unmanned aerial vehicle

9 Stories

Feds Get First Conviction for Unsafe Drone Operation

Man almost brought down an LAPD helicopter

(Newser) - A man whose drone almost caused an LAPD helicopter to crash is the first person convicted under a 2018 federal law against unsafe drone operation, prosecutors say. Andrew Hernandez, a 22-year-old Hollywood resident, pleaded guilty to unsafe operation of an unmanned aircraft and faces a maximum penalty of up to...

FAA: Drone Operators Will Need to Provide Location

Requirement for most operators will go into effect in 2023

(Newser) - Your drone will soon need a license plate of sorts. The FAA issued new rules for unmanned aerial vehicles on Monday, and for the first time, specially trained operators will be allowed to fly small drones at night, so long as they're equipped with anti-collision lights that can be...

New York Is Creating a 50-Mile Drone Corridor

Upstate area will have 'nation's most advanced testing'

(Newser) - Envisioning a day when millions of drones will buzz around delivering packages, watching crops, or inspecting pipelines, a coalition is creating an airspace corridor in upstate New York where traffic management systems will be developed and unmanned aircraft can undergo safety and performance testing. The unmanned aircraft traffic management corridor,...

Private Drones Could Fly Over US by 2015: FAA

But agency roadmap doesn't set out privacy rules

(Newser) - The FAA has unveiled a roadmap for introducing private drones operated by companies, universities, and even individual hobbyists to US skies by 2015—but the road might be a bumpy one. The agency, behind schedule on a deadline set by Congress, says it is working on very complicated regulations that...

F-16 Takes Off— With No One Inside

Retired jets retrofitted into drones for Air Force training

(Newser) - Yesterday's fighter jets are today's drones. Or that's the hope of Boeing and the US Air Force, which have retrofitted retired F-16s to fly as unmanned aerial vehicles, the BBC reports. One of the six new pilot-less planes made the first test flight last week, with two...

Air Force Can't Convince Anyone to Pilot Drones

It's mostly a dull job

(Newser) - It turns out, killing people by remote control is an unpopular profession. The Air Force is having trouble recruiting new drone pilots, a new Brookings Institute report reveals, and the ones it already has quit at three times the rate of its manned pilots. The problem: It's a boring...

Israel: We Shot Down Drone
 Israel: We Shot Down Drone 

Israel: We Shot Down Drone

Says Hezbollah sent unmanned aircraft into Israeli airspace

(Newser) - The Israeli military says it has shot down an unmanned aircraft sent by Hezbollah into Israeli skies. Military officials said the aircraft was downed today off the Israeli coast in Israeli airspace near the northern city of Haifa. It is the second known instance in which the Lebanese militant group,...

29% of Drone Pilots Are Burned Out, Exhausted

Air Force points to three reasons for the stress

(Newser) - Drones may be unmanned, but they're not pilot-less, and many of those pilots are having a pretty rough time. NPR reports on a new Pentagon study, commissioned by the Air Force, that looks at the mental toll that fighting "remote-controlled war" takes, and the stats are somewhat disheartening....

Miscommunication Caused Friendly Fire Drone Killings

Warning by US-based analysts never sent to operator, ground forces: Report

(Newser) - The two US servicemen killed by a Predator in April died because Marines on the ground and the Air Force crew operating the drone were not told by analysts elsewhere of doubts about the men's identity, reports the LA Times . The incident occurred on April 6 when a Marine...

9 Stories