Interesting, that this form-factor was popularized by DIY builders. First one was dutch-built, sponsored by Red Bull after prototyping stage, to film Verstappen's full F1 lap (so semi-DIY, so to say), but then record was taken back and forth between two DIY builders — Ben Biggs in Australia and Luke Maximo and his father
Latest record by Ben Biggs was 626kph (389mph).
Latest record by Luke Maximo was 655kph (408mph).
Most people agree that the manhole cover would have been vaporized during its atmospheric ascent portion of flight, but I still like to believe that somewhere out there in the void, a small blob of molten steel that survived the atmosphere is drifting in solar orbit.
Perhaps it's going even faster, and one day will zoom through someone else's stellar system. And they'll rack their brains over what this weird misshaped metallic radioactive object means, where it's coming and where it's going to.
Unit cost for a lot of these seems to be under ~$5K USD, not counting the value of engineering time.
How do you counter a swarm of these things coming from all directions?
This kind of weapon has interesting consequences for public speaking events by leaders. Or large industrial projects on the coast of Texas that use large tanks of compressed methane and LOX.
This seems like the kind of thing that you can send in the mail to another country in a special box that can open up when it senses that it has arrived at a destination so the drone can fly off to get into position for an attack by hiding itself in some nook on the roof of some nearby industrial building.
Put a small solar panel on it so that it can sit indefinitely, waiting for the signal to strike a target.
Or put a dozen or so of them on an unmanned surface vehicle like the Ukrainians did and send them out to a juicy port target.
The biggest threat that a weapon like this poses isn't just from the initial destructive capacity, it comes from the possible difficulty in attributing the source of the attack.
How do you respond to this kind of weapon you don't know who used it against you?
>> send in the mail to another country in a special box that can open up when it senses that it has arrived at a destination
They are called letter bombs. Ted Kaczynski did much damage with them. Needless to say, direct mail from Kyiv to moscow is not straitforwards these days. And sending secret explosives through third country mail services is frowned upon by postal workers. Fedex even charges a premium when shipping killbots overnight.
Cost, your average stinger cost 38000 dollars in the 80s. I am guessing here but they are aiming at a price of probably under 10000 dollars.
Now why doesn't anyone take a rocket and stick the drone guidance on it? Again I am only guessing here, the drone guidance components probably can't cope with 2-3 mach. At 1000 meters per second with a 60 fps camera you advance 16.6 meters per frame, add to that the latency of whatever guidance system you have. You are looking at 20-30 meters offset between frames.
Better guidance probably balloons the cost to the 10s of thousands of dollars.
Oh and probably loiter time, the rocket is you shoot and it's gone. The interceptor may have enough battery to fly around for a few minutes looking for the next one if its target is downed by something else. Plus you can probably recover these if they miss. This is all very speculative though.
Anyone can build this style of interceptor with commercial off the shelf parts for a a few thousand dollars. It's also reusable.
A rocket for the same budget will be unguided and single use. Not useable as an interceptor.
Speed is only part of the story, but probably the part that can sell the capability of drones today.
How good are they at intercepting another maneuverable aircraft either autonomously or FPV? At what speed is the drone starting to be limited by the human pilot relying on a camera feed?
No speed is the most important factor. You have a very limited window to get the munition on target. An in Ukrainians case Geran drones drones don't maneuver much, if at all.
Latest record by Ben Biggs was 626kph (389mph). Latest record by Luke Maximo was 655kph (408mph).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95
Most people agree that the manhole cover would have been vaporized during its atmospheric ascent portion of flight, but I still like to believe that somewhere out there in the void, a small blob of molten steel that survived the atmosphere is drifting in solar orbit.
Unit cost for a lot of these seems to be under ~$5K USD, not counting the value of engineering time.
How do you counter a swarm of these things coming from all directions?
This kind of weapon has interesting consequences for public speaking events by leaders. Or large industrial projects on the coast of Texas that use large tanks of compressed methane and LOX.
This seems like the kind of thing that you can send in the mail to another country in a special box that can open up when it senses that it has arrived at a destination so the drone can fly off to get into position for an attack by hiding itself in some nook on the roof of some nearby industrial building.
Put a small solar panel on it so that it can sit indefinitely, waiting for the signal to strike a target.
Or put a dozen or so of them on an unmanned surface vehicle like the Ukrainians did and send them out to a juicy port target.
The biggest threat that a weapon like this poses isn't just from the initial destructive capacity, it comes from the possible difficulty in attributing the source of the attack.
How do you respond to this kind of weapon you don't know who used it against you?
They are called letter bombs. Ted Kaczynski did much damage with them. Needless to say, direct mail from Kyiv to moscow is not straitforwards these days. And sending secret explosives through third country mail services is frowned upon by postal workers. Fedex even charges a premium when shipping killbots overnight.
Now why doesn't anyone take a rocket and stick the drone guidance on it? Again I am only guessing here, the drone guidance components probably can't cope with 2-3 mach. At 1000 meters per second with a 60 fps camera you advance 16.6 meters per frame, add to that the latency of whatever guidance system you have. You are looking at 20-30 meters offset between frames.
Better guidance probably balloons the cost to the 10s of thousands of dollars.
How good are they at intercepting another maneuverable aircraft either autonomously or FPV? At what speed is the drone starting to be limited by the human pilot relying on a camera feed?
"Quantum Systems Group reckons it has broken the flight speed record for an electric drone."