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Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson

thedrive.com

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Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson

#211

Post by postalrat »

jcrawfordor wrote: post #128

There's a lot of interesting material in the ATC recording. - Helo pilots felt that it was intentionally staying nearby as it came very close on multiple occasions and did not seem to be trying to evade. They had visual contact most of the time but sometimes had a hard time tracking it against the city lights. - Pilots initially describe it as a quadcopter but become skeptical of that due to the performance. No one e…

If it was burning a fuel wouldn't you also expect it to be easily visible through their thermal camera?

Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson

#212

Post by petee »

touisteur wrote: post #195
jcrawfordor wrote: post #128

There's a lot of interesting material in the ATC recording. - Helo pilots felt that it was intentionally staying nearby as it came very close on multiple occasions and did not seem to be trying to evade. They had visual contact most of the time but sometimes had a hard time tracking it against the city lights. - Pilots initially describe it as a quadcopter but become skeptical of that due to the performance. No one e…

Right, primary radars designed for 0.5m² radar cross section aren't going to see these things. Especially if they're 3d-maneuvering like mad. You need very different radars for drone tracking and I'm not sure the US's radar infra has caught up. Even less on civilian surveillance mission's.

Perhaps not civilian, but that floating radar the Air Force has can see a softball across the country, I have trouble believing that there isn't an installation within range that wasn't able to track it - leads me to think if the military can track it, but the police weren't given help, then its likely a military craft.

Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson

#213

Post by elliekelly »

itslennysfault wrote: post #103
stefan_ wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the "drone delivery" startups and big co projects have outright failed or been nothing more than PR. There might be something about this that is a lot more difficult than can be seen prima facie, starting probably with the flight time of battery powered drones..

There was a time when I was seriously considering a taco delivery drone business in Austin, TX. North and south of downtown (where most people live) it's a very short city. So it seemed perfect. Anyways, after talking to a lawyer and learning about FAA regulation I decided it was too much work. The short version is a drone with line of sight can fly under x' (think it was 600). Over that it must have first person cam…

So could you, in theory:

- Have a licensed pilot fly the tacos remotely above 600’ to the delivery address.

- Fly in a holding pattern at 600’ until the user indicates in your app they’re available to receive delivery.

- Pass off control so the user (who has LOS) becomes the operator and uses your app to maneuver the drone down to drop the taco and then back up to 600’ where it returns to the remote pilot’s control.

It would probably be a really expensive taco delivery but I think I’d pay a premium for a taco if I got to pilot a drone for a minute?

Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson

#214

Post by postalrat »

spoonjim wrote: post #60

It is not hard to make a drone that can evade a manned helicopter. The power to weight ratio can be a lot better.

For an hour or so? And fly higher than the helicopter?

Give it a shot if it's easy. You could sell a ton of them.

Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson

#215

Post by Sharlin »

dismalpedigree wrote: post #205
lambdasquirrel wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the military has AESA radars that can be programmed to act as a microwave laser so there’s that. A Faraday cage won’t be of much help if it’s literally cooked.

Um. What do you think the grid of wires in the window of your microwave is for? Its a faraday cage to keep you from being cooked.

If you pump enough power at the shielding, a) some of it will get through and b) the shielding itself will get very hot from induced eddy currents.

Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson

#216

Post by postalrat »

Animats wrote: post #116

There are R/C model aircraft with more than enough performance to fly circles around a helicopter. Here's one going over 400MPH.[1] It's powered by a small jet engine that costs around US$6000. That's from 2017. Here's one hovering, standing on its own jet.[2] That's from 2010. These things are quite impressive. So is the piloting, by the way. The one in [1] is just being hand-flown with an ordinary Futaba R/C joysti…

It's easy to build something specialized that does one of the things the object the helicopters chased. But really hard to build something that does all of the things. If you can find an example of that then please show me.

And while you are at it also find me a car that: can go 300 mph, 3 seconds 0-60, 1000 mile range, has all the safety features of a Volvo, costs $5000 to build.

Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson

#218

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

ethanwillis wrote: post #141
veltas wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>maybe Google how to build an EMP Sounds like a good way to get on a list.

Why is Google allowing lists to be built?

Well, once you get past the loaded allow part, if you read their mission statement, you will note it is their actual mission:

"Our company mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/mission/

Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson

#219

Post by manquer »

chucklenorris wrote: post #180
unnouinceput wrote: post #150

Quote: "... it has to be satellite-driven because there’s no line-of-sight, there’s no cell phone coverage that could have dealt with that, so it has to be satellite-driven, which is pretty freakin’ sophisticated." It baffles me how narrow minded people can become once the mainstream technology is ubiquitous on every corner, it's like thinking of other possibilities is a hard wall. If I would do that with a drone I w…

not really, the most advanced comercially available digital fpv video system can do at most 10km range (these systems are latency limited, sure there are 4g systems that can do more but you end up with hundreds of ms latency) also to maintain the high power draw these drones require you end up using lipo batteries that can give you at most 15 minutes of fight time, more typically somewere around 2-6 minutes. you can…

If latency is a big challenge , isnt it even worse for satellite driven ones ?

Unless it is a state actor it i LEO is very tough ( until starlink anyway), GEO latency can't handle video calls latencies, not sure if they can handle like you describe.

Re: Police helicopter's 100mph chase with 'super sophisticated' drone near Tucson

#220

Post by postalrat »

serf wrote: post #4
chucklenorris wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would have been visible with thermal cameras

we don't know it wasn't; it's only mentioned that night vision didn't illuminate it. night vision systems are , most typically, very low-light sensitive cameras that occasionally have specific-wavelength illuminators -- they aren't generally thermal cameras. I tend to think something with a run-time like that is liquid fuel based, too.

https://youtu.be/YawBzT1sE6E?t=2790

It's likely they had thermal cameras available. There is a lot of video of police helicopters using thermal imaging to track people they are chasing.

The audio I linked to makes me think they tried to use it but couldn't see the object.

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