Earlier this year, VICE News was one of the first media outlets ever granted access to the US military's annual Black Dart exercise, a decade-old joint exercise that focuses on detecting, countering, and defeating UAVs. As we watched tens of millions of dollars worth of military equipment go up against $1,000 drones, Black Dart demonstrated the way rapidly evolving drone technology is challenging the military's most basic assumptions about controlling the air. (One civilian drone maker we visited told us that the technology he has at his fingertips is outpacing some R&D efforts at big aerospace contractors.) And so Black Dart continues to encourage innovation in the effort to keep the US military one step ahead in the cat-and-mouse game between drones and drone killers.