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New Details Emerge on the “Highly Modified Drone” That Outran Police Helicopters

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Re: New Details Emerge on the “Highly Modified Drone” That Outran Police Helicopters

#111

Post by lamontcg »

openasocket wrote: post #100
sandworm101 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> it's that they could get it into the country and deployed over a major air base. Just like guns, why bother smuggling it in? It would be easier to buy/build it within the US. As for deploying it, anyone can drive a pickup to within range of a variety of US bases. These aren't remote arctic outposts surrounded by tundra. US bases are generally near civilian populations. Nobody would think twice about seeing a picku…

I wouldn't be surprised if portions of it were bought within the US, or if it was largely made from off-the-shelf components legally imported and then assembled. Unless there were capabilities demonstrated that haven't been made public (Like some new low-power high-intensity jamming) this doesn't seem too far off from the capabilities of a non-state actor. The main reason I think this is a state actor is because of t…

The first most obvious state actor would actually be the USA itself. Some sort of red team test to demonstrate our own vulnerabilities and to secure that funding.

It probably wouldn't be necessary for someone like China to actually stage a demonstration, since its easier for China to just have some high up diplomat get themselves drunk and boast to or around a known CIA operative that they have hundreds of drones ready to strike facilities in the USA that can be activated on a moments notice. Then leave just enough of a paper trail lying around in other places to validate it (although probably a dozen or less, not a hundred), without compromising anything. Maybe even go so far to have a private military briefing (that a CIA operative was invited to) which displayed a particular model of drone built using off-the-shelf parts that could be acquired in the US ("we built this on our soil, we could be building another one very much like it on your soil").

Re: New Details Emerge on the “Highly Modified Drone” That Outran Police Helicopters

#112

Post by toss1 »

juancb wrote: post #50
toss1 wrote: post #14

It could be interesting that the 4-6 rotor configuration, range/time of around and hour and 50mi, and the 14,000ft+ performance strongly indicate a fuel-powered device, but that the night vision goggles couldn't see it. It didn't indicate if the NVGs were of the ambient-light-enhancing type or IR type. This probably tells us that the NVGs were the ambient-light-enhancing type as there would be very little ambient ref…

You're overlooking one critical point in your deduction about type of NVGs used. The drone was visible with the naked eye due to a green position light, which should have been enhanced and been visible under through the night vision goggles. The article says the drone was last seen entering IMC at 14,000MSL while the helicopter's ADS-B track shows it reached 12,000MSL which means the helicopter could see the light at…

excellent point - I had a nagging thought about that, but just figured the LED had turned off when it started to evade?

But yes, NVD malfunction could be a possibility.

The other possibility is that it was and IR NVG, and the device is very well heat-shielded, which puts it in an entirely different class...

Re: New Details Emerge on the “Highly Modified Drone” That Outran Police Helicopters

#113

Post by toss1 »

spoonjim wrote: post #52
HideousKojima wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought gas didn't really work with quad/hexa/octorotors because gas motors can't cycle up and down as quickly and reliably as electric, and fine-tuned control of rotor speed is essential to how a quadrotor works EDIT: nope I'm stupid

A fuel powered drone uses collective pitch propellers. The blades all spin at fixed RPM but the angle of the blades on each propeller can be adjusted individually with a servo. It actually far outperforms electric motors in maneuverability.

there are a few examples of those, but they are pretty much one-offs. This is mostly because one blade pitch mechanism is messy enough with a helicopter, 4-8 with a multi-rotor is just too many critical moving parts to be effective.

Most of the fuel powered drones will be basically an internal combustion engine powering a generator, which then feeds into the regular battery & ESC circuits (that's the type of machine I was working on).

EDIT: Also important is that much of the yaw control of multirotor drones is done by changing individual rotor speeds to create a net yaw reaction from the acceleration/deceleration of the rotors. With constant-RPM motors, that goes away, along with a lot of yaw control authority.

Re: New Details Emerge on the “Highly Modified Drone” That Outran Police Helicopters

#114

Post by FuriouslyAdrift »

sandworm101 wrote: post #77

There are a few inconsistencies that lead me to not believe the numbers. >>It was last seen climbing through 14,000’ and into the undercast, where it disappeared. >>Department's helicopter was unable to observe the drone when looking through night vision goggles. If this was heading up to 14k while being chased by helicopters, it wasn't a battery-powered quad. A medium sized drone would have to be powered by IC to pe…

The border patrol helo is an Airbus AS350 with cruising speed around 152 mph and do not exceed at 178 mph

Re: New Details Emerge on the “Highly Modified Drone” That Outran Police Helicopters

#115

Post by coddle-hark »

failwhaleshark wrote: post #106

My guess is that was a VTOL with efficient aerodynamics or jet drone to loiter and power for racing-class activities. If it flies, something like https://fusionflight.com/jetquad/ could pull it off. Possibilities: 0. Rich, drone expert prankster, or startup showing-off to their buddies/customers "getting away with something" highly-illegal. 1. State actor demonstrating strength, vulnerabilities, and/or doing low-leve…

I think 2. can be ruled out. It’s hard to imagine a terrorist group doing this considering the risk of getting caught. Much easier just to drive a truck into a crowd or something.

Re: New Details Emerge on the “Highly Modified Drone” That Outran Police Helicopters

#116

Post by toss1 »

bombcar wrote: post #29
toss1 wrote: post #14

It could be interesting that the 4-6 rotor configuration, range/time of around and hour and 50mi, and the 14,000ft+ performance strongly indicate a fuel-powered device, but that the night vision goggles couldn't see it. It didn't indicate if the NVGs were of the ambient-light-enhancing type or IR type. This probably tells us that the NVGs were the ambient-light-enhancing type as there would be very little ambient ref…

Would it be possible to have a gas-powered drone that has some amount of time it can run on batteries? I'm thinking similar to the old diesel submarines that would go on battery when they wanted to be stealthy.

Yup, lightweight, high-powered gasoline engine, powering a generator, the output hooks into the regular battery and ESC (Electronic Speed Controller) loop. All the rest of the control is the same

The benefit is the energy density of petrol is ~2500Wh/kg, vs about 250Wh/kg for Li-Ion batteries. This is significantly offset by the weight of the ICE engine & generator, but it is still enough to get very good flight times. It is enough to do using selected off-the-shelf components, but to get really outstanding results, everything needs to be optimized for excellent power-weight ratios.

Two big ones in that space, going back-&-forth and beating each others' records are:

Skyfront: www.skyfront.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXFoBUR_jqY

Quaternium: https://www.quaternium.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvBjCejUmvY

And yes, at least the units we built had significant batteries in the loop. The main purpose was to be able to land if the ICE engine/generator failed, but also could be used for a less-noisy mode ("quiet mode" is a bit much for most multirotors, as the rotors themselves are quite noisy).

Re: New Details Emerge on the “Highly Modified Drone” That Outran Police Helicopters

#117

Post by deftnerd »

coddle-hark wrote: post #115
failwhaleshark wrote: post #106

My guess is that was a VTOL with efficient aerodynamics or jet drone to loiter and power for racing-class activities. If it flies, something like https://fusionflight.com/jetquad/ could pull it off. Possibilities: 0. Rich, drone expert prankster, or startup showing-off to their buddies/customers "getting away with something" highly-illegal. 1. State actor demonstrating strength, vulnerabilities, and/or doing low-leve…

I think 2. can be ruled out. It’s hard to imagine a terrorist group doing this considering the risk of getting caught. Much easier just to drive a truck into a crowd or something.

I disagree. The truck going through the crowd model requires a sacrificial group member. In our country, the lack of terrorist group members makes their individual value higher. that makes an attack that has a higher capex cost more appealing, such as sacrificial drones.

A swarm of two dozen drones costing less than $50k could foul all of a passenger airplane's engines within a few thousand feet of takeoff. The evidence would be pretty junked up and there is no easy way to trace it back to the controller while it's happening. No sacrificial terrorist cell member needed.

Re: New Details Emerge on the “Highly Modified Drone” That Outran Police Helicopters

#118

Post by Ancapistani »

fmakunbound wrote: post #12

Good thing the drone was fitted with the FAA-required GPS reporting and registration ID transponders.

I know you're being snarky, but those things are not required. Remote ID is still months/years away from being required - there isn't even a published specification yet, much less anything on the market that conforms to it.

Whomever this was presumably broke many laws, but the things you mentioned aren't among them.

Re: New Details Emerge on the “Highly Modified Drone” That Outran Police Helicopters

#119

Post by [deleted] »

grecy wrote: post #13

> they believed the drone was highly unlikely to be battery-powered based on the altitude, distance, and speed at which it flew Does that mean it's gasoline powered? Do we have many details on gas powered drones ? i.e. the kind of range, altitude and speed they can achieve?

[deleted]

Re: New Details Emerge on the “Highly Modified Drone” That Outran Police Helicopters

#120

Post by hluska »

stronglikedan wrote: post #64
hluska wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the description “The quad copter was described as approximately 5 feet long by about 3 feet wide, with a single green flashing LED light.”

Bat mobile?

Oh geez, it took me almost 24 hours to get the joke.
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