Long-distance organ delivery flight, a survey-grade micro drone, a UK drone zone, research on multi-fuel drones, heavy-lift drones, a UAV landing at a commercial airport, locating pregnant dolphins, Verizon’s wildfire drone waiver, and a former FAA Administrator lands a new job.
In this MissionGO and Nevada Donor Network collaboration, two successful test flights were made. The first flight delivered research corneas from Southern Hills Hospital and Medical Center to Dignity Health – St. Rose Dominican, San Martín Campus. The second flight delivered a research kidney from an airport to a location outside of a small town in the Las Vegas desert. This was the longest organ delivery flight in UAS history.
The RYNO UAV is a survey-grade micro-drone from IdeaForge, a drone manufacturer in India. RYNO is designed for high accuracy mapping applications and delivers centimeter-level accuracy. The drone has a flight time of over 40 minutes and a range of up to 4 km. The performance of the RYNO UAV is claimed to be comparable to more expensive categories of drones.
The U.K. is establishing a commercial drone corridor called the “Arrow Drone Zone.” Airspace will be available to any fully automated drones, including flying beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS). The zone will be located in the town of Reading, to the west of London, and managed by Altitude Angel with their GuardianUTM O/S platform.
The Army awarded the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign a four-year, $8 million contract to research multi-fuel chemistry and investigate advanced propulsion technologies for high-speed air launches. Researchers will study the ignition chemistry of fuels using machine learning algorithms and develop materials for novel ignition assistant technologies for flexible-fuel drones.
The two companies want to gain practical flying the VoloDrone before the VoloCity air taxi enters service. The drone Is remote-controlled, can lift up to 200 kilograms (440 lbs.), and has a range of 40 kilometers (25 miles). Volocopter CEO Florian Reuter said, “The logistics opportunity in the urban market is just as big as the passenger market.”
