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The drone services division of UK delivery and vertiport company Skyports has announced it will be integrating the heavy payload electric vertical takeoff and landing UAVs by manufacturer Pyka into its fleet, thereby considerably expanding the goods its craft can haul in a single flight.

Drone delivery company Flytrex will soon be moving to expand its South Carolina and Texas operations across other US states, after it received Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Part 135 Certification to offer unscheduled, on-demand aerial services through its longtime partner, Causey Aviation Unmanned (CAU).

Though much attention has rightfully been turned to the remarkably effective ways soldiers and citizens alike have used consumer and enterprise drones in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, less notice has been made of the increasingly potent manner fighters in Myanmar have also been using UAVs to battle the armed forces of the nation’s repressive military junta.

Skydio aircraft have finally made it to the FAA website tracking drone manufacturer compliance with the new Remote ID rule. The FAA, on January 17, 2023, approved the Declarations of Compliance for Skydio 2+ and X2E drone models.

Another phase of drone development activity has been initiated in the UK, with the Open Skies Cornwall program assembling nearly a dozen partners to test use cases and recruit additional participants to facilitate regular UAV services along the southwest England peninsula.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed new low-noise propellers that can make current multirotor drones much less of an acoustic annoyance.

German technology giant Siemens is partnering up with California startup Skyway to research and develop electrical supplies and infrastructure needed to power global vertiports soon expected to facilitate flights of electric takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles like air taxis.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has delivered its report on the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) efforts to integrate drones into the national airspace and its methods of processing requests for operations not covered by Part 107 rules. The main conclusions of the audit are the regulator needs to do better in both establishing and communicating a comprehensive strategy for broader UAV use, and in defining a uniform procedure for issuing waivers.

Snowbirds, passionate lovers of warmer climes, and obsessively protective owners of expensive tech rejoice. A Reddit contributor to r/drones has just offered compelling evidence of why it’s ever so wise to stay way out of the cold – this time in the form of a DJI drone-cicle.

In what is believed to be the first mission of its kind in the world, the US Department of Energy (DOE) has successfully used a drone to map a vault that was built in the 1960s to store radioactive nuclear waste.

Drone avionics tech specialist uAvionix has announced its detect and avoid systems have received the second Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) authorization for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone flights in as many weeks, this time in partnership with the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (CNO).

German drone manufacturer Quantum-Systems says it will soon be supplying Ukraine defense forces with over 100 more of its specialized data gathering Vector drones in a deal underwritten by Germany’s government as part of its continued support of the nation against Russia’s invasion.

The European Union (EU) has announced the operational launch of the High Accuracy Service (HAS) positioning system from its Galileo global navigation satellite platform – a location-fixing application that becomes available free of charge to myriad users worldwide, including drone operators.

Transport Canada has given its approval to Ontario Power Generation to operate inspection drones beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS), without an onsite visual observer, at McConnell Lake Control Dam. Percepto, whose drone-in-a-box solution will make this feat possible, points out this is the first time regulators are allowing autonomous drone operations in Canada.

San Francisco Bay Area cargo UAV developer MightyFly has unveiled the second generation of its hybrid-powered vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) drone, Cento, which it plans to produce and operate for end-to-end freight services on flights of up to 600 miles.

Swedish startup Everdrone has gotten the all-clear to extend its life-saving First on Scene Solutions activity using drones to speed automated external defibrillators (AED) and provide other support to first responders in Sweden’s vast Västra Götaland county.

Oil giant Saudi Aramco has invested $14 million in one of the top drone service providers in the world, Terra Drone Corporation, through its early-stage investment fund Wa’ed Ventures. The Japan-based drone company says it will utilize the funding to set up a new subsidiary for inspection services in Saudi Arabia.

There’s a new tech start-up on the block, and it’s armed with a patented drone solution that can help locate a missing person in just 30 minutes within a 50-meter radius.

Update, January 27, 2023: American Water has clarified that advanced drone flights are being made possible courtesy of its partnership with the New Jersey Innovation Institute (NJII), an New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) corporation which holds an FAA Part 91 Certificate of Authorization.

The earlier report from American Water follows…

Airbus has remarkable success in developing its record-shattering Zephyr high-altitude platform system (HAPS), but now the European aviation giant is now looking to bring in outside investors to help take the solar-powered drone to market.

Edgesource, a small company providing contracting services and tech to US government agencies, has revealed that over the course of 2022, it donated $2 million worth of its counter-drone detection system for smaller UAVs to Ukraine for its battle against Russia’s invasion.

It’s not something one often sees from usually secretive, stealthy intelligence services: A specialized section of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense has made a public appeal for donations to its project to purchase 1,000 first-person view (FPV) drones for attack missions against Russian forces.

The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has released its report on a 2021 collision between a Cessna 172N plane approaching the Toronto area’s Buttonville Municipal Airport and a police drone operating in the restricted airspace without the required waiver – an incident that sparked controversy when it belatedly became public.

Hooligans used to be the biggest risk to people attending professional soccer matches in England, but a growing concern these days is possible frostbite while waiting for games to resume after being suspended by drones flying in the stadium.