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Electric anti-aircraft interceptor drone breaks world air speed record at 434mph

tomshardware.com

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Re: Electric anti-aircraft interceptor drone breaks world air speed record at 434mph

#4
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?

Re: Electric anti-aircraft interceptor drone breaks world air speed record at 434mph

#5
post #2

still 100 mph less than piston-powered airplane speed record. Or 150 less than Tu95. Drones should be able to go that fast too

Maybe, but the budget for an interceptor drone is much much smaller. Unless it fails at its job an interceptor drone is only going to be used once.

Re: Electric anti-aircraft interceptor drone breaks world air speed record at 434mph

#7
post #2

still 100 mph less than piston-powered airplane speed record. Or 150 less than Tu95. Drones should be able to go that fast too

Yeah, big 'ol asterisks in this "world air speed record". This is for electric-powered flight, and is equivalent to 57% of Mach-1.

Re: Electric anti-aircraft interceptor drone breaks world air speed record at 434mph

#9
post #3

But why?? We have had rocket powered anti-aircraft interceptor drones that go at mach 3 since 1955.

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.

Re: Electric anti-aircraft interceptor drone breaks world air speed record at 434mph

#10
post #3

But why?? We have had rocket powered anti-aircraft interceptor drones that go at mach 3 since 1955.

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.

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