Free Republic

There are lots of entrepreneurs who would love to fly drones — tiny unmanned aircraft — all over the country. They dream of drones delivering packages and taking photos, but there's a battle in the courts right now standing in their way. The battle is about whether it's legal for drones to take to the sky. The question at the core of the battle: Who owns the air? It's a question that goes back to the Middle Ages, to a Latin phrase that translates to "he owns the soil owns up to the heavens." In England, this phrase was the...

A group of hobbyists with a weirdly extensive machine gun collection decided to try a modern update to drone target practice. In this case, the targets were smaller drones ranging in size from remote-control toy airplanes to larger flying wings, about as big as the Army's hand-tossed RQ-11 Raven. Instead of special anti-air weapons, they tried a few different machine guns, which are more representative of the weapons insurgents might aim at drones. While many of the bullets fired hit the drones, it took direct hits to the tiny drone engines to make them stop flying. Verdict: It's possible to...

<p>HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Connecticut lawmakers will hold a public hearing on a bill that would impose lengthy prison sentences on people who commit crimes with drones.</p> <p>The legislation would make it a felony carrying up to 20 years in prison for committing a crime using an unmanned aircraft equipped with a deadly weapon, and up to 10 years in prison for other crimes with a drone.</p>

The Federal Aviation Administration will authorize test sites for drone aircraft in upstate New York, New Jersey and at least eight other states, the agency said on Monday, but integrating the aircraft into the nation’s airspace, set by Congress for 2015, will be phased in gradually. The agency picked six institutions to operate test locations, which will explore how to set safety standards, how to train and certify their ground-based pilots, how to ensure that the aircraft will operate safely even if they lose their radio links with the ground and, most of all, how to replace the traditional method...

An elite group of unmanned aerial systems operators, support and maintenance staff will now call Fort Huachuca their home after an activation ceremony Tuesday morning. A brief ceremony held in Hanger 1 at Libby Army Air Field celebrated the official transfer of Echo Company, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, to this Southern Arizona post for the next two years. The company consists of 150 hand-picked soldiers and 12 UAS vehicles, which will train for eventual deployment to Afghanistan sometime early next year. “This is a key day in our history,” Col. John Evans, Jr., Regiment Commander, told an audience of...

Most of Colorado’s congressional delegation and Gov. John Hickenlooper have signed a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration asking the agency to turn the state into a testing ground for unmanned drones — even while acknowledging that the public remains uneasy about how they might be used by both the government and private individuals. Democratic Sen. Mark Udall is leading the charge ... In a speech at the National Press Club Wednesday, Udall was careful not to use the word “drone” too heavily, opting instead for the industry-preferred “unmanned aerial system,” or UAS.

WASHINGTON – Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee expressed concern on Wednesday about the domestic use of drones, saying the often-tiny, unmanned flying devices could carry undesirable consequences regarding the right to privacy. Republicans and Democrats acknowledged that drones offer law enforcement a potentially valuable tool that could even be used by farmers to survey their acreage at a relatively inexpensive cost. But the device, also known as a UAS, an acronym for unmanned aircraft system, also has the ability to travel nearly undetected into areas where it is unwanted – people’s homes or businesses – and record private information,...

The Euro Hawk unmanned aircraft system (UAS), built by Northrop Grumman Corporation and EADS Defence & Security, successfully completed its first flight June 29. The high-flying aircraft took off at approximately 10:32 a.m. PDT from Northrop Grumman's Palmdale, Calif., manufacturing facility and climbed to 32,000 feet over Palmdale's desert skies before landing nearly two hours later at 12:24 p.m. PDT at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. "The Euro Hawk marks the first international configuration of the RQ-4 Global Hawk high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) UAS, and strengthens Northrop Grumman's first trans-Atlantic cooperation with Germany and EADS Defence & Security," said Duke Dufresne,...

Insitu has teamed with BOSH Global Services to train U.S. Air Force Academy cadets on the disciplines critical to planning and executing missions using unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), specifically Insitu's ScanEagle, from within the Air Forces' Air Operations Center (AOC). The training is designed to familiarize academy cadets with UAS and to give them first-hand knowledge of how these systems can be integrated into Air Force Operations to support warfighters worldwide. "ScanEagle was chosen because it is a superior system that is extremely intuitive, giving cadets a hands-on learning experience almost from day one," said U.S. Air Force Academy Lt....

Boeing's sleek fighter-size Phantom Ray stealth jet will make its first flight by year's end. This unmanned airborne system (UAS) is designed for a variety of warfighter roles ranging from reconnaissance and surveillance to aerial refueling, electronic attack and hunter/killer missions. The 36-foot-long aircraft, which will serve as a test bed for advanced technologies, was rolled out May 10 at the Boeing Defense, Space & Security plant in St. Louis, Missouri. With its 614 mph (0.8 Mach) cruising speed, operating altitude of 40,000 feet and 50-foot wingspan, the 36,5000-pound Phantom Ray advances the state of the art for unmanned aircraft....

Stoking its rivalry with the Air Force, the Army plots a way forward for its fleet of unmanned airplanes -- predicting a wider range of missions, the rise of remotely piloted helicopters and the arrival of swarms of indoor-flying mini-drones. Popular Mechanics spoke with those on the forefront of unmanned Army aviation to get a glimpse of what the service wants from its robotic fleet. Army officials Thursday released a plan that lays out how the service will use unmanned aerial vehicles over the next 15 years, proposing a future where autonomous UAVs fly for days over battlefields or for...

Northrop Grumman's RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aircraft system (UAS) made aviation history Feb. 2 when it successfully completed its first roundtrip flight from the company's Palmdale, Calif., manufacturing facility. AF-20, a Block 30 Global Hawk built for the U.S. Air Force, performed the historic mission, soaring at altitudes of 58,300 feet for approximately four hours and 18 minutes. "This was the first time ever that the same Global Hawk has taken off and landed in a single mission from Palmdale, heralding a new era of flights in and out of the facility," said George Guerra, Northrop Grumman vice president of...

The Army's newest and most advanced Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), the Extended Range/Multi-Purpose (ER/MP) UAS, has successfully completed a series of tests with the HELLFIRE® II UAS --- a missile specially engineered to fire from a UAV with a 360-degree targeting ability, service officials said. The tests, involving nine perfect or near-perfect missile firings, took place at the Naval Air Weapons Station, China Lake, Calif., and demonstrated the missile's ability to engage a wider target envelope than a typical Hellfire missile, said Tim Owings, Deputy Project Manager, Army Unmanned Aircraft Systems. "The significance to this is this is the first...

One of the largest unmanned aerial systems operating in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, the RQ-4 Global Hawk, surpassed 30,000 combat flying hours and 1,500 combat sorties Feb. 10 here. The Global Hawks are assigned to the 380th Air Expeditionary Wing from Beale Air Force Base, Calif. They provide a broad spectrum of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance collection capability to support joint combatant forces in worldwide peacetime, contingency and wartime operations. The 380th AEW Global Hawks reached their 1,500th combat sortie on Feb. 10. The historic sortie and flying hour mark nearly coincided, said Capt. Michelle Campbell, the...

A small, experimental jet intended to demonstrate a UAV's ability to operate off aircraft carriers just might see operational action, according to two top US Navy officials. The aircraft is the X-47B, being developed by Northrop Grumman under the Navy Unmanned Combat Air System (N-UCAS) program. Roughly $2 billion has been added by the Pentagon over the next five years to give the program a major boost. Most of that money, said Rear Adm. Bill Burke, was at the behest of the new Quadrennial Defence Review (QDR). "What we think it ought to do is deliver some sort of capability,"...

Eight months after the U.S. Missile Defense Agency announced a renewed interest in technologies for “early intercept” of ballistic missiles, plans are beginning to take shape with a focus on the use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) for ballistic missile target tracking. Requirements are not yet firm for this capability, but several architecture studies will provide data on how the agency will proceed and where it plans to put its funding in the forthcoming budgets. Early intercept (once called boost-phase or ascent-phase intercept) has been desirable for at least two reasons: •Intercept during the threat missile’s boost allows for it...

KIRKUK, Iraq, Jan. 31, 2008 – They are known as the “commander's eyes on the battlefield.” Coalition forces have used them to find roadside bombs, track the enemy’s movement, clear convoy routes and locate key targets -- all without having to leave the relative safety of their bases. Army Sgt. 1st Class Nicholas Thornthwaite and Army Spc. William Arms, with the 10th Mountain Division's 1st Brigade Special Troops Battalion; and Dave Hill, a civilian field representative for Aircraft Armaments Inc., prepares a Shadow 200 unmanned aircraft system for launch. The unit has used the Shadow to monitor the battlefield...

FORT HUACHUCA, Ariz. (Army News Service, May 8, 2006) – The newly activated Unmanned Aircraft Systems Training Battalion (provisional) assumed responsibility for training operators and maintainers of the Army’s unmanned aerial systems last month at Fort Huachuca, Ariz. The ceremony marked the transfer of the training mission from the U.S. Army Intelligence Center to the U.S. Army Aviation Warfighting Center at Fort Rucker, Ala., the home of Army aviation. Unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, are powered aerial vehicles sustained in flight by aerodynamic lift over most of their flight path and guided without an on-board crew. They may be expendable...

Col. Michael Dixon holds the flag of the Provisional Unmanned Aerial Systems Training Battalion, as Lt. Col. Ronald Myers, left, and Command Sgt. Maj. Raleigh Matthews unfurl the banner at Wednesday's activation ceremony on Fort Huachuca's Rugge-Hamilton Airfield. In the background, one of the company commanders and a first sergeant of the new battalion unfurl their units guidon. (By Bill Hess-Herald/Review) Herald/Review FORT HUACHUCA — As of Wednesday, the Army’s intelligence-gathering unmanned aerial systems are now part of the Aviation Warfighting Center at Fort Rucker, Ala. But the initial operation and maintenance of the pilotless planes will not be...