Is it feasible for a civilian drone to reach 9000'?

[NumptyAussie]

Is this feasible for a civilian drone, or is it more likely to be something that the boys & girls that operate within the "unspecified military expenditure" section of the budget?

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-48352513

[swh]

Very easy to get much higher than that.

[FullWings]

Have a look on YT. Quite a few “hobby” level drones > 10,000’.

[KelvinD]

A bigger question might be "29 miles off Southend"? Over the North Sea?

[wiggy]

Is this feasible for a civilian drone...

I wouldn't try it with my "common or garden" widely available hobby done, for legal and common sense reasons, but given it's fairly sporty initial ROC and battery life I'd suspect it's possible, and certainly possible with something more bespoke.

As Kelvin has pointed out, probably the bigger mystery is the horizontal position..the lat/long given in the Airprox report puts the device over the North Sea, about 10 miles southeast of Clacton on Sea...

[Ian W]

Look up High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE)

I think perhaps the wrong question was asked. The OP probably meant is a standard hobby octocopter able to reach 9,000ft.

[CargoOne]

There is a civil drone which made it all way up to the Space Station on number of occasions;)

[.Scott]

If I was looking to reach 9000 feet+ with a drone, I would model it after a sail plane. It should be very feasible to reach any commercial flight altitude that way.

[Smythe]

We have a MW controlled 10m blimp, with full payload and hydrogen, can go much higher.
really, the only limit is the MW controller. If we lose control, the limit is near orbit!

On the 'hobby' type of drones, same issue, signal.

[jimjim1]

a MW controlled 10m blimp

A megawatt sure sounds like a lot of control.

[DaveReidUK]

Flight was BA4469 inbound to LCY from DUB.

I'll be amazed if it was a consumer drone (assuming that it was a drone at all).

[saffi]

It's possible and in fact not even that hard. Some people use very light setups so that any impact (if it crashes) will not hurt anyone. I take "drone" as an UAV. So with wings etc. Since they are autonomous range of signal is not a problem. I've seen these things make 100+ km autonomous flights but usually at lower altitudes. See video: https://youtu.be/z_PxhU9i9Ng

[Morane]

You can buy racing dones with a thrust to weight ratio of 10+.
With the right prop pitch I would expect them to fly higher then any jet aircraft.
Jo

[Jonty]

You can buy racing dones with a thrust to weight ratio of 10+.
With the right prop pitch I would expect them to fly higher then any jet aircraft.
Jo

Thats quite a claim! 123000ft is the Jet record in a Foxbat, or 367000ft for spaceship one.

Not it sure you would get a quadcopter up there

[Morane]

Spaceship was rocket driven.

[saffi]

The altitude record for a "standard" DJI quad copter is around 16000 feet I think (and then it can make it to the ground again without dropping out of the sky). I guess they would be able to go higher but then you lose it.

A DJI spends lots of battery life trying to stay in place though. If you would let it drift who knows where and at what altitude it would end up.

[Geosync]

Since the article didn't specify that it was a quad/octacopter type, perhaps it was a military target drone(sea and air assets practice engaging electronically) or loyal wingman UAS test. I know for certain these are flying now, and flying in the UK. They are a fraction of the size of a manned fighter but have a flight envelope of a manned fighter. But they do look like a traditional jet aircraft only much smaller, like large RC aircraft. The target drones are sometimes painted bright orange, but other time standard military grey.

[porch monkey]

I’ve passed one at 9700 ft.

[421dog]

When I was in undergrad, I flew R/c aircraft and we would have x/c events where competitors would pile into the back of pickup trucks and fly as many planes as we had channels (analog radios) to see who could go farthest. As I recall, the best we ever saw was about 90 mi by a guy with what amounted to a motor glider.

at the same time, the smart guys in the engineering school broke the world record for R/C airplane altitude by achieving something over 38,000 ft. It was limited by transmitter power only. (Was still climbing 1000 ft/min+ when they lost control authority IIRC)
That was 30 yrs ago with glow plug engines burning nitromethanol lubricated with castor oil. Pretty sure the Uni engineering wonks are WAAY past that now in the era of cheap gps and semi-autonomous control.

[DaveReidUK]

Since the article didn't specify that it was a quad/octacopter type, perhaps it was a military target drone (sea and air assets practice engaging electronically) or loyal wingman UAS test.

The E170's GS was 240 kts at the time of the encounter, so it's not surprising there isn't a detailed description of what the object looked like.

[Willyboy]

there is a video on YT with an electric foam fixed wing at over 30,000ft (alt scale on the right is in meters)

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1588x896/screen_shot_2019_05_23_at_8_52_38_pm_ca26f6a5dd3ec2a09d325e1 565f4ea51b06a56db.png

[Smythe]

A megawatt sure sounds like a lot of control.

microwave transmitter/reciever

[compressor stall]

https://youtu.be/IBmXx6vwSWw
Initial launch at 14,000' Later footage along the Khumbu is around 17000'. that's for an out of the box pro 4 bladed job.

Plenty of drones around Everest at times. Youtube has good footage from a Russian drone about level with the summit of Everest - 29000'. Fixed wing though.

[swh]

at the same time, the smart guys in the engineering school broke the world record for R/C airplane altitude by achieving something over 38,000 ft. It was limited by transmitter power only. (Was still climbing 1000 ft/min+ when they lost control authority IIRC)
That was 30 yrs ago with glow plug engines burning nitromethanol lubricated with castor oil. Pretty sure the Uni engineering wonks are WAAY past that now in the era of cheap gps and semi-autonomous control.

Current “home made” drones can easily go beyond 75,000 ft. They are launched by balloon, controlled by autopilot. The autopilots feature return to home, safe flight termination, even aircraft avoidance.

Almost everywhere over land except Africa has Lora wan coverage, outside that coverage global coverage is available with a small Iridium 9603 modem, about 45 mmx45mm. The data plan costs about $10 a month.

RTK enables the drone to have position accuracy under 4cm.

[Dan Winterland]

I had an airprox event with one at 9300ft. Close enough to identify it as a DJI Phantom.