All articles
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Policy & Regulation
FAA Misses Trump’s February Deadline on BVLOS Rule as Right-of-Way Fight Stalls Part 108
The FAA has blown past a White House deadline to finalize Part 108, the rule that would replace case-by-case BVLOS waivers with a routine certification pathway — stalled chiefly by a proposed inversion of crewed-aircraft right-of-way precedent that drew more than 1,600 opposing comments.
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Defense & Combat
Ukraine's USF Strikes Crimea's Only Underground Gas Storage in Logistics Lockdown Push
Ukraine's 414th Brigade drones hit the Hlibivka underground gas storage facility on the Tarkhankut Peninsula — Crimea's sole gas buffer — along with radars, a locomotive, and a Russian command post overnight June 18–19, as Kyiv's mid-range drone campaign claims a 71% drop in southern supply traffic.
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Counter-UAS
World Cup C-UAS Crackdown: 39 Drones Seized, Criminal Charges in First Six Days
Multi-agency federal operations across 8 U.S. host cities logged 145 drone incursions and seized 39 aircraft in the first six days of FIFA World Cup 2026, with criminal charges — including an illegal-reentry case in Atlanta — marking early serious enforcement outcomes.
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Tech & Builds
Drone Flight Controllers Explained: The Open-Source Autopilot Brain Running Combat UAVs
The flight controller — the embedded autopilot at the heart of every drone — is the same open-source technology that guided Ukraine’s Operation Spider Web strikes on Russian strategic air bases. Here’s how it works and why it matters.
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Tech & Builds
Three Axes, One Problem: How Drone Gimbals Keep Cameras Locked On Target
Brushless gimbals isolate a drone camera from every pitch, roll, and yaw disturbance the airframe throws at it — using MEMS IMUs, real-time sensor fusion, and closed-loop motor control. The same physics that gives consumer aerial footage its glassy stability scales, with added axes and sensor channels, to military EO/IR targeting turrets.
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Tech & Builds
Drone Ground Control Stations Explained: MAVLink, Datalinks, and the MQ-9 Flight Deck
Ground control stations span from a $50 telemetry radio running open-source Mission Planner to hardened USAF shelters managing satellite-linked MQ-9s worldwide. Here's how MAVLink, mission-planning software, datalinks, and military GCS tiers actually work.
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Tech & Builds
Dead Zone Autonomy: How Edge AI Keeps Drones Flying When GPS and Comms Disappear
Russian electronic warfare can blank GPS within 5 kilometers of deployment. Shield AI’s president says 99% of military autonomous systems fail under jamming. The solution — running perception, navigation, and targeting entirely on the drone — is now combat-proven.
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Tech & Builds
Glass-to-Glass: The Physics of FPV Video Links Driving Ukraine’s Drone War
Analog FPV, a video technology whose roots trace to the 1970s, dominates Ukraine’s frontline drone strikes over HD digital systems. The reason comes down to milliseconds, spectrum physics, and how a signal degrades under jamming.
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Tech & Builds
Optionally Piloted Aircraft: The Platform That Bridges Crewed and Autonomous Flight
Optionally piloted aircraft hold manned airworthiness certificates while enabling fully autonomous operations—closing the regulatory gap that stalls pure UAVs. From proven Afghan cargo resupply missions to DARPA’s autonomous Black Hawk delivered to the Army in 2026, the concept reshapes military logistics and aviation.
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Tech & Builds
Pseudo-Satellites at 20 km: The Physics, Programs, and Promise of Solar HAPS
High-Altitude Platform Stations operate in the stratosphere at 20 km — above weather, below orbital mechanics — using solar power and ultra-dense batteries to loiter for months. Here's how they work, which programs are viable, and why the sector is drawing serious capital.
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Tech & Builds
Swarm Mesh Networking: The Hidden Architecture Behind Autonomous Drone Coordination
Drone light shows and true autonomous swarms share an airspace but almost nothing else. The decentralized MANET/FANET mesh—multi-hop routing, anti-jamming MARL, GPS-denied positioning—is what separates choreography from genuine collective autonomy, and what DARPA OFFSET and Replicator's $1B are chasing.
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Tech & Builds
Tilt-Rotor, Tailsitter, and Ducted-Fan Drones: The VTOL Hover-Cruise Trade-Off
Every VTOL aircraft must reconcile two contradictory physics demands: hover requires high blade area and tip speed, while forward flight requires the opposite. Tilt-rotor, tailsitter, and ducted-fan architectures each place their bets differently — with lasting consequences for military range and noise compliance.
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