5 ms·

Are there any consumer drones with a flight time of over an hour? (An hour+ of high-performance flight at that).

grp000 5y ago
Blog comments are mentioning the fact that one of the choppers had to refuel, maybe a testament to how energetic the chase was, but maybe it was already low at that point. That, and the fact that there is an AFB there points to a military drone.
gpm 5y ago
Not exactly consumer, but Anduril sells a drone that claims to be capable of that (100 minutes +) https://www.anduril.com/ghost https://www.anduril.com/ghost
anon946 5y ago
Depends on how you define "consumer", but hybrid drones can fly a long time: https://www.quaternium.com/ https://www.quaternium.com/ .
rtkwe 5y ago
There are prosumer gas powered ones coming out. My guess is it could be a version of this NASA project that can hover and then transition to winged flight. It's unclear how good of a look they got at it. https://www.nasa.gov/langley/ten-engine-electric-plane-completes-successful-flight-test https://www.nasa.gov/langley/ten-engine-electric-plane-compl...
neom 5y ago
If it's performing maneuvers as complex as described, it must be heavily computer assisted or computer controlled, so you'd presumably need sensors, computer, etc, that adds a lot of weight. On top of that, the speeds they describe coupled with the wind they said it was fighting, it would need to be very well built. Given all the factors, I think it would probably have to be extremly extremly advance.
- DuskStar 5y ago
  Sensors and computers aren't meaningfully different for a 5' quadrotor vs a 5" micro. Same physics, same control loop.
  - greesil 5y ago
    Yeah but you can put a radar and nice camera on the 5' one.
- pillefitz 5y ago
  Sensors and computers weigh next to nothing. Every piece of cheap plastic commonly used for building quadcopters fulfills your criterion of being 'very well built'. Nothing about your description makes a drone 'extremely advanced'. Just a hobby project of some random guy/gal.
- jcims 5y ago
  Computers are 100% required for motor coordination and other low level flight details with a multirotor uav, but in terms of piloting the aircraft a typical human brain is quite capable with practice. https://youtu.be/SldJIisWFmE https://youtu.be/SldJIisWFmE
himinlomax 5y ago
It's nearly trivially easy to build one, though not necessarily cheap. Just replace the battery pack with an engine, generator and fuel. It may be necessary to use a turbine engine to meet requirements, hence not cheap, but for flight control you just need to use free open source software firmware (Ardupilot?) that has long been freely available and tweak it.
jfrunyon 5y ago
I think it's highly unlikely that this was a "consumer" drone. (But there are definitely "professional" drones that have longer flight times)

Blog comments are mentioning the fact that one of the choppers had to refuel, maybe a testament to how energetic the chase was, but maybe it was already low at that point. That, and the fact that there is an AFB there points to a military drone.

gpm 5y ago

Not exactly consumer, but Anduril sells a drone that claims to be capable of that (100 minutes +) https://www.anduril.com/ghost https://www.anduril.com/ghost

anon946 5y ago

Depends on how you define "consumer", but hybrid drones can fly a long time: https://www.quaternium.com/ https://www.quaternium.com/ .

rtkwe 5y ago

There are prosumer gas powered ones coming out. My guess is it could be a version of this NASA project that can hover and then transition to winged flight. It's unclear how good of a look they got at it. https://www.nasa.gov/langley/ten-engine-electric-plane-completes-successful-flight-test https://www.nasa.gov/langley/ten-engine-electric-plane-compl...

neom 5y ago

If it's performing maneuvers as complex as described, it must be heavily computer assisted or computer controlled, so you'd presumably need sensors, computer, etc, that adds a lot of weight. On top of that, the speeds they describe coupled with the wind they said it was fighting, it would need to be very well built. Given all the factors, I think it would probably have to be extremly extremly advance.

DuskStar 5y ago
Sensors and computers aren't meaningfully different for a 5' quadrotor vs a 5" micro. Same physics, same control loop.
- greesil 5y ago
  Yeah but you can put a radar and nice camera on the 5' one.
pillefitz 5y ago
Sensors and computers weigh next to nothing. Every piece of cheap plastic commonly used for building quadcopters fulfills your criterion of being 'very well built'. Nothing about your description makes a drone 'extremely advanced'. Just a hobby project of some random guy/gal.
jcims 5y ago
Computers are 100% required for motor coordination and other low level flight details with a multirotor uav, but in terms of piloting the aircraft a typical human brain is quite capable with practice. https://youtu.be/SldJIisWFmE https://youtu.be/SldJIisWFmE

himinlomax 5y ago

It's nearly trivially easy to build one, though not necessarily cheap. Just replace the battery pack with an engine, generator and fuel. It may be necessary to use a turbine engine to meet requirements, hence not cheap, but for flight control you just need to use free open source software firmware (Ardupilot?) that has long been freely available and tweak it.

jfrunyon 5y ago

I think it's highly unlikely that this was a "consumer" drone. (But there are definitely "professional" drones that have longer flight times)