12 ms·

I get annoyed when people compare the multimillion dollar military UAVs, with jet engines and satellite guidance, with quadcopters that have 20 minutes of batte

• yarrel 12y ago
  If I was more conspiracy-minded than I am then I'd say that the confusion is presumably intended to make military drones more acceptable.
• bri3d 12y ago
  This was true in the early days of hobbyist quadcopters, but at this point even ready-to-fly consumer models are offering FPV and even full beyond-line-of-sight autonomy. I think this automation unlocks a lot beyond classic R/C flying - yes, people have been flying beyond-line-of-sight FPV for a long time, but certainly not as beginners while using a $550 RTF kit which can fly itself and also offers GPS-based waypoints and a built-in camera gimbal. I do agree that using the same word for weaponized military platforms and little quadcopters is frustrating, but I think we're far past the "glorified R/C plane" phase of hobbyist flying gear, too.
• ChuckMcM 12y ago
  I think they do, the 'drones' people are talking about are ones that you can pre-program to follow a set course, have on board GPS guidance, and at least the payload of a surveillance camera. Not unlike some military tasked ones which are carried by soldiers in the field. Generally the military goes with fixed wing though for the higher time on station being more efficient. RC Planes are a different thing entirely. And after reading this article again I did not get the impression that they were confusing them.