Kelly Shores

There have been news articles about property owners shooting down drones out of the sky if they perceive the drone to be flying over their private property. While flying over private property is not a good piloting practice, shooting drones out of the sky is both dangerous and illegal. Stray bullets kill hundreds of people every year and the chance of being hit by a falling drone is also very real...

Search and rescue organizations around the world are using drones as a method to cover vast spaces very quickly. Drones offer a safe, reliable and efficient way to take high resolution images of large areas to search for clues when operating a search and rescue mission. Images are taken of a large area and then the images are distributed to volunteers online to search for clues about missing peopl...

Some people get more thrill out of blowing stuff up than they do building. Gnat Warfare is based in Arizona and has a program for people who want to shoot drones out of the sky. This means that they load explosives onto the drones and when you get a direct hit, BOOM! Of course, shooting drones out of the sky is illegal according the the FAA, but because this is a private ranch and the activity is ...

Want to do something useful with your drone around the house? Well, if you have a hard to reach light bulb that needs to be replaced this video shows that it can be done using a small, inexpensive drone. You might break some glass in the process, but you can get the job done as this video shows.

Just days after releasing its first drone, the Karma, GoPro has announced a recall of the product due to safety and performance issues. Several videos online show the Karma suddenly losing power and dropping from the sky like a brick. GoPro is concerned about the safety of its product and will be issuing a full refund to all Karma owners who ship the Karma back to them. To read more about this dev...

Sweden has banned drones with cameras unless you apply for and receive a permit to fly them. The Supreme Administrative Court says that drones equipped with cameras are now to be considered surveillance equipment and will require a special license. People wishing to use a camera drone must apply for a special permit and pay a fee. This new law is troubling to drone pilots as well as hobbyists who ...

3D Robotics was poised to take the drone world by storm, but that storm never happened. Through a combination of bad management, bad forecasting and bad luck, 3D Robotics burned though a ton of money and ended up with very little to show for it. This article covers the reasons that 3D Robotics failed and tells the story of the people who believed in the company but were not able to capitalize on t...

The biggest challenge with quadcopters is their huge appetite for power. Larger batteries mean more weight and don’t always provide the flight times that pilots are demanding. The future may not lie with bigger batteries, but instead with wireless power. Electrical engineering researcher Dr. Samer Aldhaher recently posted a video demonstrating how a drone can fly for long periods of time wit...

A company called Asylon is hoping to change the way that autonomous and manned drone missions take place by creating a system for automatic battery exchange. Drones can fly to one of their stations and automatically have their battery changed with a fresh one. Then, while the drone is flying the new battery, the old one is being recharged for later use. It’s a pretty cool idea and a very ama...

DJI makes some amazing quadcopters! The Phantom series introduced drone flying to millions of people and now the Mavic Pro is setting the bar in terms of portability and ease of use. But for any drone you buy, one of the most important factors is how long it will stay in the air on a single charge. Both of these drones have industry leading flight times, but the question is, which one can stay in ...

The SenseFly eBee Plus was recently announced at the commercial UAV expo in Las Vegas. The eBee is now going to be bigger but also lighter. This comes from upgraded sensors that allow it to do even more than the original eBee. The eBee comes in at under 2.5 pounds and can fly for just under one hour in many different weather conditions. The eBee is primarily designed for survey and mapping mission...

Drone maker, CyPhy Works is testing its drone delivery of medicine to a summer camp off the coast of Massachusetts. The delivery, done in conjunction with package carrier UPS, is an effort to dismiss safety concerns from government agencies like the Federal Aviation Administration. Current projections in the United States predict that the commercial drone industry could generate more than $82 bill...