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

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

#31

Post by ARandomerDude »

laughing_man wrote: post #29
daveguy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It's a pretty big deal in the Ukraine war. Russia has been using cheap drones to attack Ukraine, which initially only had very expensive SAM systems to intercept. Ukraine then introduced cheap electric drone interceptors which have been working well. Russia's response was to increase the speed of its drones. As long as Ukraine can match that speed increase with the interceptors, it will still be able to intercept dro…

> will still be able to intercept drones cheaply

But likely not at the scale required to make a real dent. This is the problem with the "this new weapon will win the Russia-Ukraine war" mantra we've heard so often (Javelin, HIMARS, F-16, etc). Lots of very capable weapons have entered the fight, but at limited scale compared to Russia's enormous manpower and manufacturing advantage.

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

#32

Post by jmward01 »

The weapons use saddens me. Ignoring that, this is interesting for electric aviation as a whole. One of my arguments about electric aviation is that burning fuel for propulsion has a lot of challenges, especially at altitude. Pushing the speed envelope for electric will lead to more and more novel ways of pushing things and once they get efficient, fast and, very importantly, high altitude, the amount of power you need drops considerably. The argument against electric aviation is always that (pick your favorite fuel x) has 100x the energy per gram. This is an apples to bananas comparison for many reasons but at a high level if you need far less energy to cover the same distance then that argument goes away in a hurry. Electric propulsion with aircraft redesigns taking advantage of it has a chance to do that. I'm really looking forward to hitting FL1000 and getting to my destination in an hour using electric propulsion.... eventually.

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

#33

Post by JumpCrisscross »

tokai wrote: post #25
close04 wrote: post #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?

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.

Speed obviously isn’t the dominating factor given interceptor drones exist in a world with rockets.

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

#35

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

blacklion wrote: post #17

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).

> this form-factor

"It must be pointy".

The photo is so murky you only notice the shiny propeller cones.

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

#36

Post by FireCrack »

close04 wrote: post #28
throwawayffffas wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speed is really important because at these speeds they can probably intercept drones flying with low cost jet engines. So it adds a huge capability.

But it can’t be the thing that mattered first and foremost because then a 20c bullet would win against any drone. But a bullet is not great at intercepting small moving targets. Which is why I asked how good are they at intercepting at those speeds especially FPV mode.

The thing is, for a guided interceptor, the speed ratio between the interceptor and it's target has an extremely strong effect on how difficult the intercept is. In practical situations increasing speed is the best way to increase intercept chance.

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

#38

Post by sandworm101 »

jmward01 wrote: post #32

The weapons use saddens me. Ignoring that, this is interesting for electric aviation as a whole. One of my arguments about electric aviation is that burning fuel for propulsion has a lot of challenges, especially at altitude. Pushing the speed envelope for electric will lead to more and more novel ways of pushing things and once they get efficient, fast and, very importantly, high altitude, the amount of power you ne…

FL1000 is likely not possible using electricty. Electric power is converted into thrust via propellers pushing against a working fuild (air). The less air at fl1000 means less working fluid. A combustion engine adds to the air, generating thrust not just by propellers but through rocket forces: heating the working fluid and ejecting it at speed. To do that with electricity one would have to convert the electricity into heat, a massively wasteful process. The only way to get the necessary heat without burning something would be nuclear tech a la Skyfall or project Pluto.

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

#39

Post by onlypassingthru »

throwawayffffas wrote: post #12
throwawayffffas wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

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.

Nobody with any intelligence is recovering these if they miss. There are a number of Reddit channels with videos of why this is a bad idea.

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

#40

Post by _djo_ »

A bit disappointing that the article didn't mention that the record broken was previously held by the amateur team of Luke Bell and his father, from Cape Town.[0]

That amateurs are still competitive with corporations all the way past the 650 km/h barrier is notable on several levels, not least in that it means that designs like these will likely proliferate quickly across the world.

[0] https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/464800-fa...

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