Originally Posted by
rans6andrew
AeroPrakt A-22 modified to use as a drone, Nice one!
I hope they are able to build them a bit more quickly than I managed a few years ago, about 9 months of my spare time. I would be interested to know how much weight of explosives was carried and how much fuel as the airframe started as a 450kg MTOW microlight or a 475kg MTOW GA aircraft with an empty weight of about 260kg.. Later varients had a revised wing skin and could be flown at 600kg. These weights are fixed by the UK regs. It is entirely possible that the structure has been beefed up or more relaxed regs apply for drones!
Still, despite hating to see a perfectly good aircraft being deliberately destroyed I still think it is brilliant in this case.
Rans6.......
I think it was the company that built one to hit a target early in the war, they experimented and had sorted a remote to fly it, but another method was found to hit the target, so it wasn’t at the time pursued. The 600kg version has a range of about 520 nautical miles, but extra tankage could increase that.
You can also ditch the stuff such as instruments, the alternator, use a different battery to power the guidance, ditch the seats, harnesses, interior trim, lights and wiring etc to reduce the weight and then add a payload