Drone Beat: Resurrecting Cold War UAVs, the Hollywood Exception and More

A Tupolev Tu-141 Drone on display at the on display at the Russian Air Force Museum in Monino, Russia.
Image: Flickr, Alan Wilson



Drone Beat's coverage areas this week

Last update: June 6, 5:44 p.m. ET

Ukraine tries to bring back its Soviet-era drones

As part of the effort to revamp its military, Ukraine is trying to resurrect some Soviet-era technology, including a giant spy drone: the Tupolev Tu-141 a reconnaissance drone that had its first flight in 1974.

The 47-foot-long Tu-141 can fly 20,000 feet high at more than 600 miles per hour, with a range of 600 miles, which makes it a decent surveillance drone. Given its age, however, it has some outdated features: it's launched from a trailer, it uses a tail-mounted parachute and retro rockets to descend to the ground and land, and its cameras are equipped with old-school film.

But as the Medium blog War is Boring notes: "Just because the drone is old, doesn’t mean it isn’t useful."

At this point it's unclear how many of these drones Ukraine actually has. The Soviet Union only produced 152, and Ukraine absorbed several after the end of the cold war, according to War is Boring.

Kenya and South Africa ban drones

Two African governments have banned the private and commercial use of drones due to safety concerns, delivering a major blow to programs that had intended to use the flying robots to stop illegal wildlife poaching.

The Kenyan government announced the ban at the end of May, while South Africa's did so this week.

Many groups have started testing drones around the world as a cheap and effective way to fight rhino and elephant poachers. In Kenya in particular, the Ol Pejeta conservancy wanted to use the $70,000 "Aerial Ranger" drone sold by American company Airware to monitor illegal hunters in the 90,000-acre fenced-off reserve of El Pejeta, in the country's Laikipia District.

But these bans effectively shut down these programs, putting them in danger of disappearing and, perhaps, even putting some animals in even more in danger.

7 film companies asks for permission to use drones

In the U.S., technically, no one can legally fly drones for commercial purposes. But the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced this week that it's considering making an exception to the rule after seven movie and TV production companies asked for permission to use flying robots.

The FAA notes that if they decide to grant the exemption, there "could be tangible economic benefits" for the companies. But the reality, as Motherboard points out, is that Hollywood has already been using drones for years. Sometimes, they film outside the U.S. to avoid any legal trouble, other times they just ignore the rules. This request, in other words, doesn't really change the status quo.

LAPD gets free drones from Seattle

The Los Angeles Police Department became the largest law enforcement agency to have drones — at least that we know of — after acquiring two Draganflyer X6 drones last week.

As it turns out, these small hexacopter surveillance drones were actually a gift of the Seattle police, which had to dump the drones after public and privacy advocates forced the police to ground its drone program. Perhaps to avoid a similar situation, the LAPD took pains to clarify that it won't unleash the drones in the skies of Los Angeles to spy on its citizens, but will only use them for "narrow and prescribed uses."

"We wanted to be really up-front with the public that we're looking at using these down the road," LAPD spokesman Andrew Smith said. "We wanted to make sure it didn't look like we were trying to sneak these things into action."

You can see a Draganflyer X6 in action in the video below.

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