Drone news: New Autel drones, Secret Service & secret purchase, FIXAR BlackBox, and a PI update

This week in drone news, Autel is preparing to release two new drones and possibly even three, the US Secret Service has been buying DJI drones, FIXAR and their new drone capable black box, and finally we share some Pilot Institute updates thanks to our students and viewers. Thank you!

Autel Rumors: https://dronexl.co/2021/09/22/autel-nano-lite-drones-released-september-29th/

Despite the governmental ban on purchasing sUAS that Amy have Chinese parts or are made in China, the U.S. FBI and Secret Service appear to have made purchases of DJI aircraft in July of this year. According to a procurement record that shows the purchase of Mavic 2 Pro and Phantom 4 Pro from a Florida drone supplier.  Both the FBI and Secret Service declined to comment Interesting after the leaked Pentagon report saying that DJI was safe, may this be the beginning of a shift towards DJI being accepted? https://www.axios.com/federal-law-enforcement-china-drone-4b33aca2-b6f5-43d0-8d36-be1d447af1a0.html 

The company FIXAR is now outfitting all their aircraft that will be operated outdoors with a logging computer acting as a “BlackBox”. This will record all data that the sUAS and sensors see along with the control inputs and any autopilot functions. The goal is to increase air safety with data to analyze the causes of any crashes or accidents.  It will be interesting to see if this logging is available to anyone or just the manufacturer of the aircraft.  https://www.suasnews.com/2021/09/fixar-equips-outdoor-uavs-with-blackbox-for-a-safer-sky/ 

30,000 Part 107 certs! 

New team member! Ethan! 

TRUST 33,000 certificates issues so far 

Total # of students: 110,000