3 ms·

Aircaft with fixed wings have pretty stable fast forward motion. Diving makes use of that, and the initial speed and vector of the ordnance is the speed/vector

Aircaft with fixed wings have pretty stable fast forward motion. Diving makes use of that, and the initial speed and vector of the ordnance is the speed/vector of the aircraft. After deployment, high g is needed to avoid hitting the ground. A multi-rotor drone (what the videos seem to be shot from) cannot fly fast, and cannot pull the high gees after drop. Dive bombing won't help much. Likely even a controlled flight into the target (kamikaze) would end up slower (final velocity) than just dropping, making the drone a much easier target for small arms fire than just the bomb alone. Fixed wing drones - different story. Getting them back to the ground in a reusable way requires effort, simply flying into the target seems to make more sense. The big reusable ones usually carry self-guided amunitions. A combination of remote controlled, fast, high payload, high-g capable, and reusable would likely not be cost-effective (losses to be expected in any case).

dragontamer 4y ago
> A multi-rotor drone (what the videos seem to be shot from) cannot fly fast, and cannot pull the high gees after drop. Dive bombing won't help much. Likely even a controlled flight into the target (kamikaze) would end up slower (final velocity) than just dropping, making the drone a much easier target for small arms fire than just the bomb alone. Every one of these drone-drop videos is several seconds between letting go of the bomb, and the bomb colliding with the target. If they actually want these drones to reliably hit a moving target, or even a vehicle in combat, they'll need to do something. That's a lot of hang-time and delay in these "drone drop" videos. Once the bomb is let go, there's going to be another 20+ to 30+ minutes before the drone operator is able to fly another drone into the field, and that's if the drone operator has a 2nd drone with him. Maybe it will be hours, or maybe the next chance to drop a bomb never comes ever again. You really want to maximize the chance of striking the target with these operations. A huge number of WW1 and WW2 operations were summarized as "Flew for 4 hours, missed my bomb, flew home". You want to minimize that kind of thing. Especially if these drones are considered somewhat expendable.
- nradov 4y ago
  Dive bombing is a silly idea for rotorcraft. It just doesn't work aerodynamically. Sophisticated militaries will strike moving targets with precision guided munitions. Generally either laser guidance with a designator mounted on the drone, or some kind of pattern recognition built into the bomb itself (could be optical, IR, or millimeter wave radar). For example, something like the GBU-44/B. Poor militaries and insurgents will make do with whatever they can get. Either wait for the target to stop moving, or just lead it a little and hope.

dragontamer 4y ago

> A multi-rotor drone (what the videos seem to be shot from) cannot fly fast, and cannot pull the high gees after drop. Dive bombing won't help much. Likely even a controlled flight into the target (kamikaze) would end up slower (final velocity) than just dropping, making the drone a much easier target for small arms fire than just the bomb alone. Every one of these drone-drop videos is several seconds between letting go of the bomb, and the bomb colliding with the target. If they actually want these drones to reliably hit a moving target, or even a vehicle in combat, they'll need to do something. That's a lot of hang-time and delay in these "drone drop" videos. Once the bomb is let go, there's going to be another 20+ to 30+ minutes before the drone operator is able to fly another drone into the field, and that's if the drone operator has a 2nd drone with him. Maybe it will be hours, or maybe the next chance to drop a bomb never comes ever again. You really want to maximize the chance of striking the target with these operations. A huge number of WW1 and WW2 operations were summarized as "Flew for 4 hours, missed my bomb, flew home". You want to minimize that kind of thing. Especially if these drones are considered somewhat expendable.

nradov 4y ago
Dive bombing is a silly idea for rotorcraft. It just doesn't work aerodynamically. Sophisticated militaries will strike moving targets with precision guided munitions. Generally either laser guidance with a designator mounted on the drone, or some kind of pattern recognition built into the bomb itself (could be optical, IR, or millimeter wave radar). For example, something like the GBU-44/B. Poor militaries and insurgents will make do with whatever they can get. Either wait for the target to stop moving, or just lead it a little and hope.