#rpas — Public Fediverse posts

If anyone knows any #drone designers, builders, or pilots in #Ukraine, I have an idea I hope at least some will take up:

One way Ukraine could raise more funds is to start designing and producing fire-fighting drones for small just-started #wildfires and for structure protection ahead of wildfires, for rapid deployment before large assets can arrive, and developing training for their use, then selling these to aligned countries such as #Canada. For example, the BC #Wildfire Service could use a few thousand of those, to knock down small fires immediately after lightning strikes, and to douse houses and other structures in fire retardant as soon as residents evacuate each house ahead of an approaching fire.

These assets would of course necessarily clear out as large assets arrive, but they could buy time in some cases, and in some cases—upon arriving early enough—could even obviate the need to send large assets at all.

Other related ideas, based on Ukrainian defenders' ingenuity, might also be saleable. Perhaps, for example, someone will design some super-cheap fire retardant dumb-bombs, compatible with the hard points on the CF-18 Hornet, with terminal velocities low enough not to damage a house, so the #RCAF could retardant-bomb a just-evacuated city or First Nation faster than the BCWS can get there. (I imagine a proximity-triggered explosively-deployed non-flammable parachute based on an automotive airbag system, a chassis designed for fragmentation into light pieces, and a small explosive charge just large enough to air-burst the retardant, while halting the rest of the mass mid-air just above the “target,” might be one experiment to try.)

Ukraine is the fastest iterator in the relevant technologies, and is likely the only source that could get it done fast enough. As well as gaining funds to accelerate further growth the #Ukrainian defence-manufacturing capacity, it would become a huge soft-power political gain to ensure continued and expanded international support.

Additionally, putting out some fires and saving some lives could also be a nice change of pace for drone designers, builders, and pilots.

#BCWildfireService #UAV #RPAS

Threat To Free Journalism as DSS Confirms the Detention of female Journalist Zainab Sodiq.

https://watchmanreporterscom.wordpress.com/2026/07/09/threat-to-free-journalism-as-dss-confirms-the-detention-of-female-journalist-zainab-sodiq/

She Kills People From 7,850 Miles Away – High Tech Warfare Today

“THE DAILY BEAST” By Kevin Maurer

“Anne, [“SPARKLE”] an Air Force staff sergeant, a remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) sensor operator or “sensor.”

“When you hit a truck full of people, there are limbs and legs everywhere,” Sparkle said. “I watched a guy crawl away from the wreckage after one shot with no lower body. He slowly died. You have to watch that. You don’t get to turn away.”

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

“Anne crawled out of bed in her North Las Vegas house around 10 p.m. and started to get ready for her shift.

She pulled her chestnut hair into a bun and slipped on her olive green flight suit. In the kitchen, she packed fruit to snack on during her shift and stuffed her schoolwork into her backpack-sized lunchbox just in case it’s a boring night. Most nights she doesn’t have a chance to open a book.

Giving her dog, a tan Sher-Pei/pit bull mix, one last pat, she left her house and joined thousands of other workers leaving for the midnight shift. While most people were heading to hotels and casinos in town, Hubbard was on her way to Creech Air Force Base and a war.

At Creech, she is assigned to a reconnaissance squadron flying missions over Iraq and Afghanistan. Few weapons in the American arsenal are more relentless than the RPA fleet, often called drones. For more than a decade, the United States has flown RPAs over Afghanistan and Iraq, providing forces on the ground with an eye in the sky to spot terrorists and insurgents, and in most cases the firepower to destroy them.

As she rode to work, Anne—or “Sparkle” as she’s known to her fellow drone operators—wasn’t focused on the desert outside her window. It was 2009 and President Obama was sending troops in a surge to Afghanistan. Sparkle’s mind was on a desert 7,000 miles away. Over the next 24 hours she would track an insurgent, watch as he was killed by a Hellfire missile, and spy on his funeral before ending her night with a breakfast beer and a trip to the dog park.

The RPA has become the symbol of America’s ongoing wars, from Afghanistan to Somalia to Syria. And, 14 years after a U.S. “drone” first fired a missile at an al Qaeda operative, the morality and legality of remote strikes remains a matter of intense controversy. Earlier this year, the U.S. government revealed it accidentallykilled one of its own citizens with a drone—a hostage held by al Qaeda—triggering another round of debate about when the U.S. is justified in using the remotely piloted planes to attack.

The Intercept published a cache of new documents about RPA missions in Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen. The documents paint a damning picture of the RPA, including an internal U.S. military study that found a “critical shortfall” in how targets are identified. The government’s reliance on cellphones has led to the wrong target being killed. The new documents also call into question the accuracy of the RPA. The Intercept reports more than 200 people were killed – only 35 were actual targets – in Afghanistan between January 2012 and February 2013.

This outrageous explosion of watchlisting—of monitoring people and racking and stacking them on lists, assigning them numbers…  assigning them death sentences without notice, on a worldwide battlefield—it was, from the very first instance, wrong,” the source of the documents told the Intercept. “We’re allowing this to happen. And by ‘we,’ I mean every American citizen who has access to this information now, but continues to do nothing about it.

But for all the attention paid to RPAs, the men and women who operate the 21st century’s most divisive weapons system remain largely hidden from public view—except for reports about strikes, especially when a missile kills civilians.”

She Kills People From 7,850 Miles Away – High Tech Warfare Today

Kevin Maurer is the co-author of Hunter Killer: Inside America’s Unmanned Air War.

This autumn, new drone-flying rules kick in for Canadians. More permissive in rural/isolated areas, but with a better defined regulatory structure too.

#BVLOS #RPAS

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-drone-rules-1.7418332

#DYK? #UAS have so many use cases including in #agriculture. For instance, they can be used for aerial application aka crop dusting: https://www.gov.br/anac/pt-br/noticias/2023/anac-aprova-projeto-inedito-de-drone-agricola. 🚁🕹️ #aviation #brazil #innovation #RPAS #VerticalFlight #VTOL

@ENAC_Alumni Great article by Ritcha Sharma of CAA #Nepal on #RPAS in #Nepal! 🚁🕹️

#AAM #aircraft #aviation #drones #UAS #UAV #STEM #VerticalFlight #VTOL

#RPAS 🇪🇺 #CoastGuard cooperation https://n.respublicae.eu/EMSA_EU/status/1679070637250191363
<div class="rsshub-quote">
European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA): Our Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems services are being deployed as part of our #MMO in the Baltic Sea from the island of Saaremaa.
Until 31 August, we’re supporting 🇫🇮 🇱🇻 🇪🇪 authorities, together with Frontex and EFCA, across a wide range of maritime functions. https://t.co/tHIFcLwr4E
</div>

🐦🔗: https://n.respublicae.eu/EFCA_EU/status/1679121124716584962

EDA will support two new projects under #PESCO
🛩️Next Generation Small #RPAS - paving the way for an advanced #unmanned aerial system prototype by 2027
🚢4E project will identify essential elements of future surface warships within the EU from 2030-45
📎https://eda.europa.eu/news-and-events/news/2023/07/07/eda-to-support-two-further-pesco-projects-in-the-air-and-maritime-domains https://t.co/RxeqTbywLm

🐦🔗: https://n.respublicae.eu/EUDefenceAgency/status/1678308785771753472

Drone Photo Awards winners, 2023; some pretty neat ones in here! #uav #rpas #photography #drone https://droneawards.photo/gallery/2023

Profile of a domestic drone maufacturer. With roots in the motion picture industry. Freefly Systems #uas #uav #rpas #aerialmapping #surveying #geomatics https://bt.e-ditionsbyfry.com/publication/?m=36207&i=789316&p=16&ver=html5

RT [email protected]

Workshop | RPAS positioning and orientation, 5-6 June in Newcastle, UK http://eurosdr.net/workshops/workshop-rpas-positioning-and-orientation #surveying #NMCA #GNSS #RPAS #geospatial

🐦🔗:https://twitter.com/EuroSDR/status/1643239035576496132