From the sUAS News

By Anjalee Khemlani

The government continues to delay in passing a comprehensive set of rules addressing drones, and it is unlikely to have anything until 2017.

In August, the Federal Aviation Administration missed a key deadline for developing rules for small commercial drones, which in turn infuriated the businesses who were looking to use it for product delivery services, according to the Washington Post.

But the FAA further upset the businesses, who are threatening to take their drone research overseas, because the government entity said it is likely to miss its original September 2015 deadline as well.

“We all agree that the project is taking too long,” Peggy Gilligan, a top FAA safety official, told a congressional House panel Wednesday.

Full article here FAA Delay

It's customary and traditional that we celebrate the addition of every 1,000 new members here and share the traffic stats. This time it's 61,000!!!!

There were approximately 1.6 million page views in the last month! (we now get around 56,000 page views a day on average). It took us just 25 days to add these latest 1,000 members--we're averaging one new member every 36 minutes!

Thanks as always to all the community members who make this growth possible, and especially to the administrators and moderators who approve new members, blog posts and otherwise respond to questions and keep the website running smoothly.

Regards,

TCIII Admin

Experimental project organized by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Pix4D, using UAV models from Draganfly and Aeryon Labs. The goal is comparing traditional CSI procedures with UAV mapping.

More information here Pix4D (It can take a bit for the website to come up)

 It's customary and traditional that we celebrate the addition of every 1,000 new members here and share the traffic stats. This time we have a really special occasion to celebrate as we have reached the 60,000 member mark!!!!

Congratulations to Carlos Abreu, of Missoula, Montana USA, who became our 60,000th member!!!

There were approximately 1.7 million page views in the last month! (we now get around 57,000 page views a day average). It took us just 25 days to add these latest 1,000 members--we're averaging one new member every 27 minutes!

Thanks as always to all the community members who make this growth possible, and especially to the administrators and moderators who approve new members, blog posts and otherwise respond to questions and keep the website running smoothly.

Regards,

TCIII Admin

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Calling all drone pilots.

Amazon (AMZN, Tech30) is looking for engineers to help test and develop Prime Air, its drone delivery service.

According to the job posting, candidates should have at least five years of experience flying drones. It helps if you can fly actual airplanes. The company lists a pilot's certificate among the "preferred qualifications" for the job.

Amazon first announced that it was working on delivering packages via drones last year. 

Full article here Drone Pilots

From the sUAS News Feed

By Yasmin Tadjdeh

After years of waiting, a Federal Aviation Administration official said the agency was close to releasing a ruling that would give commercial entities greater access to fly small unmanned aerial system in the domestic airspace.

The proposed ruling, which the agency has been working on over the past year, is currently being reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget, Jim Williams, manager of the FAA’s UAS integration office, said on Nov. 5.

Full article here: Small Drone Rule

From the AMA Government Relations Blog

The FAA has issued three new Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) creating restrictions for the airspace surrounding major sporting events and the Disney properties in Anaheim, CA and Kissimmee/Orlando, FL. The new flight restrictions permanently prohibit the operation of radio control model aircraft at any time within 3 nm (3.5 statute miles) of both the Disneyland and Disney World theme parks, and for a period of 1 hr before and 1 hr after major sporting events.

Full article here: FAA TFR

It's customary and traditional that we celebrate the addition of every 1,000 new members here and share the traffic stats. This time it's 59,000!!!!

There were approximately 1.7 million page views in the last month! (we now get around 57,000 page views a day on average). It took us just 24 days to add these latest 1,000 members--we're averaging one new member every 35 minutes!

Thanks as always to all the community members who make this growth possible, and especially to the administrators and moderators who approve new members, blog posts and otherwise respond to questions and keep the website running smoothly.

Regards,

TCIII Admin

It may look like a flying manta ray, but this is actually the University of Sheffield's latest UAV

By Ben Coxworth

October 14, 2014

Back in April, we first heard about a 3D-printed UAV airframe that could be fabricated within 24 hours. Created by a Boeing-assisted team at the University of Sheffield's Advanced Manufacturing Research Center, it was a gliding prototype that would require the addition of a motor and an external propeller for powered flight. Its recently-announced successor, however, features integrated electric ducted fan motors.

As with its predecessor, the modular components of the new blended-wing UAV were made largely via Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM). This is the type of 3D printing in which successive layers of molten plastic are extruded one on top of another, to build up complete objects.

Although the aircraft consists of separate modules that are bolted together, the central body – which houses the fan motors and incorporates "complex internal features" – was printed as a single ABS plastic part. The motors and electronics themselves were added afterwards.

Full article here: 3D Printed UAV

(CNN) -- Ethnic tensions in the Balkans and an incident involving a drone led to the abandonment of a major European international football game Tuesday.

Serbia's European Championship qualifying match with Albania was abandoned after 41 minutes following ugly clashes between both sets of players.

The brawl followed the arrival of a mini-drone, which flew over the stadium while carrying a flag with Albanian symbols.

When Stefan Mitrovic, the Serbian player, ripped the flag down, it provided the catalyst for an already combustible tie to fully ignite.

Full article here: Flag carrying drone

by Press • 4 October 2014

Three cases regarding the use of unmanned aircraft in Yellowstone National Park have resulted in three convictions.

Donald Criswell of Molalla, Oregon, had been charged with violating the ban after he flew his unmanned aircraft over the crowded Midway Geyser Basin and close to bison on August 19.  On Thursday afternoon, October 2, he pled guilty to the charge of violating a closure and was fined $1,000 plus court costs.

In late September, Theodorus Van Vliet of the Netherlands entered a guilty plea in connection with an August 2 incident where his unmanned aircraft crashed into Grand Prismatic Spring.  He was fined $1,000 and ordered to pay over $2,200 in restitution.

Earlier in September, Andreas Meissner of Germany pled guilty to charges arising from operating an unmanned aircraft which crashed into Yellowstone Lake near the West Thumb Marina back on July 18.  Meissner was sentenced to a one year ban from the park, was placed on one year of unsupervised probation, and was ordered to pay over $1,600 in fines and restitution.

All three successfully prosecuted cases arose from well documented violations of the prohibition of the operation of unmanned aircraft along with other violations of park regulations or impacts to park resources.

Full article here: Yellowstone Hobby UAS Incidents

 By Mariella Moon

Everyone has different ideas on what the perfect search-and-rescue robot is, and for a University of Pennsylvania Mod Lab team, it comes in the form of a snake drone-quadcopter chimera. The Hybrid Exploration Robot for Air and Land Deployment or H.E.R.A.L.D. is composed of two snake-like machines that attach via magnets to a UAV. After being carried to the site by the quadcopter, the snake bots can detach themselves, slip through the holes and cracks of a collapsed building, for instance, and slither to their destination. The researchers have been working on H.E.R.A.L.D. since 2013, but now that all its components can properly merge and work together like the robots in Power Rangers, they presented it at the 2014 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. You can watch the machine ace the tests its creators put it through in the vid after the break, including a part where a researcher used an Xbox controller to navigate a snakebot through a pipe.

Article here: SnakeBot

It's customary and traditional that we celebrate the addition of every 1,000 new members here and share the traffic stats. This time it's 58,000!!!!

There were approximately 1.6 million page views in the last month! (we now get around 53,000 page views a day on average). It took us just 26 days to add these latest 1,000 members--we're averaging one new member every 37 minutes!

Thanks as always to all the community members who make this growth possible, and especially to the administrators and moderators who approve new members, blog posts and otherwise respond to questions and keep the website running smoothly.

Regards,

TCIII Admin

It's customary and traditional that we celebrate the addition of every 1,000 new members here and share the traffic stats. This time it's 57,000!!!!

There were approximately 1.6 million page views in the last month! (we now get around 53,000 page views a day on average). It took us just 27 days to add these latest 1,000 members--we're averaging one new member every 39 minutes!

Thanks as always to all the community members who make this growth possible, and especially to the administrators and moderators who approve new members, blog posts and otherwise respond to questions and keep the website running smoothly.

Regards,

TCIII Admin

Published on August 27, 2014 by Adam Griffith

Photography drones are facing a perilous atmosphere of distrust and legal chaos. In these circumstances, even small mistakes can have big consequences. A shift in public sentiment against private drone usage could easily result in the application of restrictive regulations, or perhaps even conditional bans.

I don’t think it would even be hard to make this happen single-handedly. I have a list of ways that I’d do it, just in case I ever find myself bored on a Saturday:

1. Attempt dramatic close-up of President Obama at outdoor rally using a quadcopter with a GoPro duct-taped on.

2. Catalog the sleeping habits of everyday New Yorkers by surreptitiously snapping photographs of them through the windows of their thirtieth floor apartments at 3AM. Post said photographs on Tumblr.

3. Play chicken with Jumbo Jets at LAX.

4. Attempt to land drone on the back of an endangered Florida Manatee.

5. Post live streams online of local children’s playgrounds recorded from 40 feet in the air.

I see you ;)

It would probably take an attempt or two, but as soon as I got some traction on major news networks, a small public outcry against “invasion of privacy” or “endangering public safety” would mount and, within the week, proposals for bans on the use of drones by private citizens would flood into legislatures around the nation.

Bing. Bang. Boom. No more drones.

Full article here What does it take to get drones banned?

From the SUAS Feed

BEND — It cost a Bend teenager about $800 in revenue from chores, yard work and birthday gifts to buy a miniature aircraft and a camera he sent aloft to capture video of a forest fire this summer that was threatening the western edge of the city.

The images were a YouTube hit, but they were also a source of worry for fire bosses concerned about the possibility that drones could interfere with firefighting and possibly bring down a big aircraft.

Morgan Tien, 14, told The Bulletin newspaper of Bend that he had read federal guidelines on when and where he could fly his DJI Phantom, a small quadcopter he fitted with a GoPro camera.

Tien’s not in trouble for the flight, which went up from his patio on June 7, followed by a second flight the next day. They didn’t get into restricted air space.

But federal authorities cited the flights, along with others this summer in Washington state and California. They called them an “emerging hazard.”

Drones may be a problem for firefighters if the drones fly into restricted airspace over and near a wildfire, where air tankers and helicopters could be in the air, said Mike Ferris, a spokesman in Portland for the U.S. Forest Service.

Full article here: Bend Boy

By Evan Ackerman

The absolute least efficient way to get air, water, and fuel into space is the way that we currently do it: by packing as much of it as we can into rockets on Earth, and then firing it off into orbit. If this is how we have to get supplies to the moon, or Mars, it's going to be ludicrously expensive and time consuming.

A much better solution is to extract everything that we need from wherever we are: where there's ice (the moon, Mars, and asteroids all have it), there's water, air with a bit of work, and with a bit more work, rocket fuel. Plus, there are likely other valuable resources scattered around all over the place, like minerals and metals. So, great, let's get on it! But first, we've got to find the stuff. And how is NASA going to do that? Robots.Full article here: Mining Robots

By WILLIAM NEUMAN and RALPH BLUMENTHALAUG. 13, 2014

CHEPÉN, Peru — A small remote-controlled helicopter buzzed over ancient hilltop ruins here, snapping hundreds of photographs. Below, stone walls built more than a thousand years ago by the Moche civilization gave way to a grid of adobe walls put up only recently by what officials said were land speculators.

“This site is threatened on every side,” said Luis Jaime Castillo Butters, Peru’s vice minister of cultural heritage as he piloted the drone aircraft.

Archaeologists around the world, who have long relied on the classic tools of their profession, like the trowel and the plumb bob, are now turning to the modern technology of drones to defend and explore endangered sites. And perhaps nowhere is the shift happening as swiftly as in Peru, where Dr. Castillo has created a drone air force to map, monitor and safeguard his country’s ancient treasures.

Drones mark “a before and after in archaeology,” said Dr. Castillo, who is also a prominent archaeologist and one of a dozen experts who will outline the use of drones at a conference in San Francisco next year.

Full article here: Drone Patrol

Irresponsible sUAS flying, as demonstrated in this news article, is going to give the sUAS hobby another black eye and help to keep the general public wondering why they should support the sUAS hobbyists in their efforts to obtain reasonable regulation from the FAA.

(CNN)

Authorities at Yellowstone National Park are investigating reports that a tourist crashed a drone into the Grand Prismatic Spring, the park's largest hot spring, on Saturday.

The tourist approached a park employee about getting the drone back after losing it in the almost 200-feet deep hot spring. The employee let the tourist go without initially reporting the incident to authorities.

"I don't think the person who they spoke with realized that drones couldn't be flown in the park or the implications of what they were being told," Amy Bartlett, spokesperson for Yellowstone National Park, told CNN.

Drones are banned in national parks. The National Park Service announced in June that it was prohibiting unmanned aircraft from all park service-controlled lands and waters, totaling about 84 million acres throughout the country.

Full story here: Drone crash

It's customary and traditional that we celebrate the addition of every 1,000 new members here and share the traffic stats. This time it's 56,000!!!!

There were approximately 1.8 million page views in the last month! (we now get around 60,000 page views a day on average). It took us just 25 days to add these latest 1,000 members--we're averaging one new member every 36 minutes!

Thanks as always to all the community members who make this growth possible, and especially to the administrators and moderators who approve new members, blog posts and otherwise respond to questions and keep the website running smoothly.

Regards,

TCIII Admin

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