61–70 of 128 posts
Is there any conclusion to reach here (assuming this report is correct) besides a hostile entity scouting U.S. infrastructure? See also: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/drones-swarmed-u-s-wars...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't imagine a defense contractor imperiling their flow of money when they could certainly arrange to test at White Sands or some such. This kind of thing is straight to jail, do pass Go, do not collect $2 billion. LEO, same; perhaps they might play loose with the law, but around refueling infrastructure and airports? That brings the Feds in 100%. Again, straight to jail. What is the risk/reward here? A three-lett…
Someone in the article comments pointed out that everything described could be accomplished by a $25,000 off the shelf drone from lockheed [1]. Now that's not something you find on every street corner, but well within the range of 'training some bored enlisted guys' or 'contractors on an evening test mission'. I'm not sure if they sell those to energy companies, but if so that fits as well. I've heard many stories of…
Nobody is building something like that with 25k. Sure you could build it, but it wouldn’t work. And it wouldn’t be anywhere close to reliable enough for a mission as crazy as entering into restricted military airspace. It would take lots of testing and iteration for someone to produce something that worked reliably and has been shown to be able to do things like evade night vision detection. It’s a specialized price of hardware developed specifically for this kind of task. Nobody is their right mind would do anything like this unless they already had access to the hardware and flippantly decided to take it for a cruise over and air force base (idiot employee at government contractor) or if they had an interest in doing this (China/Russia).
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…
These days they have off the shelf LTE modems that can stream both video and telemetry, and it sounds like you’re saying endurance is also a solved problem.
This really doesn’t seem like it would take nation state investment.
I’d just like to think any hobbyist capable of getting one of these off the ground would avoid airports and tangling with police helos…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't imagine a defense contractor imperiling their flow of money when they could certainly arrange to test at White Sands or some such. This kind of thing is straight to jail, do pass Go, do not collect $2 billion. LEO, same; perhaps they might play loose with the law, but around refueling infrastructure and airports? That brings the Feds in 100%. Again, straight to jail. What is the risk/reward here? A three-lett…
Someone in the article comments pointed out that everything described could be accomplished by a $25,000 off the shelf drone from lockheed [1]. Now that's not something you find on every street corner, but well within the range of 'training some bored enlisted guys' or 'contractors on an evening test mission'. I'm not sure if they sell those to energy companies, but if so that fits as well. I've heard many stories of…
Tucson sits in a plain surrounded by tall mountains. Whoever was controlling the drone must've had a much stronger radio than the one with the Lockheed 10km line of sight limit.
We have reached the tech level where individuals or a small group of enthusiasts can compete in the nation state arena. This is within that realm.
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.
I am quite surprised we have not seen drones as instruments of terror yet.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You want to test your ability to get physical payloads in place, e.g. in the future the drone could carry a bomb or something else clever (listening devices? Dropping gallium on aluminum airplanes? Etc) You want low angle shots? You're not well funded enough to get good satellite photos?
> Dropping gallium on aluminum airplanes? Is there anything that building a delivery mechanism to carry and then drop gallium onto a plane does that an actual gun wouldn't?