Drone News: Man Sentenced for Shooting Drone, SkyeBrowse Lite, & AMA Approved for Temporary FRIAs

Welcome to your weekly UAS news update, we have 3 stories for you
this week: Man sentenced after shooting down drone, SkyeBrowse
Lite, and the AMA has gotten approval for temporary FRIAs.


First up this week is an update on a story we’ve been covering
since 2021... Back in 2021, a sheriff’s drone looking for
burglary suspects was shot down by a man who claimed the drone
was “Harassing him”. The $30,000 Matrice 300 crashed onto a
nearby building and caught on fire. The fire was quickly
contained and no permanent damage occurred to the structure.
Wendell Goney was identified as a person on interest and was
contacted by police shortly after the crash. Goney claimed the
drone was harassing him and admitted to shooting the drone with a
.22 rifle. Deputies then arrested Goney for possessing a firearm
as a convicted felon. This week, a US District judge gave the 29
time felon a 4 year prison sentence for the incident. We’ll have
to see if this sets a precedent for other courts to follow in
drone shoot downs.
https://dronexl.co/2024/02/23/florida-man-sentenced-four-years-shooting-down-sheriffs-drone/
Next up this week is our friends over at SkyeBrowse! SkyeBrowse
released “Lite” this week, adding a monthly plan between free and
enterprise! SkyeBrowse lite adds higher accuracy down to 2 inches
and priority processing speeds for $49 a month. If you’re
unfamiliar with SkyeBrowse, it’s an online processing software
that uses videos to create 3D models. Videos can be from nearly
any source and don’t require GPS information. If you don’t want
or need to pay for models, SkyeBrowse still has their Freemium
plan, which allows you to pay to unlock tools when you need them!
https://www.skyebrowse.com/blog/2023/12/12/introducing-skyebrowse-lite
Last up this week is the AMA, who has gotten approval from the
FAA for temporary FRIAs. The approval is only applicable AMA
events though we’ll likely see similar approvals for the FTCA,
FPVFC and Stem+C soon. NOTAMs will be required for these events,
which won’t help out the FAA’s NOTAM system unless it gets a
major overhaul. We’ll keep you updated when we see more.
https://amablog.modelaircraft.org/amagov/2024/02/27/faa-grant-national-authorization-for-ama-sanctioned-events/
Alright, that’s it, have a great weekend and we’ll see you next
week!