Another day, another drone upstart skips the consumer market A Latvian drone firm taking a punt at both the professional and military markets reckons its new model can stay aloft for five hours and fly for almost 100 miles (160km). Atlas Dynamics, a Riga-based upstart founded two years ago, says its Blue-J drone is "ideally suited for large-scale security and inspection missions" and …
Not quite sure where your performance doubts are coming from? 30 seconds Googling found an established drone company selling off the shelf aircraft that weigh 10 kg and can carry 10 kgs of fuel/payload. They state that it uses .75 l/hour of fuel, so 5 hours might need 4 kg of fuel. What is unreasonable in thinking that a company might be able to engineer a drone to carry a 14kg payload, maybe by flying slower, or using lighter material or a lighter engine?
Another day, another toy. Real stabilised HD camera systems weigh 25 to 45 kg and need 500 Watt of electricity.
Instead of trying to look at something with a blurry toy camera, the military can just send a guy to go and sit on a hill with a pair of binoculars. Therefore, to be useful, a UAV needs to be significantly better than a guy with binoculars or a small telescope, otherwise it is pointless.
Another day another expert.
In this particular case...Good luck seeing detail at 60 kilometres (or 10) with your binoculars What if you don't want to look at optical wavelengths? Maybe you want to sneak up and listen to a wifi signal. What if you want to look at something and the ground is flat? What if the bad guy (or zebra, or hole in a pipeline) decides to stand on the other side of a brick wall? And when the bad guy decides he doesn't want to be looked at and lobs a large rock at the camera, you only have to get another one off the shelf, you don't have to write a telegram to it's next of kin.
Have you even bothered to look at the quality of imagery that even modest consumer grade drones can acquire now?
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