The Week In Drones: Flying Into A Volcano, Delivering Drugs, And More
Keeping up with the droneses
Here’s a roundup of the week’s top drone news, designed to capture the military, commercial, non-profit, and recreational applications of unmanned aircraft.
Into a Vanuatu Volcano
Drone pilot Shaun O’Callaghan flew his DJI Phantom quadcopter over a volcano in Vanuatu, an island nation in the South Pacific. “Amazingly,” O’Callaghan says, “no Phantoms were harmed while filming!”
(Almost) Into an Aussie Prison
Authorities in Melbourne, Australia, arrested two individuals found with drugs and a drone outside of a prison. This isn’t the first time people have tried to fly contraband over prison walls with a drone. As drug-smuggling innovations go, it ranks somewhere above a catapult but below a submarine for ingenuity.
Victoria Police released this statement:
Filming Sports
This week, Popular Science spoke with Ryan Baker, founder of Houston-based drone manufacturer Arch Aerial. Baker spoke about the future of legal drone use:
Check out the full interview.
Mexico To Survey The Seas
Mexico’s National Fisheries Institute plans to use drones for finding out where in the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific ocean is suitable for aquaculture. People have already used drones for better farming; this aquatic survey will apply the same principles to raising fish at sea.
Hovering Over Harlem
On Wednesday, an explosion caused by a gas leak ripped apart two buildings in New York City. One of the spectators who rushed to the scene was a man named Brian Wilson, who brought a small quadcopter with him.
Watch a video of the drone at the scene:
Did I miss any drone news? Email me at kelsey.d.atherton@gmail.com.
