In Case You Missed It: Drone Headlines from Week 4/18/14

Here are some of the big headlines in UAS news from the week 4/13-4/18.

• The marquee headline of the week was the news that Google is purchasing Titan Aerospace, a New Mexico-based manufacturer of solar powered drones.

• On Saturday, an Ohio man was arrested for allegedly hindering the landing of a medical helicopter at the site of a serious accident.Kele M. Stanley, 31, of Moorefield Twp was flying his drone to capture video and images of a car crash which, he said, he would typically have given to the local news station. Now he plans on using the footage to exonerate himself of the charges of obstructing law enforcement at an emergency scene and disorderly conduct.

• Charges were dropped against the Australian man who was arrested in March for allegedly trying to smuggle drugs into a prison by flying them in via drone.

• Daredevil aerial photography artist  Randy Scott Slavin posted this video of a drone flying around New York City. He even flew through the iconic arch in Washington Square Park. The most amazing part of the the video, however, is that he wasn’t arrested. In fact, Slavin told Fast Company that he has been approached by police when launching his DJI Phantom, “but they mostly just said, ‘that’s awesome.'”

• We have said it before: commercial UAVs will enable a new level of citizen journalism. Case and point drones captured video of two separate fires this week; one in residential area in Maryland and a massive fire that leveled 2,500 homes in Valparaíso, Chile.

• Finally, this video of the graffiti drone made its rounds on the interwebs this week. Renowned graffiti artist KATSU showed off his creatively titled Drone Paintings last weekend at the first Silicon Valley Contemporary art fair last weekend in San Jose. In the name of art, this kind of UAS application is pretty cool. In the name of vandalism…well, thats a different story.