Drone News: Pilot Institute Student Saves Lives using Drone, New DJI Mavic and DJI Air unit, FOIA shows 100 UAS accident reports to the FAA

This week in drone news: A story of a Pilot Institute Student who
saved two people in 9 days using drones, DJI released the Mavic 3
Multispectral & the new O3+ Air Unit this week, and a FOIA
Showed 101 accidents reported to the FAA.





Your first story this week is a Pilot Institute Student who saved
a life. 


Texas Game Warden Michael Hummert responded to two search and
rescue calls in central Texas in less than ten days. 


As the only thermal drone in the county, Hummert led deputies to
the first missing individual who was in a restricted DOD
airspace.


Just nine days later officials reached out requesting assistance
in another missing persons case. 


Hummert working in conjunction with federal officials was again
successful in ensuring the person’s safety.


Huge shout out to Warden Hummert and all first responders! Thanks
for what you do!





Your second story this week is the new DJI air unit and the Mavic
3 Multispectral!


O3+ has arrived in an air unit platform, and the video is amazing
with 1080p 100fps in the goggles and 4K60 with rock steady
recording in camera.


We’ve got a review you can check out here where we tested the air
unit in a number of torture tests! 


Also check out Drone XL’s article on the new air unit!





Also released this week is the Mavic 3 Multispectral, signaling
the true end to the Phantom line up.


The M3M uses a 4/3 CMOS sensor with 4 additional sensors in the
Green, Red, Red Edge, and Near IR bands to collect data for
agriculture.


Each additional sensor is 5MP while the main sensor is 20MP with
a mechanical shutter. 


As with the rest of the Mavic 3 enterprise line up, the M3M has
an available SDK, RTK, and uses the DJI Pilot 2 App. 


For those who were waiting for a Phantom 5, it looks like this is
it! This is the 6th Mavic 3 from DJI, and the 4th one this
year. 





Your third story this week is a FOIA request that showed 101
drone accident reports made to the FAA. 


Interesting notes are that 25 of the 101 pertain to near misses
or collisions with manned aircraft, 8 were caused by fly aways, 7
by wind, 4 by low battery, and 3 were shot down. 


Many of the accidents were due to equipment malfunctions, however
there are a few that are due to people being “That guy”. 


One discussed a person flying a mavic air 2 by an unlicensed
operator who decided to go inside during the flight, resulting in
the drone low-battery landing into a girl riding her bike
resulting in lacerations to her face that required
hospitalization. 


Remember that these were FAA reports, not NTSB reports. The NTSB
reporting requirements are actually a lot lower than the FAA ones
(which is only $500 in damage). 





The last story this week is that our Black Friday sale is going
strong today. All the courses in our catalog are currently at the
lowest they will be this year, and I mean that. Our Part 107
course is $107 right now, our photo/video fundamentals course is
$75, the real estate course is $49, the mapping bundle is $199.
See the full list on our website.





That’s it! We hope you had a great turkey day, time to go back to
your food coma, we will see you next week.