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Is it feasible for a civilian drone to reach 9000'?
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 |
Very easy to get much higher than that. |
Have a look on YT. Quite a few “hobby” level drones > 10,000’.
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A bigger question might be "29 miles off Southend"? Over the North Sea?
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Originally Posted by NumptyAussie
(Post 10476866)
Is this feasible for a civilian drone...
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... |
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. |
There is a civil drone which made it all way up to the Space Station on number of occasions;) |
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.
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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. |
A lot of control
Originally Posted by Smythe
(Post 10477158)
a MW controlled 10m blimp
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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). |
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:
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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 |
Originally Posted by Morane
(Post 10477303)
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 Not it sure you would get a quadcopter up there |
Spaceship was rocket driven.
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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. |
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.
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I’ve passed one at 9700 ft. |
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. |
Originally Posted by Geosync
(Post 10477493)
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.
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