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Helicopters are really expensive, and require a lot of manpower. >"Had we had not seen him then, the drone would have seen him a few minutes later since he was

by rtpg 12y ago

Helicopters are really expensive, and require a lot of manpower. >"Had we had not seen him then, the drone would have seen him a few minutes later since he was in the search area we were given to look at. If nothing else, the drone helped us cover a huge area in a short amount of time that would have taken many volunteers hours to search." I think that the cheap and quick aspects of drones are really important here.

mpweiher 12y ago
This. Exactly this is why it's significant. Even a small piston powered Robin helo is around $500 to operate per hour[1], and the smallest turbine powered ones are going to be around that figure just for the fuel: ~500 lb/h fuel consumption [2][3], JetA at > $6 / gallon [4]. So for one hour helo ops, you can purchase 2-3 parrot drones [5]. [1] http://www.aneclecticmind.com/2013/09/12/why-i-charge-545hour-to-fly-passengers-in-my-helicopter/ http://www.aneclecticmind.com/2013/09/12/why-i-charge-545hou... [2] http://www.turbokart.com/about_arrius.htm http://www.turbokart.com/about_arrius.htm [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocopter_Colibri http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocopter_Colibri [4] http://www2.jetaviation.com/index.php/jet/bedford/fuel http://www2.jetaviation.com/index.php/jet/bedford/fuel [5] http://www.amazon.com/Parrot-AR-Drone-Quadricopter-Controlled-Android/dp/B007HZLLOK http://www.amazon.com/Parrot-AR-Drone-Quadricopter-Controlle...
- zimmern 12y ago
  But you need to factor efficiency into that. If the top speed of the chopper is 100mph, versus 10mph for the drone. Then you can cover a much larger area quickly, furthermore a helicopter can stay up longer and has much greater range. So it's not enough to say a heli costs x/per hour therefore drones. Kind of like saying trash trucks are expensive, therefore we should replace them with wheel barrows. From the article: We were asked to search a large area of farmland with the drone. I covered three-quarters of it using three batteries, and the last quarter was a little too far for me to get good first-person view reception Landing to change batteries every couple of minutes, is a serious blow to efficiency.

by rtpg 12y ago

mpweiher 12y ago

This. Exactly this is why it's significant. Even a small piston powered Robin helo is around $500 to operate per hour[1], and the smallest turbine powered ones are going to be around that figure just for the fuel: ~500 lb/h fuel consumption [2][3], JetA at > $6 / gallon [4]. So for one hour helo ops, you can purchase 2-3 parrot drones [5]. [1] http://www.aneclecticmind.com/2013/09/12/why-i-charge-545hour-to-fly-passengers-in-my-helicopter/ http://www.aneclecticmind.com/2013/09/12/why-i-charge-545hou... [2] http://www.turbokart.com/about_arrius.htm http://www.turbokart.com/about_arrius.htm [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocopter_Colibri http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocopter_Colibri [4] http://www2.jetaviation.com/index.php/jet/bedford/fuel http://www2.jetaviation.com/index.php/jet/bedford/fuel [5] http://www.amazon.com/Parrot-AR-Drone-Quadricopter-Controlled-Android/dp/B007HZLLOK http://www.amazon.com/Parrot-AR-Drone-Quadricopter-Controlle...

zimmern 12y ago
But you need to factor efficiency into that. If the top speed of the chopper is 100mph, versus 10mph for the drone. Then you can cover a much larger area quickly, furthermore a helicopter can stay up longer and has much greater range. So it's not enough to say a heli costs x/per hour therefore drones. Kind of like saying trash trucks are expensive, therefore we should replace them with wheel barrows. From the article: We were asked to search a large area of farmland with the drone. I covered three-quarters of it using three batteries, and the last quarter was a little too far for me to get good first-person view reception Landing to change batteries every couple of minutes, is a serious blow to efficiency.