A new bi-copter for aerial photography, a waterproof fishing drone, a single-seat eVTOL aircraft for the GoFly competition, DOD wants U.S. designed and manufactured drones, a town grapples with public safety drones and privacy concerns, and the FAA revises the airman certificate process.

UAV NewsV-Coptr Falcon 4K camera drone gets 50-minute flight time with just two rotors

The new bi-copter from Zero Zero Robotics is called the V-Coptr Falcon, a tilt-rotor with a claimed flight time of 50 minutes. It features slower rotating propellers that are quieter, a 3-axis mechanical gimbal, 4K video and 12-megapixel photos, a controller with a flip-up mount for your phone. The bi-copter also has auto-follow, obstacle avoidance with a front-facing stereo camera and pre-programmed flight paths.

Gannet’s waterproof fishing drone to launch this month

Gannet offers a fairly complete range of drone fishing products including bait release systems and drone fishing rods. They’ve crowdfunded the development of the Gannet Pro waterproof drone that can release 3.5kg payloads of bait hundreds of meters away. A unique barometric pressure control system adjusts flight altitude.

Video: Gannet Pro waterproof drones

Silverwing reveals full-scale S1 prototype

The S1 is a single-seat, VTOL electric drone developed by a team from the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. The S1 drone takes off and lands vertically on its tail, then tilts forward for horizontal flight. Silverwing says the S1 will be able to transport a passenger 60 kilometers (37 miles) flying at a top speed of 120 km/h (75 mph). The S1 was designed to meet the requirements of the GoFly prize which is sponsored by Boeing. The competition is for innovators, inventors, engineers, and makers to design and build a personal flying device.

The Final Fly Off is at Moffett Federal Airfield at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California with support from Boeing, Google’s Planetary Ventures, and Pratt & Whitney. from Thursday, February 27th through Saturday, February 29th, 2020.

Pentagon Is Searching for Domestic Drone Options

The U.S. Defense Department wants to see a U.S. ecosystem for sUAS and counter technologies and they are making it a priority in 2020. Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, Ellen Lord said, “We see this as developing an ecosystem to have investment in areas that the Department of Defense thinks are particularly critical for providing capabilities to the warfighter, but also translate many times into commercial products. …I think you know that DJI flooded the market with low-cost quadcopters particularly, which eroded our industrial base and really altered the landscape for the U.S. government and for the small drone industry. What we want to do is reinvigorate that.”

Menlo Park: Proposal for city drone program raises civil liberty questions

In California at a Menlo Park City Council study session, police, public works, and community development leaders described how drones could help them. The council was open to the idea of using drones, but they did have significant concerns about privacy and civil rights. Mayor Ray Mueller said, “For me, the use cases are great. I just want to have discussion about what the guard rails are.” City staff was asked to come back with a drone program expert and clearer policies on acceptable uses of the drones and relevant software applications, as well as more information about how many human-hours of work that drone use could save.

FAA to Improve Airmen Certificate Testing

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Jan. 13, 2020, will launch improvements to the way it tests all applicants for an FAA airman certificate. This applies to all certified pilots of manned and unmanned aircraft. One of the most important changes is the requirement that applicants obtain an FAA Tracking Number (FTN) by creating an Integrated Airman Certification and Rating Application (IACRA) profile prior to registering for a knowledge test. IACRA is the web-based certification/rating application that guides the user through the FAA’s airman application process. The five-minute process enables the agency to rely on the name in the profile for all actions associated with that applicant.