Monthly Archives: December 2019

311 V-Coptr Falcon Bi-copter

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A new bi-copter for aerial photography, a waterproof fishing drone, a single-seat eVTOL aircraft for the GoFly competition, DOD wants U.S. designed and manufactured drones, a town grapples with public safety drones and privacy concerns, and the FAA revises the airman certificate process.

UAV News

V-Coptr Falcon 4K camera drone gets 50-minute flight time with just two rotors

The new bi-copter from Zero Zero Robotics is called the V-Coptr Falcon, a tilt-rotor with a claimed flight time of 50 minutes. It features slower rotating propellers that are quieter, a 3-axis mechanical gimbal, 4K video and 12-megapixel photos, a controller with a flip-up mount for your phone. The bi-copter also has auto-follow, obstacle avoidance with a front-facing stereo camera and pre-programmed flight paths.

Gannet’s waterproof fishing drone to launch this month

Gannet offers a fairly complete range of drone fishing products including bait release systems and drone fishing rods. They’ve crowdfunded the development of the Gannet Pro waterproof drone that can release 3.5kg payloads of bait hundreds of meters away. A unique barometric pressure control system adjusts flight altitude.

Video: Gannet Pro waterproof drones

Silverwing reveals full-scale S1 prototype

The S1 is a single-seat, VTOL electric drone developed by a team from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. The S1 drone takes off and lands vertically on its tail, then tilts forward for horizontal flight. Silverwing says the S1 will be able to transport a passenger 60 kilometers (37 miles) flying at a top speed of 120 km/h (75 mph). The S1 was designed to meet the requirements of the GoFly prize which is sponsored by Boeing. The competition is for innovators, inventors, engineers, and makers to design and build a personal flying device.

The Final Fly Off is at Moffett Federal Airfield at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California with support from Boeing, Google’s Planetary Ventures, and Pratt & Whitney. from Thursday, February 27th through Saturday, February 29th, 2020.

Pentagon Is Searching for Domestic Drone Options

The U.S. Defense Department wants to see a U.S. ecosystem for sUAS and counter technologies and they are making it a priority in 2020. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, Ellen Lord said, “We see this as developing an ecosystem to have investment in areas that the Department of Defense thinks are particularly critical for providing capabilities to the warfighter, but also translate many times into commercial products. …I think you know that DJI flooded the market with low-cost quadcopters particularly, which eroded our industrial base and really altered the landscape for the U.S. government and for the small drone industry. What we want to do is reinvigorate that.”

Menlo Park: Proposal for city drone program raises civil liberty questions

In California at a Menlo Park City Council study session, police, public works, and community development leaders described how drones could help them. The council was open to the idea of using drones, but they did have significant concerns about privacy and civil rights. Mayor Ray Mueller said, “For me, the use cases are great. I just want to have discussion about what the guard rails are.” City staff was asked to come back with a drone program expert and clearer policies on acceptable uses of the drones and relevant software applications, as well as more information about how many human-hours of work that drone use could save.

FAA to Improve Airmen Certificate Testing

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Jan. 13, 2020, will launch improvements to the way it tests all applicants for an FAA airman certificate. This applies to all certified pilots of manned and unmanned aircraft. One of the most important changes is the requirement that applicants obtain an FAA Tracking Number (FTN) by creating an Integrated Airman Certification and Rating Application (IACRA) profile prior to registering for a knowledge test. IACRA is the web-based certification/rating application that guides the user through the FAA’s airman application process. The five-minute process enables the agency to rely on the name in the profile for all actions associated with that applicant.

310 Hexa Electric VTOL

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Rides available in the Hexa Electric VTOL, mapping a railway project, low-altitude hurricane hunting, another reported drone strike, a DHS warning for private industry, another round of financing for PrecisionHawk, and spying on hippos with drones.

The Hexa electric VTOL passenger drone. Courtesy Lift Aircraft.
The Hexa electric VTOL passenger drone. Courtesy Lift Aircraft.

Lift Aircraft says 13,000 people have signed up for drone rides; flights begin in beta mode in Texas

In 2020, Lift Aircraft plans a 25-city tour of it’s Hexa electric VTOL passenger drone. You can register for a flight on Lift’s website. It will cost $149-$249 depending on flight duration. The 432-pound electric VTOL uses 18 independent electric motors and propellers and is controlled through a triply redundant autopilot computer and a single 3-axis joystick. Or you can tap on the seven-inch touchscreen for a “Look mom, no hands!” mode.

Flying the Hexa electric VTOL passenger drone.

What if? Norfolk Southern develops effective UAV program, but it did not come without some trial and error

Norfolk Southern Railway asked themselves if they could use lower-cost UAVs to image project areas and stitch them into survey-grade 3D mosaics for the project team. They formed a UAV field team, got a Part 107 license, and designated a 5-mile linear project. What they learned will help them (and others) in future projects.

Drones Provide a New Frontier in Hurricane Observations

Hurricane hunters fly through hurricanes, but not at sea level where the winds are strongest. Scientists flew expendable Raytheon Coyote drones as low as 360 feet into several hurricanes and measured atmospheric conditions in winds as high as 194 miles per hour. These were deployed NOAA’s P-3 reconnaissance aircraft. The Coyote UAS is adaptable for a variety of missions including surveillance, electronic warfare and strike. A swarm of Coyote drones has successfully flown and demonstrated autonomous networking. A paper was recently published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society: “Eye of the Storm: Observing Hurricanes with a Small Unmanned Aircraft System.”

AIR7 HD struck by suspected drone over downtown LA, makes precautionary landing

Los Angeles ABC affiliate KABC reports that their helicopter was struck midair by an object. At first, the pilot and reporter thought it was a bird strike but after landing and inspecting the damage to the helicopter tail, they believe it was a drone strike. The incident occurred at 7:15 pm, flying at 1100 feet.

DHS Continues to Warn Private Industry Against Using Foreign-Made Drones

In late November, the FBI’s Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a bulletin to private industry warning about the risk of exposing private data when using UAS manufactured abroad. The bulletin warns of possible data compromise when operating UAS “designed, manufactured, or supplied abroad where the data is stored, transferred to, or accessible by servers in a foreign country.”

PrecisionHawk Raises $32 Million to Advance Next Phase of Growth in Commercial Drones

PrecisionHawk announced $32 million in funding by a group of venture investors. The company says this will allow them to innovate with their PrecisionAnalytics A.I.-powered aerial data analytics platform, accelerate sales initiatives, and support further market expansion. In total, PrecisionHawk has raised $130 million from leading venture capital firms. See also, We’ve Raised $32 Million to Build the Next Generation of Drone Software and Services.

Spying With Drones to Help Hippo Conservation Efforts

University of New South Wales conservationists used drones to monitor threatened hippos in Africa. They used a DJI Phantom 4 to film the hippos from a safe distance. The wild hippo population is declining because of habitat loss, and hunting for meat and ivory. They are under-studied because they are nocturnal, amphibious and aggressive.