Amazon drones overhead can find the complaint routes in DroneXL’s general residents’ guide. Amazon takes drone questions at 1-888-280-4331 or through its customer service chat (“Something Else,” then “Amazon Drone Delivery”), and the tracker’s Amazon Prime Air page lists every Amazon hub DroneXL has found on the public record.

DroneXL’s Take

I built these guides because too many towns I covered this year had the argument late. In Papillion the drones had been flying for six weeks when the FAA signed its Omaha environmental decision on September 9, and DroneXL found no council vote on the pad in any record it could reach. In Richardson, by the time the complaints came, the zoning was settled and Texas law barred the city from any ordinance on how the drones fly. The FAA decides the flight. In most states, my read is that the town decides more than most councils use: the permit, the hours on the ground, the conditions, and, as Northglenn’s draft would, what the operator has to disclose before the first drone leaves the pad. DroneXL is for drone delivery where it earns the noise, a defibrillator or a prescription first and a toothpaste run last. The people under the route get a say in the second kind, and I want them to have the facts while the vote is still ahead of them.

Sources: the 21 DroneXL town guides and the documents listed in each, FAA drone environmental review index.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

Airlogix Seeks $100M At $2B Valuation As Russia Bombs Its Factories

Haye Kesteloo — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 17:40:00 GMT

Airlogix, the Kyiv drone maker whose strike aircraft are now built in Germany, is in talks to raise $100 million at a valuation above $2 billion, Forbes reported on October 9, citing two sources familiar with the deal. If it closes, Airlogix becomes the most valuable company to come out of the defense industry Ukraine built after Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Vitalii Kolesnichenko founded Airlogix in 2020 to build cargo drones. The war turned it into a maker of the GOR reconnaissance drone, a catapult-launched aircraft that loiters over a target for up to four hours, and this year into a strike drone supplier under a German government contract for more than 5,000 aircraft. Airlogix declined to comment on the fundraising.

Russian strikes have destroyed Airlogix production sites more than once, Kolesnichenko told the Resilience Conference in London on October 5. The drones behind the $2 billion price are being built in Germany.

Russian strikes pushed Airlogix’s factories into Germany, Canada and the UK

Airlogix spread its manufacturing across several countries after Russian strikes destroyed production sites in Ukraine. Its joint venture with Auterion started serial production of the Seth X and Anubis strike drones in Germany on September 21. A Canadian venture with Hamilton-based Sentinel followed a late May signing in Ottawa.

“We basically were forced to break down our manufacturing cycles [into] many, many small pieces,” Kolesnichenko said in London, according to Forbes. He said he is working on similar production deals in Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands and the United States. Resilience Media reported the next day that Airlogix has also opened production in the United Kingdom, a move disclosed at the same conference by Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine’s former strategic industries minister.

Auterion and Airlogix formed the joint venture at the Munich Security Conference in February, and Germany signed the cooperation agreement that unlocked its first contract on April 14, with Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy standing beside an Airlogix airframe at the ceremony. Auterion’s September release puts the order at more than 5,000 mid-range and heavy strike systems, delivered to Ukraine’s armed forces, and its April announcement said production in Germany runs under Ukrainian export permissions. Handelsblatt has put the contract at about 300 million euros ($349 million) and the plant near Munich, and neither company has confirmed either detail. Auterion, the Swiss-founded software company that supplies the Skynode flight computer and Nemyx autonomy stack for those aircraft, raised $130 million in a Bessemer-led Series B in September 2025, and Rheinmetall bought a stake in it two months later.

Airlogix is one of several Ukrainian makers now producing on allied soil. Quantum Systems and Frontline Robotics opened a Munich-area plant for 10,000 Ukrainian drones a year in March, and Zelenskyy’s plan for ten weapons export offices across Europe dates from February.

Uforce’s $5 billion talks set the bar Airlogix is pricing against

Airlogix’s $2 billion ask sits between Ukraine’s two existing drone valuations. Uforce, a London-based group of nine Ukrainian manufacturers including the Magura sea drone’s maker, raised $50 million at just over $1 billion in March. Bloomberg reported on September 7 that it now seeks $500 million at roughly $5 billion.

That round would be led by Valor Equity Partners, the firm run by SpaceX board member Antonio Gracias. Uforce’s March round, led by Shield Capital and Lakestar, was the first time a Ukrainian defense startup crossed $1 billion. Six months later the same company is negotiating at five times that number. Forbes reported the March round as a $50 million seed, with a plan to take proven Ukrainian designs and build them outside the country, the same pitch Airlogix is making in Germany and Canada.

Some Ukrainian companies may be worth more than Airlogix without ever having raised from outside investors. Fire Point, which builds the FP-1 strike drone and the Flamingo cruise missile, says its 2025 revenue was 29.3 billion hryvnia, about $669 million, a figure Ukrainska Pravda reported in May from the company’s own statement. Its revenue comes from Ukrainian state contracts. The one outside bid reported for it, about $760 million from the UAE’s EDGE Group for a 30 percent stake, was filed with Ukraine’s antimonopoly committee in December and returned in January without approval.

Kyiv’s July export resolution has yet to clear a single permit

Ukraine shut off arms exports in February 2022, and drone makers could not get permits for finished aircraft. Cabinet Resolution No. 875, adopted July 1, 2026, lets makers that still fulfil their state contracts sell to countries holding a “Drone Deal” agreement with Kyiv, with approvals capped at 30 days.

The permit carries a fee of 20 percent of the contract value for finished products and technologies, 30 percent for components, and the mechanism lasts as long as martial law does. Partner countries named so far include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Separately, Ukraine’s State Service for Export Control approved a batch of F-Drones F10 strike drones for the US military on July 1, which the company says were the first finished Ukrainian combat drones ever cleared for export.

Ihor Fedirko, who heads the Ukrainian Council of Defense Industry, told Militarnyi that no permit has been issued under the resolution and that its conditions make exporting from Ukraine unprofitable or too risky for manufacturers. Private firms have landed up to ten small export contracts, he said on August 26, and only one joint venture abroad is actually operating. Airlogix’s German order is Berlin’s own contract and its Canadian line builds for Ukraine’s army under an arrangement Ottawa signed, so neither waits on that queue. Kolesnichenko’s investor line in London, that funders fear everything a Ukrainian company owns sits inside Ukraine, is the same point from the other side.

DroneXL’s Take

Investors are paying $2 billion for Ukrainian drone designs built where Russia cannot reach them, and Kolesnichenko said as much on stage. Berlin pays for the German contract and the aircraft ship east. The Ukrainian half of the company is the half that keeps getting hit.

I think that is the right bet, and I also think it says something uncomfortable about the companies that stayed home. Fire Point sells to the Ukrainian treasury, and the only outside money reported for it has sat with a regulator since January. Uforce at $5 billion is built on the same move-it-west logic as Airlogix. Ukraine’s battlefield earned these companies their reputation, and the money is going to the ones that can leave it.

Watch which US partner Kolesnichenko names. An American production line would put Airlogix drones inside the Pentagon’s supply chain, and a $2 billion valuation needs that more than it needs the German contract.

Sources: Forbes, Resilience Media, Auterion, Government of Canada, Bloomberg, Ukrainska Pravda, Militarnyi

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

Round Rock Says It Has No Zoning Rule for Zipline's Drone Hub

Haye Kesteloo — Sun, 11 Oct 2026 16:55:00 GMT

Zipline’s first Austin-area drone hub sits outside Round Rock’s city limits, and the City of Round Rock says its zoning code has no rule for drone hubs at all. The hub at 3000 E. Palm Valley Blvd. is in the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, the ring of land a Texas city influences but does not zone. Zipline opened deliveries from it on Friday, October 9.

The city laid this out on an information page for residents. Drone delivery hubs, where the aircraft are stored, launched and recharged, are “not specifically addressed under the City’s current zoning ordinances,” it says. The same page says the city is working with Zipline on a second hub inside city limits, behind the Renaissance Square shopping center on northbound Interstate 35, and will use that site to work out what the rules for future hubs should be.

Round Rock has not written the rule yet. The Federal Aviation Administration’s draft review of Zipline’s Austin operations closes to public comment today, Sunday, October 11.

Round Rock Can Decide Where a Hub Goes but Not Where the Drones Fly

The city’s page draws its authority at the property line. The FAA certifies the operator, under Part 135 for delivery, and controls airspace and flight paths, and state law backs that preemption. Round Rock keeps land use: where a hub can sit, and whether it sits next to homes.

The city says it can keep delivery hubs away from residential property, and it describes the noise from a delivery drone as similar to a small electric device or lawn equipment heard at a distance. Flights over neighborhoods are the FAA’s call, and the page says plainly that the city cannot regulate them.

Residents with a noise or nuisance complaint are sent to Zipline, whose community contact is community@zipline.com. Safety concerns go to the FAA. For privacy, the page points to Texas Government Code Chapter 423, which makes capturing images of people or private property for surveillance a Class C misdemeanor and carries civil penalties of up to $5,000 per incident for capture and $10,000 for distribution.

A Zipline Platform 2 over the Dallas suburbs, where the company began Texas deliveries in 2025. Rowlett, east of Dallas, wrote drone hubs into its zoning code before Zipline opened there. Photo credit: Zipline

Other Texas cities took the other route. The Rowlett City Council voted 6 to 0 on May 20, 2025, to add unmanned aircraft hubs and kiosks to its zoning code as new uses in nonresidential districts, hubs by special use permit and kiosks by right, according to the council record. Round Rock is doing it in the other order: one hub first, under an agreement with the company, and the ordinance after it has watched the site run.

Twenty-Five Merchants Were on the App a Day After Launch

News 4 San Antonio reporter Brianna Perez counted 25 businesses on the Zipline app in Round Rock in a report published Saturday, October 10, one day into service. Instill Coffee is among them, and co-owner Michelle Bell said the shop joined to help test something new in the city.

Zipline’s own launch announcement had named no Round Rock merchants. Zach Hill, who leads community engagement for Zipline, told the station the company plans more Austin-area sites. “This is just the beginning, and this is our first site,” he said. The aircraft fly at up to 75 mph (121 km/h) and about 300 feet (91 meters), carry about 5 pounds (2.3 kilograms) per order, and Zipline told the station it has flown more than 135 million commercial miles without a serious injury. Its Austin launch announcement puts the total at more than 140 million miles (225 million kilometers). Both figures are the company’s own, and the FAA’s Austin review is the only independent document on the operation so far.

Zipline Picked a High School That Teaches Part 107

Zipline’s October 8 demonstration at Stony Point High School went to a campus the company picked for its drone program. Stony Point is one of four Round Rock ISD high schools teaching the district’s Drone Aviation program. Its students can work toward the FAA Part 107 certificate.

The program also runs at Cedar Ridge, McNeil and Round Rock High. The sequence is three courses over four credits: Principles of Aviation and Aerospace, Drone Aviation, and a two-credit Practicum in Drone Aviation. The district says the program covers flight navigation, industry regulations, mission planning and human factors.

Zipline told KXAN the partnership with the district will bring classroom visits, career fairs and facility tours, and Hill told Community Impact it is in its early stages and could extend to the district’s engineering and robotics programs. Neither the district nor Zipline has put a start date or a student count on any of it. Hoodline, which flagged the demonstration, reports the aircraft lowered a pod carrying an order from a nearby business while students and staff watched.

DroneXL’s Take

I’d rather a city write its drone hub rule with a hub running down the road than from a Zipline slide deck, and Round Rock’s page is the most useful page I have seen a Texas city publish on drone delivery. It tells residents in writing that the city cannot stop the flights, that the city can keep a hub away from their backyard, and who to call when the noise bothers them. Westborough, Massachusetts, left all of that to lawyers, and Amazon’s launch there now hangs on a zoning appeal that nobody can schedule. Lincoln County, North Carolina, got a 200-signature petition over a Walmart pad before anyone explained what the county could and could not decide.

The order of operations still bothers me. Zipline’s first Austin hub went into the one ring of land where Texas law gives a city no zoning vote, so the Palm Valley neighbors got a phone number instead of a hearing. That is state law rather than anything Zipline wrote, but the company chose the site. I suspect Round Rock’s ordinance ends up looking like Rowlett’s, hubs by special use permit in commercial districts, and the only question is how many Texas cities adopt it after the drones arrive rather than before.

Sources: City of Round Rock, Round Rock ISD, KXAN, Community Impact, News 4 San Antonio, Hoodline, Citizen Portal, Rowlett City Council, May 20, 2025

Update, October 11, 2026: an earlier version of this article listed a phone number and email address for Zipline that appeared on the City of Round Rock’s page. Zipline says those are emergency lines shared with government and first responders, published by the city in error, and asked DroneXL to remove them. The company’s community contact is community@zipline.com.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

Belvedere Votes on Drone Delivery Monday. Here Is the Residents' Guide

Haye Kesteloo — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 23:29:00 GMT

Belvedere, a city of 2,126 people on two islands in Richardson Bay, takes its final vote Monday, October 12, on the first drone delivery ordinance in Marin County. DroneXL has published a plain-language guide for Belvedere residents ahead of that vote: what is coming, who decides what, what the ordinance says section by section, and what a resident can still do before the meeting.

The guide exists because the argument in Belvedere has outgrown the facts. The council voted 3-2 on September 14 to give the rules a first reading, and the only split was over delivery hours. No delivery drone has carried a package to a Belvedere doorstep. No company has said one will. Wing said in March it would bring delivery to the Bay Area “in the coming months” and named the region again in June on a Walmart list for 2027, without naming a city either time.

The Guide Separates What Belvedere Controls From What the FAA Owns

The Federal Aviation Administration decides who flies, where, how high and how often. Belvedere decides what happens on the ground: where a drone may land or drop a package, whether a delivery facility is allowed, and in which zone. Chapter 8.34 regulates only the ground.

The ordinance says so in its own text. Section 8.34.010 states that the chapter “does not regulate drone flights,” and section 8.34.100 defers to federal law wherever the two meet. The guide walks through all ten sections of the staff report and draft ordinance: the consent rule for deliveries onto private property, the 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. window (11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday), the 20-deliveries-a-month line that turns a home into a facility, the conditional use permit any facility would need in the mixed-use zone, and the privacy and complaint sections.

It also explains, with the same reasoning as DroneXL’s How approval works page, why the city cannot do the things residents keep asking for. A federal court struck down Newton, Massachusetts’ altitude limit, overflight ban and local drone registration in 2017, and the guide lists which demands fall on that side of the line. Noise limits in the air, a drone-only curfew, a no-fly zone over a school: a council that writes them is writing a lawsuit. The hours in 8.34.030(D) mirror the city’s existing noise code for everyone, not drones alone, which is the version most likely to hold up.

Residents Get a Checklist, Their Representatives and an Anonymous Survey

The guide ends with a checklist for the days before the vote, the City Clerk’s route for written comment, Assemblymember Damon Connolly, Senator Mike McGuire, and a two-minute anonymous survey: your town, where you stand, whether you would use it, what worries you, what would change your mind.

The survey collects no name, email or address. A bot check, a one-time device token and a rate limit keep it to one response per person, and submitting again replaces your earlier answer. An optional free-text line goes to DroneXL and is never published. Results are public and update as answers come in, and they are a count of who answered, not a poll of the town. The questions reach past Belvedere on purpose: a drone base, if one ever comes, would sit in Mill Valley, Corte Madera, Larkspur or another town with the commercial space, and the aircraft would cross Tiburon and Belvedere on the way to a neighbor who ordered. Those neighbors are asked too.

Every claim in the guide traces to a document listed in its sources section. If something in it is wrong, there is a correction form at the bottom of the guide, and DroneXL will fix it the day it hears.

DroneXL’s Take

Belvedere did something I have rarely seen a town do this year. Richardson and Papillion found out about drone delivery after the operator had chosen a site, and both ended up telling residents to call Washington. Belvedere read the preemption map first, found the part it owns, and wrote rules for a drone that has not arrived. I think the council should pass the ordinance Monday, and I think the louder residents should read the guide before they speak, because half the objections I have seen are aimed at a power the city does not have. DroneXL is not against drone delivery. A defibrillator across the bay in four minutes is a flight worth any amount of noise. A toothpaste run at 9 p.m. has to earn it, and the people under it get a say. The guide is built so they can use it.

Source: City of Belvedere, City Council staff report and draft Chapter 8.34, Sept. 14, 2026, DroneXL Belvedere resident guide.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

Wingtra Ran 180 Simulations in Six Months to Design the RAY Drone

Haye Kesteloo — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 15:34:00 GMT

Swiss drone maker Wingtra ran 180 aerodynamic computer simulations in six months to get from the WingtraOne to the WingtraRAY, according to a video AirShaper published on October 7, 2026. AirShaper is the Belgian cloud simulation company whose software ran those tests, and the video is its own case study of the project.

The video puts the result at 56% more payload capacity, 12% more aerodynamic efficiency and 20% more of what AirShaper calls fuel efficiency than the WingtraOne, plus a wider operating envelope. Wingtra’s own RAY product page lists none of those three figures. It sells the drone on 59 minutes of flight time and 550 hectares (1,360 acres) covered per flight instead.

Wingtra Traded Wing Span for a Drone That Fits in a Case

Wingtra limited the RAY’s wing span so the drone fits in a standard transport case, even though AirShaper says a glider-sized wing would have been more efficient. A tailsitter takes off on propeller thrust, then tips over so the wing carries the aircraft and the propellers only overcome drag.

The drone assembles on site without a runway, with the GPS modules mounted on magnets for quick access. The RAY carries several interchangeable sensors, and each one moves the center of gravity, so the airframe had to stay stable across a range of weights rather than at one tuned point. AirShaper says a shift of a few centimeters on a drone optimized for a single set point can put it in a dangerous part of its flight envelope.

The RAY from above: the lifting wing, the fin and the two propeller pods that provide forward thrust in cruise. Photo credit: AirShaper

The airfoil thickness sat in the same trade. AirShaper says a thinner wing is slightly more efficient but stalls sooner and loses lift more abruptly, which makes it less predictable in gusts, and that was one of the compromises weighed in the design. The optional parachute, which DroneXL covered at launch as the route to FAA Category 3 operations over people, came out of the safety requirements rather than the aerodynamics.

Wingtra Skipped Prototypes Because the WingtraOne Had Already Been Wind Tunnel Tested

Wingtra modeled all 180 candidates in 3D and simulated them on AirShaper instead of building prototypes. It could do that because it had already checked the same software against a wind tunnel. The finished WingtraOne went into a tunnel, and the video says lift, drag and pitching moment all matched.

The team mapped every candidate against cost, weight, stability, looks and aerodynamic efficiency, picked the strongest and iterated from there. AirShaper’s platform accepts surface models that are not watertight, so sketch-stage geometry could go straight into a simulation. Setting one up took about five minutes: the software detects the propeller axis, the engineer enters the RPM, and the solver builds a moving reference frame around each propeller to compute thrust, power and torque, including the swirl the propwash puts across the wings.

The RAY banking over a haul road. The team simulated flap deflections and propwash across the wing before building a prototype. Photo credit: AirShaper

Wingtra ran quick low-accuracy comparisons across wildly different concepts and detailed runs for the geometries with propellers, panel gaps and flap deflections. AirShaper’s argument is that field and wind tunnel testing belong at the end, where prototypes and tunnel time get expensive, and the video says the RAY has since been validated in use. Wingtra itself has not published the simulation story or the three performance figures. This is the same workflow Luke Bell used on his solar-powered drone and his endurance build, at a hobbyist’s scale.

A surveyor flies the RAY from a tablet at a quarry. The airframe assembles on site without a runway. Photo credit: AirShaper

DroneXL’s Take

The wind tunnel check matters more than the 180 number. Wingtra could iterate that fast because it had spent money earlier on measuring the WingtraOne in real air and comparing the result against the software, and plenty of drone startups skip that step and trust the pretty flow pictures. The performance figures deserve more skepticism than the process does. They come from the vendor whose software is being sold, and Wingtra does not repeat them on its own product page. I believe the direction, because Wingtra’s published 40% faster coverage over the GEN II points the same way, but coverage speed mixes in cruise speed and sensor choice and does not isolate aerodynamics. The 56% payload gain is the figure a surveyor would buy on, and Wingtra should confirm it on its own spec page before anyone does.

Source: AirShaper on YouTube

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

FCC Vote Would Shut Out Chinese Labs That Test 82% of US Devices

Haye Kesteloo — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 04:16:00 GMT

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will vote on October 29, 2026 on an order that ends FCC recognition of every test lab in mainland China on December 1, 2028. Chairman Brendan Carr announced the item on October 7 and the agency published the draft the next day. Labs in China tested 82% of the devices that applied for FCC authorization in 2025. Labs inside the United States tested less than 4%.

Every phone, camera, router and drone sold in the US needs FCC authorization before it ships, and the testing behind that authorization is done by private labs the FCC recognizes. The draft limits that recognition to labs in the United States and in economies that have a mutual recognition agreement or a reciprocal trade deal with Washington.

Hong Kong is on the reciprocal list. Mainland China, where DJI’s Osmo Pocket 4P was tested, is not.

The Order Gives Mainland Labs 25 Months and Keeps Hong Kong and Taiwan

The draft Third Report and Order in ET Docket 24-136 stops FCC recognition of test labs and certification bodies in non-reciprocal economies on December 1, 2028. Its Appendix D lists more than 60 reciprocal economies, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam and Japan among them. Mainland China is not on it.

The draft order, circulated as FCC-CIRC2610-05, counts 609 FCC-recognized test labs. It puts 25.1% of them in China, 18.4% in Taiwan and 17.9% in the United States. In 2007, US labs handled about 31% of FCC applications and Chinese labs about 13%. By 2025 those shares stood at 82% and under 4%.

Labs in China keep their recognition until the transition date, and the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology will keep issuing new recognitions to them, all of which expire on December 1, 2028 whatever day they were issued. Grants issued before that date stay valid, and applications filed before it are processed under the old rules. The draft declines to create a waiver process for individual labs, and it declines a broader ban, backed by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, on labs anywhere that are owned by non-reciprocal entities.

China’s WTO Technical Barriers to Trade enquiry center filed against the rule and called it discriminatory under Article 5.1.1 of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade. The Consumer Technology Association, ITI and the Alliance for Automotive Innovation opposed it too, and several industry commenters asked for three to five years. The Commission gave them roughly two years and wrote that the reliance claims “generally lack evidentiary support.” Carr’s own line in the October 7 announcement was that the FCC will “insist on fair and reciprocal treatment in international commerce.”

DJI’s Handheld Cameras Still Get FCC Grants, and a Shenzhen Lab Tests Them

The FCC filing for the DJI Osmo Pocket 4P lists SGS-CSTC as its test firm, reached at a Shenzhen phone number, with SGS North America issuing the grant. Three other SGS-CSTC branches, in Shanghai, Xi’an and Guangzhou, already lost FCC recognition under the 2025 Bad Labs rules.

DJI’s aircraft were cut off on December 22, 2025, when the FCC put every foreign-made drone and UAS critical component on the Covered List, and the draft order cites that notice as background. A Mini 5 Pro cannot get a new grant whoever tests it, so this rule changes nothing for the ban. It reaches the DJI products that can still get a grant, which is the Osmo line DroneXL has been tracking through the FCC database, and every Chinese-made charger, camera and accessory that falls outside the Covered List. It also reaches every American and European brand that ships its hardware to Shenzhen for testing, which one US lab owner, Compliance Testing CEO Michael Schafer, told the FCC happens because mainland labs price 30 to 70% below what a US lab can charge.

The Bad Labs rules adopted in May 2025 have stripped recognition from 29 labs the FCC found to be owned or controlled by a foreign adversary. In June the agency found 33 incorrect or false test reports from SLG-CPC Test Laboratory, some of them identical reports filed for different products, and the draft counts that lab and Shenzhen STS Test Services among the recognitions it has since withdrawn. In August it told every certification body to tighten its screening after one of them approved the HOVERAir Versa, a Chinese flying camera the Covered List prohibits.

The lab item shares the October 29 agenda with the 800 MHz drone spectrum order DroneXL covered on October 9.

DroneXL’s Take

This is the first Carr order aimed at China this year that I would sign. The Covered List ban took hardware away from American pilots on a national security determination the FCC has kept out of the public record, and I have said so since December. This order asks that the lab testing a device sit in a jurisdiction where the FCC can audit it, it gives everyone 25 months, it leaves every existing grant alone, and it keeps Hong Kong and Taiwan in the system. Reciprocity is a trade principle I can defend to a DJI owner, and the SLG-CPC case, 33 grants on copied test reports, is more evidence than the drone ban’s public record ever showed me.

Carr’s release blames offshoring for gutting American labs, but the order’s own figure says US labs hold 17.9% of recognitions and win under 4% of the work. That tells me the capacity exists and the prices don’t compete. Twenty-five months is enough time for Shenzhen to put its hardware on a plane to Taipei or Hong Kong, and I’d bet that is exactly what DJI and every other mainland manufacturer will do. Nothing in the 76 pages explains why a national security rule trusts Hong Kong, a jurisdiction Beijing has run under its National Security Law since 2020, on the strength of a 1999 APEC arrangement. Watch the October 29 vote, then watch the Further Notice that goes out with it, because the question it asks, how to get testing capacity back into the United States, is the one this order does not answer.

Sources: FCC draft Third Report and Order, FCC-CIRC2610-05, Chairman Carr announcement, October 7, 2026, Reuters via The Business Standard

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

FAA Lets Tower Inspection Drones Fly Above LAANC Grids, No Tower Call

Haye Kesteloo — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 02:58:00 GMT

The Federal Aviation Administration has rewritten the internal order that decides what drone pilots get back from FAADroneZone. Order JO 7200.23E, Processing of Unmanned Aircraft Systems Requests, is listed on the FAA’s orders page with an October 1 issue date and takes effect October 31. It cancels the April 2023 version and runs to 36 listed policy changes.

The one most Part 107 pilots will feel first: a drone inspecting a cell tower or high-rise inside controlled airspace can now be authorized above the LAANC grid ceiling without any coordination with the control tower. The same order writes down, for the first time, how the FAA handles requests inside the Class E surface area around smaller airports, and it takes multi-day approvals at grid altitude away from everyone except first responders. Every Part 91 drone approval now carries a see-and-avoid waiver.

The order’s own change list says the Class E surface rule exists because “this type of request was not addressed in previous versions of the order.” Those surface areas already carry UAS Facility Map grids on the FAA’s public map.

Tower Inspectors Get 100 Feet Above the Structure With No ATC Coordination

Paragraph 3-5 of the new order says air traffic facility coordination “is not required” above the facility map altitude for a Part 107 line-of-sight inspection of a vertical structure. The pilot stays within a 100-foot (30-meter) radius of the structure and no more than 100 feet above its top.

The drone also stays at least 2 nautical miles (3.7 kilometers) from any runway, heliport, seaplane base or vertiport unless a separate authorization covers it, keeps 500 feet (152 meters) below and 2,000 feet (610 meters) horizontally from clouds, and the pilot needs 3 statute miles (4.8 kilometers) of visibility from the control station. Bridges and power lines do not qualify. The order names cell towers, communications towers and high-rise buildings as examples and excludes “vertical structures with horizontal spans.”

The authorization can be written for a specific site or for the whole country. The order says a Service Center can “write a nationwide authorization for companies that make such a request,” with coordination among the FAA’s Service Centers left to the processing team manager. Tower inspection authorizations under this paragraph can run 24 months, against a single day for an ordinary request at a LAANC-enabled airport.

Requests still go through FAADroneZone, even at LAANC airports, and the order excludes airspace delegated to the Department of War. For a specific-area authorization, paragraph 4-5 says the Service Center is not required to verify that the operator meets the criteria, only that it “can do a cursory check.” The order puts compliance on the pilot: “It is the proponent’s responsibility to ensure they comply with the AA requirements.”

Class E Surface Areas Get a Formula the Order Says Nobody Wrote Down Before

Paragraph 3-3 covers the Class E surface area designated for an airport. On a sectional it is the dashed magenta ring around a field with no tower. The FAA says the facility map grids came from a national safety risk management panel using concentric circles from the airport reference point.

The circles are now policy. Inside 2 nautical miles (3.7 kilometers) of the reference point, a Part 107 pilot gets nothing without prior coordination and approval from the air traffic facility. From 2 to 3 nautical miles the ceiling is 100 feet (30 meters). From 3 to 4 it is 200 feet (61 meters), and beyond 4 nautical miles it is 400 feet (122 meters). Every authorization also requires a 1,000-foot (305-meter) cloud ceiling, a condition the standard facility map grid never carried.

Recreational flyers under Section 44809 get the same rings with a harder edge. Inside 2 nautical miles, requests “are not authorized” at all. Where a facility has built its own map that does not follow the circles, the facility’s map wins.

The order also closes a door on hobbyists. Individuals asking for a fixed flying site under Section 44809 are to be denied with the line “Individuals will not be granted approval for fixed sites,” and fixed sites and aviation events are reserved for community-based organizations. The FAA will issue those as airspace authorizations instead of letters of agreement.

Multi-Day Approvals at Grid Altitude Now Go to First Responders Only

The one-day rule survives for ordinary pilots. A request in airspace managed by a LAANC-enabled facility, at or below the grid altitude, is issued for a single day. Ask for a week and the Service Center issues the first day. It then tells the pilot to use LAANC next time.

The 2023 order let any operator with a defined project, a construction job for example, get a multi-day authorization at grid altitude. The new one reserves that at-grid option for first responders, and only when the approval saves the agency or the FAA paperwork. Above the grid, the rules the 2023 order already carried stay: a multi-day approval needs the facility manager’s sign-off and a project with a start and end date, and first responders get relief from the single-day policy. The one addition there is a buffer of up to 14 days “to address potential flight cancellations or delays due to weather,” with the air traffic facility’s approval.

The public safety demand is on the record. DroneXL reported in August that a FOIA release showed the FAA had cleared more than 1,000 agencies for drone first responder flights in ten months, and departments like Warwick, Rhode Island, which is waiting on zero-foot grids at T.F. Green to fly its Flock drones, are the operators the at-grid exception now serves.

Part 107 operational waivers now move through the FAA’s Aviation Safety Hub instead of FAADroneZone, and the order adds the moving-vehicle waiver under 107.145 to the list, which it says “was missing” from the 2023 version. COA extensions are capped at 60 days and barred once a COA has expired.

Every Part 91 Drone Approval Now Carries a See-and-Avoid Waiver

Chapter 5 was rebuilt around one sentence: all drone operations under Part 91, “whether within VLOS or beyond visual line of sight,” require relief from 14 CFR 91.113(b), the rule that requires a pilot to see and avoid other aircraft. The 2023 order attached that waiver to BVLOS flights only.

The new one attaches it to every Part 91 approval, because a drone has no pilot on board to see anything. The FAA split the work between two offices. A September 3, 2025 memorandum of agreement delegated line-of-sight 91.113(b) waivers to the Air Traffic Organization’s Service Centers, which process them with the COA itself and must list 91.113 on the FAA Form 7711-1. BVLOS waivers moved out of the headquarters UAS policy team, which ran a multi-office technical review and had applicants present their case to a panel, and into Flight Standards office AFS-750, which takes a concept of operations by email and issues the waiver before the pilot applies for airspace in CAPS. Applications and renewals are due 60 business days ahead, and a COA still expires at 24 months.

The 2023 order’s Tactical BVLOS section for first responders is gone from the main text. The FAA’s own public safety FAQ says the expedited public safety COA it introduced in April 2025 replaced the Tactical BVLOS approval, which DroneXL first covered in June 2023. The new order does not list the removal among its 36 changes.

The order also drops a numerical error. The agency agreements that let NASA, the Interior Department, the Forest Service and Customs and Border Protection fly small drones in Class G without a COA cap those flights at 1,199 feet (365 meters) above ground, and the 2023 text had said 1,200. The whole document now refers to the Pentagon as the Department of War, and a new chapter formalizes how the FAA and NAV CANADA handle six border airports, including Bellingham and Sault Ste. Marie, where one country’s controllers manage the other’s airspace.

Trade group NATA posted a short note on the order on October 6, the only coverage DroneXL has found. The order’s PDF carries a September 22 date in its filename, nine days before the issue date on the FAA’s listing.

DroneXL’s Take

I read the tower paragraph twice because it is the most useful thing the FAA has written for working Part 107 pilots in a while. A pilot inspecting a monopole inside Class D used to choose between a grid ceiling that stopped below the antennas and a bespoke authorization that took weeks and a tower’s goodwill.

Now the FAA has said, in its own order, that a drone hugging a tower is not a conflict for the pattern. The facility maps should have carried that rule from the start, and it took until 2026 to say it.

The Class E circles are harder to cheer. The FAA is admitting that the grids around its non-towered Class E airports came from a panel formula rather than from anyone who knows the field, and the fix is to make the formula official, with a cloud ceiling requirement the rest of the map system does not have. A pilot 2.5 nautical miles from a quiet Class E airport gets 100 feet, and a pilot at a busy Class D airport with a tower that bothered to draw its map can get 400 feet. My read is that the circles are a placeholder the FAA never expected to publish, and the order publishing them is the first chance anyone outside the agency has had to argue with them.

The bigger signal is in Chapter 5. The FAA has now put in writing that no drone under Part 91 can comply with see-and-avoid, line of sight or not, and that every approval needs a waiver to say so. It is the same question that stalled Part 108 over who yields in the sky, and the agency answered it for Part 91 with a form field while the civil rule sits at the White House. Watch what the AFS-750 email queue does to BVLOS waiver times between October 31 and whenever Part 108 publishes, because every Part 91 BVLOS request now runs through it.

Sources: FAA Order JO 7200.23E, FAA Order JO 7200.23D, NATA.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

Dallas Drone Pilot Faces 8 Years. The Runway Charge Carries Just One

Haye Kesteloo — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 02:23:00 GMT

A federal grand jury in Dallas has indicted a 24-year-old man on four counts accusing him of flying a drone into the airspace of Dallas Love Field and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on consecutive nights in June 2025. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas announced the case on Thursday, October 8. Pujan Prashantkumar Gajjar faces up to eight years in federal prison if convicted on all four.

The indictment, returned September 16, alleges Gajjar flew a drone into the runway exclusion zone at Love Field around 11:30 p.m. on June 26, 2025, and that the drone crossed an active runway. The next night, it alleges, he flew the same drone into the restricted airspace around DFW. On both flights, it says, he knowingly and willfully acted as an airman without an airman’s certificate. Agents arrested him on September 22.

Twelve days earlier, DroneXL reported on a Charlotte pilot who pleaded guilty to flying between two live runways. He faces up to a year.

The Airman Counts Carry Three Years Each, the Runway Count One

The press release does not name the statutes, but its wording does. “Runway exclusion zone” is the term 18 U.S.C. § 39B uses, and that offense carries a maximum of one year. Acting as an airman without a certificate, 49 U.S.C. § 46306, carries up to three years per count.

The 2018 law that created the runway offense defines the zone as a rectangle half a mile wide, running one statute mile past each end of an active runway at a Class B, C or D airport. It does not require that any aircraft was put at risk. Crossing the runway, the one operational detail in the release, changes nothing about the statutory maximum.

If the four counts come from those two statutes, eight years adds up one way: the two airport flights at a year apiece, and two three-year counts under § 46306. The DFW count could instead be the one-year national defense airspace offense, 49 U.S.C. § 46307, and the total would not move. The release describes the airman allegation as covering both flights and says nothing about registration, a separate three-year offense under the same section. DroneXL has not seen the indictment, so the count structure is my reading of the arithmetic, not a quote from the charging document. Gajjar made his initial appearance on September 22 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Renee Harris Toliver.

A Hobbyist Can Be Charged as an Airman After Entering Class B Without Approval

The release does not say whether Gajjar flew for fun or for money. For the certificate counts, that may not matter. A recreational pilot needs no FAA certificate only while the flight stays inside the limits of 49 U.S.C. § 44809, one of which is authorization before entering Class B.

Both Dallas airports sit under Class B. Pilots who need to fly near them request that authorization through LAANC before takeoff. A flight that breaks any of the recreational limits falls under the rules that apply to everyone else, and among them is 14 CFR 107.12: nobody flies a small drone without a remote pilot certificate, or a certificated pilot supervising. That certificate is an airman certificate, which is why a hobbyist with no Part 107 card who flies into an airport’s airspace without approval can be charged the way a person flying a Cessna without a license would be.

The FBI Dallas field office and the Federal Air Marshal Service investigated, with help from the Federal Aviation Administration, and an Assistant U.S. Attorney from the office’s National Security Section is prosecuting. FBI Dallas Special Agent in Charge R. Joseph Rothrock said in the release that drones in restricted airport airspace threaten “pilots, passengers, and crew in the air as well as communities on the ground.” Rothrock is a familiar name on this beat. He was the acting special agent in charge in Baltimore in February 2024, when federal prosecutors charged the pilot who stopped the AFC Championship with the same airman offense.

Neither the release nor FOX 4’s report says how investigators tied the two flights to Gajjar, or what happened in the 15 months between the flights and the indictment. In Charlotte, the airport’s drone-detection system flagged the flight the moment it started, and federal marshals tracked it for seven minutes.

Raybould’s Office Brought the Same Airman Charge at Dallas Stadium in June

U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould’s office brought the certificate count during the World Cup. On June 27, agents traced a drone spotted over Dallas Stadium before Argentina played Jordan to an Arlington man who admitted he lacked the FAA credentials, and charged him with operating without an airman’s certificate.

The sentencing record on that count is thin. Matthew Hebert, whose drone halted the AFC Championship game in Baltimore in January 2024, pleaded guilty in March 2024 to a misdemeanor airspace violation and received one year of probation and a $500 fine. He had told investigators he relied on his drone’s app and did not know the stadium was restricted. Xiaodong He, the Chinese tourist charged with the airspace offense and the airman offense over a 12-minute flight near Kennedy Space Center, pleaded guilty to the airspace count on September 18. What became of his airman count is not yet in the public record.

Charlotte’s Marco Antonio Ochoa pleaded guilty on September 22 to a single § 39B count for a seven-minute client video shot from a park between two active runways. That was the same day federal agents arrested Gajjar in Dallas. Ochoa has no sentencing date yet.

An indictment is an allegation, and Gajjar is presumed innocent.

DroneXL’s Take

The flight the indictment describes, a drone crossing an active runway at Love Field at 11:30 at night and the same drone inside DFW’s airspace the next night, is the flight Congress had in mind when it wrote the runway exclusion zone into law in 2018. If that is what happened, two nights at two airports is a pattern, and the law doesn’t ask whether anyone was on short final at the time.

The eight-year figure is a prosecutor’s ceiling. The one offense that describes the dangerous act is worth a year of it, and in the only airman-certificate case DroneXL has followed to a sentence, Hebert’s, the certificate count produced no prison time: he pleaded to the airspace misdemeanor and got probation. I expect this case to end nearer that outcome than the headline number, and if it doesn’t, I’d expect the second night to be the reason.

Recreational pilots should read the certificate counts as the lesson. The exception that lets you fly without a Part 107 ends the moment you enter Class B airspace without a LAANC approval. Past that line, the government can charge you as an unlicensed airman at three years per flight, whatever you were flying and whoever you were flying for.

Sources: U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Texas, FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth, The Baltimore Sun, 18 U.S.C. § 39B, 49 U.S.C. § 46306, 49 U.S.C. § 46307, 49 U.S.C. § 44809, 14 CFR 107.12

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

FCC Oct. 29 Vote Ends 35-Year Ban on Drones in 800 MHz Cellular Band

Haye Kesteloo — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 23:15:00 GMT

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will vote on October 29, 2026 on a draft order that lets drones use the 800 MHz Cellular band, 50 MHz of licensed spectrum that carriers have held nationwide since the 1980s. Chairman Brendan Carr announced the item on October 7 and the agency published the draft text the next day. The rule it rewrites was written to keep passengers from using cell phones on airplanes. The draft carves drones out of that ban and leaves the airline part in place.

The band sits at 824 to 849 MHz and 869 to 894 MHz. Drones already fly on carrier spectrum at 700 MHz and in the PCS band at 1.9 GHz, because those bands carry no airborne restriction. The FCC first asked whether to drop the 800 MHz ban in January 2023, and the question sat unanswered for three years and nine months.

FCC Finds a 1991 Airplane Phone Rule Has Blocked Drones for 35 Years

The draft order says the 800 MHz airborne ban began as a 1984 policy, was codified in 1991, and targeted fast-moving handsets in airplanes that could see many towers at once. The FCC finds that premise no longer holds for drones, so it adds a drone exemption to section 22.925.

The draft Report and Order, circulated as FCC-CIRC2610-03, adds a paragraph (b) to the rule stating the prohibition “shall not apply to uncrewed aircraft or uncrewed aircraft systems” using Cellular Radiotelephone Service frequencies. It also adds a primary mobile allocation for drones in the band to the U.S. Table of Frequency Allocations. The rule takes effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register if the commission adopts it.

The question came back to life through the “Unleashing American Drone Dominance” public notice, DA 26-314, which DroneXL covered when it was released on April 1 and again ahead of its May 1 comment deadline. Replies closed May 18. The draft order cites that record, plus the 2023 rulemaking in WT Docket 22-323, and says the FCC “received overwhelming support” for opening the band.

Carriers Told the FCC Their Networks Already Handle Drones

AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and the trade group CTIA filed in favor. Ericsson and Qualcomm supplied the engineering case. The draft leans on 3GPP Release 15, which added drone identification, height reporting and interference management because a drone in the air sees many base stations at once.

The order’s cost-benefit section states there are no added interference costs for licensees from the change, and that the FCC is “not aware that drone operations have led to interference issues” in the 700 MHz and PCS bands where they already fly. AT&T told the commission that manufacturers have been reluctant to build drone radios that work around band-by-band airborne prohibitions, or to customize firmware to strip prohibited bands out of existing modules. So a modem that cannot legally transmit at 400 feet gets left out of drone designs.

Zipline and one individual commenter asked the FCC to permit drone use at reduced power or below a set altitude. The draft declines both, stating the record “supports eliminating the restriction for UAS entirely.” Skydio, Lockheed Martin, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, the Commercial Drone Alliance, the Small UAV Coalition and AUVSI also filed in support. The order cites no commenter opposing the change.

The Order Opens a Carrier Band, Not Your Controller’s Link

Opening 800 MHz changes what AT&T and Verizon can sell to drone operators and leaves the 2.4 and 5.8 GHz unlicensed links on consumer drones alone. Drones in the band fly under Part 22 rules, inside licensed carrier service areas, and under every FAA rule.

The draft spells out the limits. A drone acting as a mobile station communicates “with and through base transmitters only” under section 22.923, and a drone carrying its own base station is bound by the band’s power and field-strength limits. In the 890 to 894 MHz slice, international allocation rules mean drone operations cannot claim protection from interference or cause it. The order also states its interference analysis “does not speak to any airborne restrictions in other bands,” because some of those were adopted to protect specific incumbents, so every other airborne ban stays where it is.

The use cases the order names are the networked ones: precision agriculture, utility and pipeline inspection, search and rescue, wildfire monitoring and last-mile delivery. Those are BVLOS operations that ride on carrier networks, which is why Zipline and Skydio filed and DJI’s consumer customers have no stake in this item. The 5030 to 5091 MHz band the FCC set aside for drone control links in 2024 is a separate proceeding, and as of the April notice the commission had still not taken the steps needed to put it into service.

DroneXL’s Take

This is the easiest yes the FCC has had on its drone docket all year, and it says something that it took from January 2023 to October 2026 to get here. The order cites no one opposing it. The carriers and the drone companies wanted it, the chipmakers wrote the interference analysis, and the spectrum next door at 700 MHz has carried drone traffic for years without the FCC noticing an interference problem. The commission asked the question in January 2023, issued its 5 GHz drone order in the same docket in September 2024 without resolving it, and had to ask again in April 2026. I think the April notice gave the Wireless Bureau political cover to clear old business, and the 800 MHz item was the one with a finished record and no enemies.

The harder items are the ones that still have none of that. The 5 GHz drone band is the harder item, and it is still waiting. The airborne bans in every other band get one footnote saying this order does not reach them. And the one group with the most to gain from a cheap, long-range licensed link, the hobbyist and small operator flying a DJI aircraft, has been cut off from new hardware by the same commission’s Covered List since December. Carr’s statement puts “consumer drones” on the list of beneficiaries, but the order’s own use cases are farm fields and pipelines. Watch October 29 for the vote, then watch what the Bureau does with 5 GHz, because that is the band that would reach a pilot who does not have a carrier contract.

Sources: FCC draft Report and Order, FCC-CIRC2610-03, FCC October 2026 Open Meeting agenda, Chairman Carr statement, October 7, 2026, FCC Public Notice DA 26-314

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

Zipline Starts Austin Deliveries With FAA Comment Window Still Open

Haye Kesteloo — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 21:56:00 GMT

Zipline opened drone delivery in the Austin area on Friday, October 9, with its First Flight early-access program taking orders in Round Rock for the first 5,000 residents who sign up. Customers within 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) of 3000 E. Palm Valley Blvd. can order from the Zipline app, and members get $10 off their first three orders, no service or delivery fees, facility tours, and a shot at company swag.

Austin is Zipline’s third Texas metro in 14 months, after Dallas-Fort Worth in August 2025 and Houston in April. The company announced Austin as its next Texas market in June without naming a neighborhood. Round Rock, in Williamson County north of the city, is the answer.

The Federal Aviation Administration’s draft environmental assessment covering Zipline’s Austin operations is still open for public comment. The comment period closes on Sunday, October 11, two days after the first Round Rock order.

Zipline Launched Round Rock With a High School Demo and a County Judge

Zipline flew a demonstration delivery over Stony Point High School on Thursday, October 8, a day before the service opened to the public. The Round Rock ISD school runs a drone aviation program, and Zipline told KXAN the partnership will bring students classroom visits, career fairs and facility tours.

Zach Hill, who leads community engagement for Zipline, told the students the company was excited to kick off the partnership and bring them along for the journey. Community Impact, which covered the demonstration, reports a delivery weight limit of about 5 pounds (2.3 kilograms) per order, lowered on a tether into a backyard or another spot the customer picks.

Williamson County Judge Steven Snell supplied the quote in Zipline’s own announcement. “Williamson County has developed into an important technology center,” he said, calling Zipline’s choice of Round Rock as its first Austin location evidence of that. Zipline’s announcement names no merchants for the Round Rock zone. The Houston launch opened with nine restaurant and retail partners, Walmart and Chipotle among them, and Zipline says hundreds of businesses now sell through its app.

Zipline's launch graphic for Austin. The company pitched the service against the city's traffic, citing TomTom data that put 2025 commutes 40 percent longer than free-flow travel. Image credit: Zipline

The FAA’s Austin Review Caps Zipline at 30,000 Deliveries a Day

The FAA’s September 11 draft would amend Zipline’s Part 135 operations specifications to cover five Texas metros, Austin among them. For Austin, the ceiling is 30 Chargers, 600 Dropbox pickup kiosks and 30,000 deliveries a day across 2,498 square miles (6,470 square kilometers). DroneXL reported the filing when it appeared.

Houston set the pattern. Zipline began flying Cypress on April 29, and the FAA’s draft review of Houston opened for comment on September 11, four and a half months later. Zipline holds a Part 135 air carrier certificate, and the draft covers an amendment to its operating areas rather than permission to fly at all. The FAA’s nationwide programmatic assessment, final since July, still requires an operations specifications amendment for each new area. Zipline’s announcement does not say which authorization covers the Round Rock flights today, and DroneXL has not asked the company.

Zipline’s scale claims have moved since the summer. The company said on July 14 that it had passed 2.5 million commercial deliveries. Friday’s announcement puts the total above 3 million, with more than 140 million miles (225 million kilometers) flown and more than 30 municipalities served in four US states.

Zipline Says It Is Six Times Quieter and Wants to Fly at 400 Feet

Zipline called its system six times quieter during delivery than others in the industry in a March 25 engineering post, and said it plans to raise its typical cruise altitude to 400 feet (122 meters). The delivery sequence, droid on its tether, takes about 90 seconds.

The Platform 2 holds station above 300 feet (91 meters) while the droid rides the tether down to the customer. Image credit: Zipline

That post also described a software update that cut perceived noise by 30 percent by trimming the time the aircraft spends in mixed propulsion, the awkward stretch between hover and wing-borne flight. A later update, which DroneXL took apart in September, has the drones dive to build speed and climb to brake, spending 19 seconds less per flight at peak noise. The six-times figure is Zipline’s own comparison, and the March post gives no decibel measurements or competitor aircraft behind it.

DroneXL’s Take

Round Rock is a good first zone. It is suburban and dense enough for a Charger to earn its keep, and it comes with a county judge who wanted to be in the press release and a school district that handed Zipline a drone aviation class to recruit from. That is the Texas playbook from Rowlett and Cypress, run a third time, and it works.

I wrote in September that asking Houston to comment on flights that had been overhead since April taught residents their comment was decorative. Austin got a tighter version: the comment form is still live while the first pods come down in Round Rock. Zipline may well be flying inside an authorization it already holds, and I expect the FAA to approve the Texas amendment. I would still like one Texas launch where the paperwork lands before the drone does, because the day one of these assessments ends up in front of a judge, the order of operations is the first thing the other side will read aloud.

Sources: Zipline, Community Impact, KXAN, Zipline engineering post, March 25, 2026

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

FAA Part 107 Test Adds Chart Questions Oct. 26 Not in the Supplement

Haye Kesteloo — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 21:36:00 GMT

The Federal Aviation Administration will start putting sectional chart questions on the Part 107 knowledge test on October 26, 2026 that do not appear in the printed testing supplement applicants study from. The agency announced the change in its Airman Testing Community Advisory, and its September special edition repeats it.

The change applies to the Unmanned Aircraft General-Small test, the exam every new remote pilot takes at a PSI testing center. The new questions use images from current FAA VFR charts instead of the figures in the supplement. The FAA published two sample questions: one asks what airspace surrounds Millville Municipal Airport in New Jersey and whether a drone needs air traffic control authorization there, and the other asks which frequency to use at Grand Canyon National Park Airport when the tower is closed.

The printed supplement stays in the test center for now. The FAA has set no date for removing it, and the new chart questions will not be in it.

FAA Pulls Part 107 Chart Questions From Current Sectionals, Not the Supplement

The FAA’s August 2026 advisory says the Unmanned Aircraft General-Small test will include image-based questions “not found in the test supplements” from October 26, 2026. The images come from current FAA sectional charts, and the date is a correction: the June edition of the advisory said October 27.

Millville Municipal Airport on the FAA Washington sectional. The FAA's first sample Part 107 question asks what airspace the dashed magenta ring marks and whether a drone needs ATC authorization inside it. Image credit: FAA

The same change hits the Instrument Rating Airplane test on the same day, with excerpts from approach charts and low altitude enroute charts.

The work is part of what the FAA calls its Graphics Conversion Project, run with its testing contractor PSI Services. The agency is embedding the image inside each question so the printed supplement becomes unnecessary. The drone test already carries some embedded-image questions. The October 26 change is different because the chart excerpts are not in the supplement, and the FAA says it cannot preview them because an embedded image is part of a live test question.

The agency also says some questions may need measuring tools, that applicants will get the tools they need on screen, and that it cannot yet describe how those tools work. Any new on-screen tool will be announced in a future advisory before it reaches a test center.

Applicants who learned the exam from the supplement’s numbered figures lose a shortcut. One of the five trick questions Greg Reverdiau of Pilot Institute, a DroneXL partner, walked through in June 2025 hinged on reading an obstacle’s height off a supplement sectional excerpt, and another on what Class D airspace becomes when the tower closes. The October 26 questions ask the same things on charts nobody can study in advance.

The Sample Questions Ask for Millville’s Airspace and Grand Canyon’s Frequency

The first sample shows Millville Municipal Airport on the Washington sectional and asks what airspace surrounds it and whether a small drone needs ATC authorization. The answer is Class E, with authorization required. The second sample asks for Grand Canyon National Park Airport’s frequency when the tower is closed: 119.0.

Grand Canyon National Park Airport on the FAA Las Vegas sectional. The FAA's second sample question asks which frequency is the CTAF when the tower is closed. The star next to CT 119.0 marks the part-time tower. Image credit: FAA

Both answers sit on the chart for anyone who knows the legend. The dashed magenta ring around Millville is Class E to the surface, and the star after the Grand Canyon tower frequency marks a part-time tower whose frequency becomes the common traffic advisory frequency when it closes. Neither question asks for a number from a memorized figure.

The FAA points applicants to PSI’s sample test site to see the new format. Current sectional charts are free from the FAA’s digital VFR chart downloads, and they are the same charts the test images come from.

One in Six Part 107 Applicants Already Fails the Knowledge Test

The FAA’s 2025 knowledge test statistics list 73,914 Unmanned Aircraft General-Small tests taken last year, with a pass rate of 82.96% and an average score of 79.31%. Across all 293,516 FAA knowledge tests in 2025, the pass rate was 89.56%.

The drone exam is the FAA’s highest-volume knowledge test, ahead of the 44,657 private pilot airplane tests, and its pass rate sits below the average across all of them.

The recurrent test left the PSI centers first: the FAA allowed online recency training as a pandemic measure in April 2020, then replaced the recurrent exam with free online training for good under the Operations Over People rule in April 2021. The initial test is the one that still has to be taken in person.

DroneXL’s Take

This is the right change, and I’d have made it years ago. A remote pilot who can only answer airspace questions about the figures in the supplement has memorized a booklet, not learned to read a chart. The sectional is the document that tells you whether the field you’re about to fly near has a Class E surface area or a part-time tower, and it changes every 56 days. Testing on a current chart tests the thing you’ll actually do before a flight.

The 83% pass rate says the exam isn’t a formality, and the applicants who scrape through on figure recall are the ones this will catch. Download the sectional for your own area from the FAA, find every airport within 10 miles, and work out the airspace and the frequency for each one. If you can do that on a chart you’ve never seen, October 26 changes nothing for you.

Sources: FAA Airman Testing Community Advisory, August 2026, FAA Airman Testing Community Advisory, September 2026 Special Edition, FAA CY2025 Airman Knowledge Test Statistics

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

DJI Neo 3 Unboxing Leak, 71,207-Drone Record, FAA $12M, FBI School

Greg Reverdiau — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 14:00:00 GMT

Welcome to your weekly UAS news update. We have four stories for you this week. The DJI Neo 3 has a video leak. We have a Sky Elements Guinness World Record. The FAA hands out $12 million to drone test sites, and then the FBI doubles its counter-drone school capacity. So, let’s get to it.

The DJI Neo 3 Comes Out of the Box in a 49-Second Leak

First up, a 49-second unboxing video of the DJI Neo 3 Fly More Combo has leaked. This one comes from DroneXL’s Jasper Ellens, who posted it on Tuesday, and he says that it first appeared on TikTok. Now, this time the drone actually comes out of the box.

We talked about this before a little bit, and as you can see, it has a spoked prop cage on all four propellers. Then there’s the RC Mini controller with the screen, which looks almost like a Game Boy, a charging hub, and three different batteries. The drone itself appears to have a small screen on the nose, but it’s unclear at the moment what it’s actually going to be for. A production listing puts the weight at 192.7 grams, which is very lightweight.

The RC Mini has FCC approval, but we talked about this before, the Neo 3 does not have approval, so the aircraft itself will not be able to be sold or purchased in the United States.

Sky Elements Flies 71,207 Drones for Two Guinness World Records

Next up, Sky Elements has set two Guinness World Records in Blue Ridge, Texas. Working with Damoda America, they were able to fly 71,207 drones during shows between September 27 and September 29. Now, the old record was 55,939 drones.

Six of the shows used more than 10,000 drones each, with a finale of 11,000 drones.

The company says that this is the largest drone show ever flown in the United States. Crews had to recharge and reset and relaunch the entire fleet between the shows, which I’m sure was a ton of work. We’ve seen these drone shows before, and it’s quite an amazing production.

The CEO says that shows this big have mostly happened only in Asia and the Middle East. Sky Elements now wants to sell these large drone shows to sports leagues and cities and brands.

And yes, before you ask, this is absolutely legal. Every time we talk about drone shows, people ask about the legality of doing this. You have to get waivers in order to fly more than one drone, but it is absolutely possible.

The FAA Hands $12 Million to 19 Projects at Its Nine Test Sites

Now, to the FAA. On Monday it announced $12 million for 19 drone research projects. Each project is paired with one of the nine FAA UAS test sites approved in the US. The projects are going to cover detect and avoid, command and control, traffic management, and drone identification.

And as always with these grants, the FAA really wants to have real-world data that it can use in future rulemaking.

This is not new money. We actually talked about these grants a while back. Congress ordered $6 million a year in the 2024 FAA Reauthorization Act, and companies that are awarded this money must match the funding at least one to one.

The word is that the data should inform Part 108, the BVLOS rule that has sat at OIRA since July 10. Now, that was 87 days as of Monday. Unfortunately, I don’t think they’re going to get the data before they go public, but an FAA official, Robert Reckert, said last month that it’s at the 10-yard line, whatever that means, and they hope that it gets published later this year. We’re going to have to wait and see, and we’ll keep you posted.

The FBI Doubles Its Counter-Drone School After 700 World Cup Takedowns

And finally, the FBI is doubling its counter-drone school. Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward toured the National Counter-UAS Training Center in Huntsville, Alabama, on October 1, and he stated that the capacity will be more than doubled in year two.

Woodward said that every host city for the World Cup attended, and over 700 drones were taken down. He also noted that none of the aircraft that were mitigated carried ordnance, which is a good thing.

If you’re not familiar, since July 1 it’s the only place a state or local officer can earn authority in order to take down a drone under the Safer Skies Act that was recently passed. Now, when the rule was published, only 61 officers nationwide held that certificate, and the first class last October had just 12 people in it.

Woodward didn’t say the current capacity, so the doubling really has no public baseline, but the FBI plans on graduating 250 more officers next fiscal year.

Now, according to that information and other publicly available information, those 700 drones were not a threat. They were just pilots who flew into the restricted airspace without having approval. And it’s always a good reminder to be sure to check TFRs every single time you fly.

That conversation is going to continue on Post Flight, where we’re going to talk about all of this uncensored in the premium community. There’s a link in the description. We’ll see you for the live Q&A on Monday. Have a great weekend. See you then.

This article is based on a video from our YouTube partner Greg Reverdiau. Watch the full weekly UAS news update on the Pilot Institute YouTube channel, and find more of Greg’s work on his DroneXL author page.

Amazon Tells North Myrtle Beach: Ask the FAA. FAA: Ask Amazon and City

Haye Kesteloo — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 03:35:00 GMT

Amazon representative Tareq Wafaie told the North Myrtle Beach Planning Commission on Wednesday, October 7, that whether its delivery drones fly over a neighborhood is the Federal Aviation Administration’s decision, not the city’s and not his. The same day, the FAA told WPDE that drone operators and local community leaders carry the primary responsibility for addressing community concerns about those flights.

The workshop at City Hall was the public session the commission asked for after it withdrew an approval motion on September 22, as DroneXL reported in North Myrtle Beach Amazon Drone Vote: Staff Ask Oct. 20, Forum Oct. 7. No vote was taken. The commission takes up the drone paddock behind Amazon’s Water Tower Road warehouse again on October 20, when it can approve, deny or postpone the application again.

Wafaie also told the room the drones never go above 68 decibels, according to the Island Packet’s account. The FAA’s noise filing for Amazon’s Baton Rouge hub, built on readings Amazon took of the same aircraft, puts takeoff at about 82 decibels 20 feet from the pad.

Amazon Puts Overflights on the FAA, and the FAA Hands Them Back to the Operator and the City

Wafaie said towns inside the circle other than North Myrtle Beach have no say on the land use, because the pad sits in North Myrtle Beach, and that the FAA controls all of the airspace. “That is a matter of the FAA, not me,” he said of stopping overflights.

Asked whether that meant no say at all, he told the Island Packet he would not couch it that way, because Amazon will do outreach across the service area and take the feedback. The FAA’s statement to WPDE said Amazon Prime Air operates under an FAA exemption with specific conditions and limitations, and that “operators and local community leaders have primary responsibility” for raising awareness and addressing community concerns, with the agency’s own role limited to safe integration and compliance. No FAA representative attended. One resident asked the commissioners whether they felt disrespected by that, and said they should.

The FAA’s drone environmental review index listed Amazon documents for Baton Rouge, Chicago, Detroit, Florida and the other existing hubs when DroneXL checked it on October 9, and none for South Carolina.

Amazon Says 68 Decibels. Its Own Measurements in the FAA File Say 82 Up Close

Amazon’s slide gives 65 dBA at departure and 68 at arrival at the pad, 55 and 53 at 500 feet (152 meters), and 68 dBA in the backyard and 61 from the front yard during a delivery. It gives no distance for the pad or backyard figures and no metric.

Amazon's noise slide from the October 7 workshop: 65 and 68 dBA at the pad, 55 and 53 dBA at 500 feet, 68 dBA in the backyard during delivery. Image credit: Amazon, via the North Myrtle Beach Planning Commission

The FAA’s Baton Rouge filing gives both. Its technical noise report is built on measurements Amazon’s own Prime Air team took at its Pendleton, Oregon test range in October 2024, analyzed by the FAA’s consultant ESA. It lists the MK30’s maximum level at takeoff at 82 decibels 20 feet (6 meters) from the pad and about 70 decibels at 75 feet (23 meters). Its sound exposure levels, which fold the whole event’s duration into one number and run higher than the peak, are 90.5 decibels for takeoff at 20 feet, 92.1 for the delivery hover at 25 feet and 63.7 for a cruise pass at 200 feet (61 meters). DroneXL laid those figures out in Amazon Says Quieter Than a Truck. Its FAA Filing Says 92 Decibels, after Amazon’s Baton Rouge manager, Tyra Jones, made the comparison Wafaie repeated Wednesday: a delivery van on your street is louder than the drone overhead.

The two sets describe the same aircraft at different distances, because a decibel figure without a distance and a metric is not a measurement. Amazon’s 68 at arrival sits close to the FAA’s 70 maximum at 75 feet. The 92.1 is the sound of a box being dropped 13 feet (4 meters) above a lawn, measured from the next lawn over, and the FAA’s comparison for it is a diesel truck at 50 feet. Its vacuum cleaner at 10 feet is for the 69 decibels you would hear 75 feet from the drop. Wafaie’s comparison for hearing the drone from a quiet yard was an electric toothbrush held at arm’s length.

The MK30 Amazon Showed: 83 Pounds, a 5-Pound Box, 100 to 400 Feet and No Landing

Amazon’s spec slide lists the MK30 at 5 feet 5 inches (1.65 meters) tall, up to 83 pounds (38 kilograms), a 5-pound (2.3-kilogram) payload, a 7.5-mile (12-kilometer) range, about 15 minutes of flight, a 60 to 74 mph (97 to 119 km/h) cruise and operation from 14 to 113°F.

Amazon's delivery path diagram from the workshop: takeoff from the warehouse, a cruise leg out, a drop from 4 meters, and a return at a different altitude. Image credit: Amazon, via the North Myrtle Beach Planning Commission

The plan calls for 12 drones and Amazon is limited to 1,000 deliveries a day, WMBF reported, the same ceiling Amazon’s FAA environmental assessments carry for its other hubs. Flights run between 100 and 400 feet (30 to 122 meters), the drone never lands at a house, and the yard needs an 18-foot (5.5-meter) clear circle with no sheds or overhanging wires. Wafaie said the aircraft returns with 70 to 80 percent of its battery and cannot fly in anything beyond very light wind.

Customers opt in through Amazon, which checks the address with GPS and lidar and accepts single-family homes only. The fee is $2.99 for Prime members and $4.99 for everyone else, and the pitch is 60-minute delivery of diapers, batteries and tablets. Wafaie told residents worried about the cameras that nothing is recorded unless a flight has a problem, that the file is overwritten by the next flight, and that the system is “completely different” from Flock’s because the cameras are used only to navigate. Human monitors can ground a drone but cannot watch its camera in flight.

Resident Lisa Watts told the commission the drops looked indiscriminate: “based on maybe some type of GPS.” Wafaie said anything other than a clear yard disqualifies the address.

The Commission Votes Oct. 20 With No Drone Ordinance and Its Lawyers Still Researching One

Chairman Silvio Cutuli told WPDE the decision “stays with the Planning Commission,” because the paddock is a minor amendment to the industrial park’s planned development district. Assistant planning director Suzanne Pritchard told the Island Packet the commission could postpone again on October 20, or vote either way.

The enlarged site plan in the city's workshop packet: a 13,627-square-foot paddock with six launch and landing pads, a divert pad, turn stations and storage containers behind the existing fulfillment center at 8651 Water Tower Road. Image credit: Timothy M. Lott, AIA, for Amazon.com Services, via the City of North Myrtle Beach

The workshop packet repeats the staff finding that approval of the pad authorizes no flight, and that Amazon is separately pursuing its federal authorization. Pritchard told the Myrtle Beach Sun News the resident feedback so far has been almost overwhelmingly negative, on safety, noise, property values, wildlife and the coastal environment. City spokesperson Lauren Jessie said the legal department is researching whether the city can write an ordinance covering operating hours or noise, which is the preemption question DroneXL’s October 2 guide said the city attorney should answer in public before the vote.

South Carolina’s Act 150, in force January 1, 2027, leaves takeoff and landing sites to municipalities. The DroneXL Amazon Prime Air tracker lists no other South Carolina site, and the Island Packet reported this would be Amazon’s first delivery area in the state. Amazon’s drone line is 1-888-280-4331, and the customer-service chat reaches the drone team through “Something Else” and then “Amazon Drone Delivery.” For the levers that apply in any town Amazon enters, see DroneXL’s residents’ guide.

DroneXL’s Take

Amazon and the FAA spent Wednesday pointing at each other. If the operator says overflights are the FAA’s call and the FAA says community concerns are the operator’s and the city’s, then the only document anyone in North Myrtle Beach will ever sign is the one in front of the Planning Commission on October 20. Richardson approved its pad in 2025 with hours but nothing on flight counts, and by this April its council had dropped a rezoning threat on legal advice and was pointing residents at the FAA and Congress.

The 68-decibel slide is the reason to attach something. It is not a false number, as far as I can tell: it matches the FAA’s 70 at 75 feet. But it is a number with its distance removed, and the FAA file for this aircraft puts the peak at 82 decibels 20 feet from the pad, with exposure levels of 90 to 92 for takeoff and the drop. A city that has Amazon’s slide and not that table in its file has half the record.

My position on the aircraft hasn’t changed since Parachute Shmarachute: 83 pounds with no parachute is the wrong machine for a shoebox over Barefoot. The commission doesn’t need my view to act. It needs Jessie’s legal answer on hours and noise in writing before October 20, and the FAA’s Baton Rouge table in the file next to Amazon’s slide.

Sources: The Island Packet, WMBF News, WPDE, Myrtle Beach Sun News, City of North Myrtle Beach, Planning Commission workshop packet, Oct. 7, 2026, FAA, Baton Rouge draft EA Appendix B, FAA, Baton Rouge technical noise report, Appendix E.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

DJI Teases Dock 4 With Battery Swapping for October 14, Not for the US

Haye Kesteloo — Fri, 09 Oct 2026 02:44:00 GMT

DJI Enterprise will launch its next dock and dock drone on October 14, 2026, at 8 AM EDT, and the six-second teaser it pinned to its X account on October 8 shows the new dock swapping a battery into the aircraft instead of charging the one on board. The pairing has leaked as Dock 4 and the Matrice 5TD, the successors to Dock 3 and the Matrice 4TD from February 2025. DJI has confirmed neither name. The clip, titled “Always There, Always Ready,” follows a battery pack down a set of rails into a rotating carousel, then lifts it into the empty bay on the back of a folded-arm quadcopter. DJI’s trailer page carries the date and the slogan and names no product.

No DJI dock sold today swaps anything. The original DJI Dock of 2022, Dock 2 of 2024 and Dock 3 of 2025 all charge the battery inside the landed aircraft, and Dock 3 needs 27 minutes to take a Matrice 4TD from 15% to 95%. The aircraft in the teaser has the Matrice 4D’s folding arms and top-rear battery bay. The only new dock aircraft on any registry filing DroneXL has seen is the Matrice 5TD that surfaced in China on September 21, 750 g heavier than the 4TD.

The Teaser Shows a Carousel Feeding Batteries Into the Drone’s Rear Bay

The video on DJI’s trailer page renders the dock as a wireframe with one battery pack lit green, carrying a DJI flight battery’s four-LED charge indicator. The pack drops along guide rails into a carousel, which turns it under the drone and lifts it into the bay.

The final frame of DJI's teaser: a charged battery, outlined in green, seated in the drone's rear bay above the dock's battery carousel. Image credit: DJI

The carousel is built around a central gear hub with at least five battery bays, and every bay but the lit one holds a dark pack. The drone’s own bay sits empty for the first half of the clip. The clip is a render, and DJI has not described the mechanism in words anywhere on the trailer page or in the post. The X version, pinned on the @DJIEnterprise account, shows the same aircraft from behind inside the dock with its arm lights on and four green LEDs lit on the pack.

Today’s Dock 3 Spends 27 Minutes Charging Between Flights, and DJI Sells It on Response Time

DJI’s Dock 3 spec sheet lists 27 minutes to charge the aircraft from 15% to 95% at 77°F (25°C). The pack is 149.9 Wh and rated for 400 cycles. Its Dock as First Responder page promises an aircraft airborne in under 15 seconds. Neither figure includes the recharge.

The same page promises eyes on a scene 0.6 miles (1 km) away in under 100 seconds, and the Matrice 4TD flies 54 minutes forward or 47 minutes hovering before it comes back to charge. A department running one Dock 3 as its first responder lives with that cycle on every call. Dock 3 already delivers the “Always There” half of DJI’s new slogan, a box on a roof that launches on its own. The swap carousel is what makes the “Always Ready” half literal, because the aircraft is never sitting on a flat pack.

The Matrice 5TD Filing and a Leaked Dock 4 Fit the Date

Leaker Igor Bogdanov posted China’s UOM registry entry for a DJI Matrice 5TD on September 21. It lists 2.6 kg (5.7 lb) empty and 3.05 kg (6.7 lb) at takeoff, filed for power line inspection. On September 25 he wrote that a DJI Dock 4 is coming, without a source.

His dock line was one sentence, that it “will be used in stores soon.” The Matrice 5 prototype he photographed in July carries a dome consistent with integrated LiDAR and a cylinder consistent with built-in RTK, which is where the extra 750 g would go. DJI has published no name for either the dock or the drone, and UK dealer Heliguy’s launch page says only that “a new DJI Enterprise product is launching on October 14, 2026.”

The cadence matches the last two docks. DJI posted its “Rise to Any Challenge” teaser on February 24, 2025 and announced Dock 3 with the Matrice 4D and 4TD three days later. Dock 2 and the Matrice 3D launched globally on March 26, 2024, four months after their China release.

The Covered List Keeps Dock 4 Out of the United States

Dock 3 and the Matrice 4TD hold FCC equipment authorizations granted before the December 22, 2025 Covered List action blocked new approvals for DJI hardware. A new dock and a new aircraft would each need a grant the FCC cannot issue while the designation stands.

DJI told the Ninth Circuit in April that the action voided 14 existing authorizations and blocks 25 planned 2026 launches, and it skipped the US on the O4 Wide Air Unit in June. American agencies can watch the October 14 stream but cannot order what it shows.

DroneXL’s Take

Battery swapping is the feature the drone-as-first-responder pitch has been missing since the first DJI Dock, and I’d bet DJI built this one around the public safety sales call rather than the inspection one. A dock that charges in place answers one call and then sits for most of half an hour, so the second call in that window goes to a pilot in a truck or goes unanswered. A department with two docks already has a second aircraft ready, and it paid for two docks and two roofs to get it. A carousel of charged packs in one box does the same job for the price of the batteries.

This is the first DJI dock cycle since the Covered List, and it is the cleanest measure yet of what that designation costs a US program: no security gain anyone has documented, and a 27-minute response gap that a department in Rotterdam or Osaka will not have after October 14. If the Ninth Circuit narrows the designation, that gap closes with a purchase order. If it doesn’t, Dock 3 is the last DJI dock an American department will ever buy.

Sources: DJI Enterprise trailer page, @DJIEnterprise on X, DJI Dock 3 specifications, DJI Dock as First Responder, Heliguy launch page, Igor Bogdanov on X (September 21, September 25)

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

DJI Neo 3 Specs and Features: What 23 Days of Leaks Have Settled

Haye Kesteloo — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 18:52:00 GMT

The DJI Neo 3 specs and features have leaked in pieces for 23 days, and as of Thursday they add up to most of a spec sheet. A square 1/1.1-inch sensor, 192.7 g, a three-cell 18.9 Wh battery, caged propellers that need a screwdriver, and a DJI RC Mini controller with its own screen are all on the record from photos and videos of boxed units carrying Not For Sale stickers.

The newest video surfaced overnight. Turkish account @DroneFeast posted it at about 4 a.m. Eastern on Thursday, tagging Ellens and Bogdanov, and Xdrones Studio, a Portuguese drone account posting as @D2Help, reposted it four hours later with its own watermark and a caption. It is the first clear look at the top of the drone: a ribbed grille behind the battery bay, a round sensor at the tail, a blue screen on the nose and four battery LEDs beside the power button. The caption adds 4K/30 vertical recording and O4 video transmission to 6.2 miles (10 km), two lines no leaked document carries.

Four things are still not on the record anywhere: a price, a launch date, a flight time and a route to the United States. DJI has not announced the drone, and Jasper Ellens, who writes for DroneXL, guessed six weeks when a reader asked.

The Camera Is the Osmo Action 6 Sensor, Shooting Vertical at 4K/30

The Neo 3 carries a square 1/1.1-inch CMOS sensor, the same size and shape as the DJI Osmo Action 6 chip, per the marketing sheet Igor Bogdanov leaked on October 1. It records vertical or horizontal at full resolution without turning the camera. The Neo 2 has a 1/2-inch sensor.

The sheet lists native vertical shooting and 2x lossless zoom, and DroneXL went through it on October 3. Xdrones Studio’s caption on Thursday puts the vertical mode at 4K/30 fps without loss. The account does not say where that figure comes from, and no leaked document so far prints a resolution or a bitrate.

The top of the DJI Neo 3: nose screen, battery LEDs and power button, the ribbed grille behind the battery, and the round upward sensor at the tail. Frame from the video Xdrones Studio posted on October 8, 2026. Photo credit: Xdrones Studio / @D2Help

The Airframe Weighs 192.7 g and Puts Every Propeller Behind a Screwed-On Cage

A production listing Bogdanov surfaced on September 21 puts the Neo 3 at 192.7 g, against 151 g for a bare Neo 2 and 160 g with its clip-on transceiver. The box lists nine items and no transceiver, which points to a built-in radio, as Ellens has said.

The propellers sit inside spoked cages moulded into the arms. Ellens showed on Wednesday that changing one means unscrewing a diamond-shaped part from the bottom of the cage, then the motor. On the original Neo the guard unclips and one screw holds each propeller.

The sensor set is the fullest of any Neo. The spec sheet promises omnidirectional obstacle detection, the unboxing video shows sensor windows on both arms, a slit above the camera and a round lens facing up from the tail, and Xdrones Studio’s caption adds forward LiDAR, which the Neo 2 already carries. The ribbed grille on the top deck is not described in any earlier coverage. The caption calls the design “improved heat dissipation,” and the flight batteries carry rows of slots across their tops, the detail DroneXL wrongly called AI-drawn in September and corrected on October 6.

The Battery Is a Three-Cell 18.9 Wh Pack, and the Controller Already Cleared the FCC

The flight battery label reads 1,800 mAh, 10.5 V nominal and 18.9 Wh: three lithium-ion cells in series, where the Neo 2’s 1,606 mAh pack runs two cells at 11.5 Wh. A reader counted seven contacts against the Neo 2’s five, so no Neo 2 spare fits.

The box holds the aircraft, three batteries, a charging hub, the RC Mini, two RC Mini accessories, spare propellers, a screwdriver and a USB-C cable, per the back panel DroneXL read on September 20. The RC Mini pairs from its own screen with no phone, shows the camera’s live view, and hides a scroll wheel on its back edge. Xdrones Studio’s caption reads “New DJI RC-N3/RC Mini with integrated screen.” No box or sheet names an RC-N3, and that controller has no screen of its own.

A DJI RC Mini has held a US FCC grant since December 19, 2025, three days before the FCC’s Covered List blocked new authorizations for foreign-made drones. The aircraft has none. Without one, DJI cannot sell the Neo 3 in the United States, and the Neo 2 never launched there either.

The Units Filmed So Far Carry Not For Sale Stickers, and None of Them Dates the Launch

The unboxing and first-flight videos Ellens relayed came from an owner in Indonesia, and Wednesday’s propeller and battery photos were taken on a dealer’s counter there. Thursday’s walk-around over hexagonal pavers carries no location, and none of the three names a date.

The retail box in the September photos wears a “Not for sale” sticker, CE and UKCA marks and China’s two mandatory drone standards in force since May 1, 2026, and the battery label adds a Thai TIS safety mark.

Ellens wrote that DJI’s small drones often show up early in Malaysia and Indonesia.

DroneXL’s Take

DJI has built the beginner drone I’d hand a first-time pilot, and American pilots will read about it and not fly it. My read is that DJI launches the Neo 3 everywhere else within weeks, because boxed units with Not For Sale stickers are already being filmed by their owners, and the US launch repeats the Neo 2’s: none. If you are in the US, follow the Covered List proceedings rather than the leaks, because nothing in a leak changes an FCC grant. The DJI ban hurts hobbyists more than it hurts DJI, and a 193 g drone with caged props is the clearest case for that argument the ban has produced.

Sources: Xdrones Studio (@D2Help) on X, Jasper Ellens on X, Igor Bogdanov on X

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

DJI Osmo 360 II Beginners Guide: Getting Started With 360

Shawn Air Photography — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 13:32:00 GMT

Good day, folks. Shawn here from Air Photography. This is my beginner’s guide for the newly released DJI Osmo 360 II. It’s geared to those who have never used a 360 camera before, to help you get familiar with the hardware and the basic functions.

There are some great upgrades in the Osmo 360 II, including replaceable lenses. The lenses on a 360 camera stick out, so if it falls on concrete or rocks there’s a chance they’ll get scratched or broken. Now you can buy a lens replacement kit and swap them yourself instead of sending the camera to DJI. It’s a very easy process, and all the tools you need come in the kit.

Every Osmo 360 II Bundle Has the Same Camera

Only the accessories change from one bundle to the next.

The Standard Combo gets you the camera, one battery, a charging and data cable, a soft carrying case, a lens cover, a lens cleaning cloth, and an information pack with booklets and stickers.

A second bundle adds another battery for two in total, plus an extension stick and a magnetic mount that connects the stick to the camera. The extension stick is probably one of the most common ways you’ll use a 360 camera, so for a lot of people this may be the best bundle.

The Adventure Combo, another very popular one, adds a third battery and a charging hub that holds all three, which makes charging a lot more convenient.

Getting to Know the Buttons, Doors and Mounts

The camera has a very simple button layout. The power button on the side is also the quick switch button for changing modes. Below the screen, the left button is the shutter, and the right one switches between the front and rear camera by default.

The Osmo 360 II, with its side door and the mounting points on the bottom. Photo credit: Air Photography

One side door covers the USB-C port for charging and data. The other covers the battery and the memory card slot. Press the tab and slide down to open them, and make sure you hear a click when you close them. The camera is waterproof without a housing, but only if those doors are sealed.

On the bottom, you can attach anything with a quarter-inch (1/4-20) thread, or use DJI’s magnetic mounts. For 360 filming, a quarter-inch connection is often the best option because it keeps the stick perfectly in line with the camera, which is what you need for the “invisible selfie stick” effect. The stick has to stay in the stitch line.

The magnetic mount in the box is locked straight for the same reason. If you’re vlogging in single-lens mode and want the lens pointed at you, press its button to tilt it, then press again to straighten it for 360. The standard mounts from DJI’s action cameras fit too.

An extension pole is one of the most common ways to use a 360 camera. Photo credit: Air Photography

The pins on the bottom are for DJI’s power handle extension stick. It powers the camera so you can record longer, and its connectors let you control the camera from the handle.

Memory: 105GB Built In, but Get a Card

The camera has 105GB of internal storage. That may be enough for a few small clips during the day, but for most people it won’t be, especially filming 360 video in 8K. It fills up very fast.

I recommend a 256 or 512GB card, and the camera takes up to 1TB. I’m using a 512GB SanDisk Extreme Pro, and I’ve always had good luck with those, but the brand doesn’t matter too much. DJI lists recommended cards on its website. The slot sits right above the battery: insert the card with the printed side facing the battery and push until it clicks.

Charging: Bring Your Own 45W USB-C Charger

Line up the battery contacts and it slides right in. You can charge in the camera, or in the charging hub if your bundle has one.

None of the bundles include a charger head. Most of us already have one for a tablet, phone or laptop, and my MacBook Air charger works perfectly. If you don’t have one, you can buy one from Amazon. DJI sells its own, but most will work. I recommend a USB-C charger of at least 45 watts.

Plug in through the smaller side door and the screen shows the battery percentage with a lightning bolt. Fast charging takes a battery from empty to about 80% in roughly 20 minutes. The last 20% takes a bit longer.

The hub can also be bought separately. Open the lid or press the front button and the lights show each battery’s state: yellow needs charging, green is full. It charges one, two or three batteries, and with batteries inside it doubles as a power bank for any USB-C device, like a phone running low.

Activating and Updating the Firmware With DJI Mimo

Before you use the camera, activate it and update the firmware with the DJI Mimo app. Mimo also lets you preview, transfer and edit your footage, and use your phone as a live-view remote. It’s on the Apple App Store. On Android, I believe you download it from DJI’s website, but I’m not 100% sure, so just Google it. Create a DJI account and sign in.

The DJI Mimo app handles activation and firmware updates for the Osmo 360 II. Photo credit: Air Photography

Turn the camera on with a quick press of the power button and pick your language. You can skip activation and use the camera up to five times, but I highly recommend updating first so you get all the features.

Open Mimo and it may find the camera on its own. If not, tap the button at the bottom right to search. Tap connect, then confirm on the camera. That one-time step stops random people from connecting to your camera. Agree to the activation terms and the camera is activated. Mimo then offers DJI Care Refresh as a one- or two-year plan. I skipped it.

A firmware update starts downloading right away, so do this with an internet connection. The percentage covers download and install, so at 50% the download is usually done. Tap install, connect to the camera’s Wi-Fi, and let it run. It takes anywhere from a few minutes to 5 or 10, depending on your connection and how busy DJI’s servers are, and the camera may restart. When it’s done, both the app and the camera confirm the update, and the camera gives you a quick on-screen tour.

Reading the Screen and Finding the Menus

Press and hold the power button to turn the camera off. Around the edge of the screen:

Top right: battery level.
Top left: where you’re recording and how much time is left. A camera icon means internal storage, a memory card icon means the SD card. My settings left 1 hour and 55 minutes of video.
Middle left: the play button for your media.
Bottom left: the current mode. A globe means spherical video.
Bottom center: resolution, frame rate and field of view, like 8K 30W.
Bottom right: front and rear camera switch.
Middle right: the side menu.

Swipe down from the top for the main settings, which run across two pages, and tap the gear icon for more. The side menu holds image and audio settings: filters, Endurance Mode to stretch your battery when you’re running low, and Pro Mode for manual white balance, ISO and shutter speed.

To change where you record, swipe down, swipe sideways and tap the memory card icon. It shows free space on internal storage and on the card. Tap the one you want, confirm, and the top-left icon changes to SD. To wipe a card, go to Storage and choose to format internal storage or the memory card. Transfer everything you want to keep first, because it erases everything.

360 Mode vs Single-Lens Mode

This camera works two ways. As a spherical camera, it uses both lenses to capture everything around you, and later you export a spherical video or reframe it into a flat one with the perspective you choose. In single-lens mode, it works like a traditional action camera with just the front or rear lens.

Tap the mode button and pick “360” or “Single Lens” at the top. Do it right away, because that screen disappears fast. 360 mode has night shots, Spotlight Follow, Vortex, time lapse and slow motion along with photo and video. Single-lens mode has fewer options.

With the camera on, the power button cycles through modes too. Mine only shows photo, Boost Video and video, because you can choose which modes appear for both 360 and single lens. The same customization menu turns off the voice prompts that announce each mode.

Single-lens video is ready to share, edit and transfer the moment you stop recording. Spherical video has to go through the app to become a flat or spherical video before you upload it. Some people worry that’s difficult and time-consuming. It can take a little time, but it’s actually very easy.

The front/rear button matters most in single lens. In 360 mode you’re recording every direction, so it only helps framing. In single lens, what you see is what you get, so flip it to face you for vlogging or selfies.

Resolution, Field of View and Stabilization

The default in 360 video is 8K at 30 frames per second with a wide field of view, the highest quality. Swipe up from the bottom to change it: 6K or 8K, and 60 frames per second if you want to slow footage down by half. I always leave it at 8K. If your computer or phone is older, a lower resolution can help it handle the footage, but most devices from the last few years are more than capable of spherical 8K.

Field of view comes in Ultra Wide, Wide and Standard Dewarp. In 360 mode it mostly doesn’t matter, because you can adjust it later. In single-lens mode, what you set is what gets recorded. Ultra Wide captures the most but distorts, which you can see at the back of my desk. Wide is a good middle ground. Standard Dewarp is a tight shot with no distortion at all. Distortion usually isn’t noticeable unless you’re very close to your subject.

For stabilization, I leave it on RockSteady most of the time. It keeps things smooth with nice natural movement, and that movement adds energy, especially in action footage. HorizonSteady keeps the horizon perfectly level even as I rotate the camera, but it crops in very tight, so it isn’t for every situation.

Boost Video and Vertical Video

In single-lens video, tap the shooting modes and you’ll find Boost Video, with an extremely wide field of view. Chest-mounted or on a bike, this is the mode for very immersive action footage.

Single lens is also where you set your aspect ratio, before you record. In 360 mode you choose that later when you export. Swipe up and tap the 16:9 setting to see the options. 9:16 shoots vertical for social media. 1:1 shoots square, so you film once and crop to vertical or horizontal later in DJI Mimo, which is handy if you post to several platforms. If you only need one format, shoot in that one.

Four More Ways to Start Recording

The shutter button starts and stops recording. There are four other ways, and each has to be turned on first.

Twist to Shoot: turn it on from the swipe-down menu, then twist the camera twice quickly to start, and twice again to stop. That’s very useful when it’s out on an extension stick and you can’t reach the buttons.
Voice control: pick your language, then say “start recording” or “stop recording.” You don’t have to be in the right mode. In spherical video mode, “take a photo” switched the camera to photo mode and took a picture.
Gesture control: show the camera an open palm to start and stop capture.
Snapshot: turn it on under the gear icon. With the camera off, press record and it powers up and starts recording right away, which matters when something is happening in front of you. When you stop, it counts down and turns off, unless you tap the screen to keep it on.

Reviewing Your Footage on the Camera

Tap the play icon to see your last video. You can rotate around 360 clips, with limited zoom, scrub with the slider, and adjust or mute the sound. The three dots let you delete a clip, favorite it, or see its file information. The icon at the top left opens a grid of everything on the current storage, labeled by format, and tapping the top lets you switch between the SD card and internal storage. Swipe in from the right to exit.

Pairing a DJI Mic 3 or Mic Mini 2

For vlogging or really good audio, you can buy the Mic 3 or Mic Mini 2 transmitters on their own at a reasonable price, without the full kit. They pair directly with the camera, two at a time.

Turn on the mic and its light blinks. On the camera, swipe down and tap “Mic,” then pick the first transmitter. Press and hold the link button on the mic until it flashes blue and green, and a second later you get a green checkmark. Repeat with the second transmitter for another mic. A green audio meter then appears at the top, and the mic setting and the Pro Mode side menu hold audio settings like level, noise reduction and tone.

Using DJI Mimo to Control, Trim and Transfer

Open Mimo, connect and join the camera’s Wi-Fi, and it goes straight to the gallery. It shows both the memory card and internal storage, with every file labeled as video, Boost, spherical or photo.

The icon at the bottom right opens a live view with full control of the camera. You can start and stop recording, take photos, start a time lapse, change modes and settings, and switch between single lens and 360.

You don’t have to transfer a clip to edit it. You can work right off the memory card. One of my videos ran 2 minutes and 36 seconds, but storage on phones is sometimes very limited, and maybe you only want a short clip for social media. Tap trim, then the scissors, select a section, and export. My 13-second clip saved straight to my phone’s photo gallery. For a lot of people, that’s the best way to work.

You can also batch transfer everything with the select button at the top and the download button at the bottom. Remember that spherical content stays inside the app until you export it as a regular video, while single-lens footage goes straight to your gallery. I’ll cover editing and managing 360 content in another video, hopefully in a few weeks, so if you’re new to 360, stay tuned.

That’s my basic beginner’s guide for the Osmo 360 II. I’ll have more tutorials in the coming weeks and months. Thanks so much for watching, and we’ll see you in the next one.

This article is based on a video from our YouTube partner Shawn. Watch the full video on the Air Photography YouTube channel, and find more of Shawn’s work on his DroneXL author page.

DJI Neo 3 Battery Goes to Three Cells. Neo 2 Owners Buy New Packs

Haye Kesteloo — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 02:55:00 GMT

The DJI Neo 3 flies on a three-cell battery. A label photo that surfaced Wednesday afternoon in the replies to Jasper Ellens’s latest Neo 3 post reads 1,800 mAh, 10.5 V nominal, 12.9 V maximum charge and 18.9 Wh. The DJI Neo 2 battery is a two-cell, 1,606 mAh pack at 7.16 V and 11.5 Wh, so no Neo 2 pack will ever go into this drone and no Neo 3 pack will go into a Neo 2.

Ellens, who writes for DroneXL, posted two photos at 3:02 p.m. Eastern from the same Indonesian owner whose videos DroneXL covered on Wednesday morning: the drone from the front on a shop counter and the underside of a propeller cage with its screws. He put them up to answer readers who asked how the Neo 3’s propellers come off, and to close the argument over whether the footage was AI-generated. Reader Ángel, posting as @gelon1983, added the battery photo two hours later and counted seven contacts on the pack against five on the Neo 2’s.

The leaked spec sheet never mentioned a battery, and it still lists no flight time.

The Neo 3 Pack Holds 64 Percent More Energy Than the Neo 2’s, in a Third Cell

The Neo 3 flight battery stores 18.9 Wh, against 11.5 Wh for the Neo 2 and 10.5 Wh for the original Neo. Its 10.5 V nominal and 12.9 V charge voltage mean three cells in series, against two before. Capacity is 1,800 mAh, just 194 mAh above the Neo 2’s.

The DJI Neo 3 flight battery label: 1,800 mAh, 10.5 V nominal, 18.9 Wh, built by Xiamen Ampace Technology. Photo posted by Ángel (@gelon1983) on X in reply to Jasper Ellens.

The label names Xiamen Ampace Technology as the cell maker and SZ DJI Technology as the authorizing company, cites China’s GB 42590-2023 battery standard, and carries a Thai TIS 2217 safety mark next to an importer line, on a drone photographed in Indonesia. The cell code along the bottom edge begins 3INP6, the IEC designation for three prismatic lithium-ion cells in series.

Ángel wrote that the pack has “7 pins instead of 5. So, yeah, new set of batteries once again.” He pointed out that DJI kept one battery across the Mini 3, Mini 3 Pro and Mini 4 Pro, and that the same pack works in the Mini 5 Pro. For scale, the Mini 4 Pro’s standard battery is 2,590 mAh at 7.32 V, or 18.96 Wh: the Neo 3 pack holds the same energy at a higher voltage and lower capacity.

No document yet says how long that energy keeps the Neo 3 in the air. The spec sheet Igor Bogdanov leaked on October 1 gives no flight time, and the production listing puts the Neo 3 at 192.7 g against 151 g for a bare Neo 2. The Neo 2’s 1,606 mAh pack is rated for 19 minutes.

Changing a Neo 3 Propeller Means Unscrewing the Cage Hub and Then the Motor

Ellens’s answer is that you unscrew a diamond-shaped part from the bottom of the cage and then unscrew the motor. His photo of two cages from below shows a screw in the centre of each hub and a third where the two cages meet, with the blades inside the spokes.

Two DJI Neo 3 propeller cages from below, with the hub screws Ellens says come out first. Photo credit: Jasper Ellens / @JasperEllens

On the original Neo the guard unclips from the airframe without a tool, and each propeller is then held by a screw that DJI’s bundled screwdriver turns. The Neo 3’s cages are moulded into the arms, so the blades sit behind the structure instead of under a removable guard. Reader Taison looked at the photo and asked whether changing one propeller takes eight screws. Ellens had not answered him by Wednesday evening. The retail box DroneXL went through in September lists spare propellers and a screwdriver in the Fly More Combo.

The front photo shows the Neo 3 on a glass counter at the same dealer, with a DJI Lito X1 box on the shelf below it, the gimbal camera in its cradle and dark sensor windows on both arms. Ángel wrote that in the owner’s TikTok upload, where the music sits lower in the mix, the Neo 3 sounds as loud as the Neo 2 at about the same pitch. Ellens replied that he is still waiting for a pocket drone that “doesn’t scream in my ears when filming.”

Ellens closed the post with a line for readers who still think the images are generated: if you are still convinced you are looking at AI, “you are pretty much in denial and nothing will convince you.” DJI has not announced the Neo 3, and the aircraft holds no FCC grant, as DroneXL reported on Wednesday.

DroneXL’s Take

The battery is the biggest change DJI has made to the Neo since it launched the line, and it costs every Neo 2 owner their spares. Three cells at 18.9 Wh is Mini 4 Pro energy in a 193 g drone. My read is that DJI went to a third cell for motor headroom, because the Neo 3 weighs 42 g more than a bare Neo 2 and now carries cages and a bigger sensor, and I’d accept that the airframe needed the voltage. The cost is a pack that fits nothing else DJI sells today. Ángel is right that DJI ran four Mini generations on one battery, so DJI knows how to protect an owner’s spares when it wants to. If you already own three Neo 2 batteries, the Neo 3 is a fresh start at the checkout.

Jasper Ellens (@JasperEllens), October 7, 2026

Source: Jasper Ellens on X

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.

Amazon Prime Air Is Hiring in Australia. The Job: Get CASA to Say Yes

Haye Kesteloo — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 02:08:00 GMT

Amazon is hiring a Head of Regulatory Approvals, Australia, for Prime Air, and the job ad says the hire’s success will be measured by the approvals obtained, the timelines hit and, in the ad’s words, “Australian customers receiving drone deliveries.” The role is based in Sydney or Canberra and reports to a Leader, Prime Air Expansion, Asia Pacific. The ad carries no posting date. The Register described it as recently published on September 28, and SmartCompany reported it in Australia on October 6.

Australia would be Amazon’s third country outside the United States. Prime Air flies in Britain from a single warehouse in Darlington under a trial permission that expires in December, and Amazon stopped its Italian program in December 2025 after test flights in San Salvo.

The ad’s second sentence says Prime Air “evaluates Australia and other countries.” I read the rest of it as a launch plan: it names the regulator, the airspace rules, the certificates and the government offices the hire has to get through, and it lists existing relationships inside CASA’s drone team as a preferred qualification.

The Ad Lists Every Australian Approval Prime Air Would Need

The hire owns type acceptance and airworthiness certification of Amazon’s aircraft with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), airspace authorizations under CASR Parts 101 and 102, operating certificates, and the safety documentation behind them. Land use permissions for flight corridors from state and local governments round it out.

The ad does not name an aircraft. The MK30 is the only one Amazon flies. Amazon wants five years in aerospace or aviation, prior formal applications to CASA or another national aviation authority, and familiarity with the Specific Operations Risk Assessment method CASA uses for drone approvals. Under preferred qualifications, the posting asks for established working relationships with CASA’s RPAS regulatory team that can speed up Prime Air’s approval timelines. Airservices Australia, the air traffic agency, is named for route and traffic management integration.

CASA is the regulator that in October 2025 refused to classify the DJI Mini 5 Pro as a sub-250 gram micro drone over the variance in what the drone weighs on a scale. It also opened a 12-month beyond-visual-line-of-sight self-assessment trial that same month, which Sydney’s Sphere Drones used to cut site approvals from months to days. That trial runs to October 15. The ad has the hire dealing with CASA on airworthiness for the aircraft and with its RPAS team for where it may fly.

Wing Flew More Deliveries in Australia Than Anywhere, Then Left in January

Wing, Alphabet’s delivery drone company, ended its DoorDash partnership in Australia on January 16, 2026 and stopped delivering there after seven years, Australian Aviation reported in May. A Wing spokesperson said the company stopped “to focus on increased demand and the pace of scale in the United States.”

Wing once made more deliveries in Australia than in any other country, per the same report. It delivered with DoorDash in Logan, Queensland, from 2022 and in 26 suburbs of eastern Melbourne from July 2024. Before that it ran Canberra from a warehouse in Mitchell for almost five years, until the end of August 2023, when spokesperson Jesse Suskin told Region the company had no suitable shopping centre to launch from and faced Commonwealth airspace in the capital. Wing’s Canberra story began with a trial in the suburb of Bonython in July 2018, and a 2024 paper in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A credits the Bonython residents’ noise campaign with pushing Wing out of that suburb.

Wing’s current aircraft weigh 14 and 24 pounds (6.4 and 11 kg) at takeoff in its FAA filings, per DroneXL’s aircraft tracker. Amazon’s MK30 weighs 83 pounds (37.8 kg) and carries no parachute in any of its FAA filings. SmartCompany noted that drone delivery in Australia can need aviation, planning and federal noise approvals, and that any flight beyond the pilot’s line of sight needs CASA’s sign-off.

Amazon has not said where in Australia it would fly or when. The Register said it had asked Amazon which other Asian countries it plans to enter and had no response when it published on September 28. SmartCompany said on October 6 it had asked Amazon for comment. In the United States, Amazon says it will reach nearly 500 cities and towns by the end of 2026, a figure DroneXL’s tracker reads as every municipality inside the 7.5-mile (12-kilometer) circle around each hub Amazon has filed with the FAA, operating or planned. In Richardson, Texas, one resident counted 52 drones over her house in a day.

Australians who end up inside one of those circles will have a different rulebook than Americans, but the same company on the other end. US residents can call Amazon at 1-888-280-4331, and anyone with an Amazon account can open the customer-service chat, pick “Something Else,” then “Amazon Drone Delivery.” DroneXL’s guide for residents covers what a town can still do once a hub is proposed, and the Prime Air tracker lists every hub, aircraft and incident on record.

DroneXL’s Take

I read this ad as a decision, not a study. Amazon does not hire a head of approvals to find out whether it wants approvals, and when the ad asks for CASA relationships that can speed up its timelines, I take that to mean a timeline exists. If Amazon goes, I think Australia is the hardest test Prime Air has taken on. Wing, with a far lighter aircraft and more Australian deliveries than anyone, left Canberra in 2023 and the whole country in January, and CASA would not round a few grams off a DJI drone to make a rule fit. Amazon would be bringing an 83-pound aircraft with no parachute, flying consumer orders, to that regulator and those neighbors. I’m for delivery drones when the flight carries something urgent, and a phone charger in 30 minutes is not that. Watch CASA’s airworthiness file on the aircraft and the federal noise approval, because I expect the hard questions to be answered there before any Australian hears the drone.

Sources: Amazon Jobs, Head of Regulatory Approvals, Australia, Prime Air, The Register, September 28, 2026, SmartCompany, October 6, 2026, Australian Aviation, May 28, 2026, Region, September 19, 2023.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.