You know those big camera-bearing drones – they are about 80 cm across and have 4 motors, one at each corner. I’m not sure how much they weigh but it must be several kilos. What happens if one of the motors fails? I’m guessing it would descend uncontrollably in a rapid spiral. What happens if it flies beyond the range of the transmitter? Does it shut down and drop like a rock, or fly around randomly until the battery gives out, and then drop like a rock?

How long before somebody is seriously injured or even killed by a drone strike? Could they be weaponised to inflict GBH or severe property damage on your victim? Is there any legislation pertaining to drones? Are they registered so that if someone is injured by one, the owner can be traced?

a helicopter rotor should auto-rotate if it is descending unpowered, which should provide some lift and slow it down for a “soft” landing

.. in theory – but the torque effects need to be taken into account. Not sure that if one engines fails the others will cut out too. Also if they all rotate in the same direction the torque will start the body of the drone spinning and the braking effect of the auto-rotation will be lost.

It’s complicated :)

party_pants said:

a helicopter rotor should auto-rotate if it is descending unpowered, which should provide some lift and slow it down for a “soft” landing

.. in theory – but the torque effects need to be taken into account. Not sure that if one engines fails the others will cut out too. Also if they all rotate in the same direction the torque will start the body of the drone spinning and the braking effect of the auto-rotation will be lost.

It’s complicated :)

The rotors probably contra-rotate to stop torque steer.

they have auto descend if beyond transmitter range or get low on batteries. some have auto return. with 4 or more rotors they would still be controllable if one failed.

pesce.del.giorno said:

You know those big camera-bearing drones – they are about 80 cm across and have 4 motors, one at each corner. I’m not sure how much they weigh but it must be several kilos. What happens if one of the motors fails? I’m guessing it would descend uncontrollably in a rapid spiral. What happens if it flies beyond the range of the transmitter? Does it shut down and drop like a rock, or fly around randomly until the battery gives out, and then drop like a rock?

How long before somebody is seriously injured or even killed by a drone strike? Could they be weaponised to inflict GBH or severe property damage on your victim? Is there any legislation pertaining to drones? Are they registered so that if someone is injured by one, the owner can be traced?

All these things are easily found with a search.
But, as I have owned a few for years I’ll answer anyway. The larger quadcopters are easily 10 kg or so. Sometimes more. If one of the motors fails you don’t have a lot of control, it’s generally a wobbly trip straight down, to a controlled crash. The hexacopters fare much better, the later firmware (typically) lets you still have pretty reasonable control. On mine, I can still keep it airborne no probs though it spins on the spot in mid-air.
They almost always have some kind of fail-safe for either returning (if they have a GPS on-board) or as mentioned an autonomous landing.

Yes there will be a time were someone does get hurt by a larger one, they have a lot of energy in the choppy blades and can do a lot of damage. The rules for using them can be found on the CASA website.
It would be very easy to use one as a weapon at quite a reasonable range, though I’m not going to describe how to do that here.

It would be very easy to use one as a weapon at quite a reasonable range, though I’m not going to describe how to do that here.

but the larger ones are capable of lifting a dropbear…

ChrispenEvan said:

It would be very easy to use one as a weapon at quite a reasonable range, though I’m not going to describe how to do that here.

but the larger ones are capable of lifting a dropbear…

ORLY?

one of my mates in the coast guard has a DJ Phantom 3.. nice unit, takes great video. Simple to fly.. and as Boris said in an earlier post, it comes back to the take off GPS position if it loses radio signal.

They seem like a ridiculously simple, obvious and untraceable means of delivering a remotely detonated explosive device.

pesce.del.giorno said:

They seem like a ridiculously simple, obvious and untraceable means of delivering a remotely detonated explosive device.

The payload is small but I guess if it’s C4 then it can be.. I imagine at significant VIP events, the wireless frequencies are jammed

I looked into them for sitting on my arse and checking on cattle nad trees across fencing etc but you pay good money for one that has a fly time of just 20 minutes, then you have to put them on a charger for 5 hours.
Nah better to get off your arse.

I looked into them for sitting on my arse and checking on cattle nads…

WHAT???!!!

Peak Warming Man said:

I looked into them for sitting on my arse and checking on cattle nad trees across fencing etc but you pay good money for one that has a fly time of just 20 minutes, then you have to put them on a charger for 5 hours.
Nah better to get off your arse.

They charge in an hour

Peak Warming Man said:

I looked into them for sitting on my arse and checking on cattle nad

Can’t you find something weird like that with google?

Dropbear said:

Peak Warming Man said:

I looked into them for sitting on my arse and checking on cattle nad trees across fencing etc but you pay good money for one that has a fly time of just 20 minutes, then you have to put them on a charger for 5 hours.
Nah better to get off your arse.

They charge in an hour

the company I used in Tas to take aerial photos for drawing up irrigation plans charged by the hour alright… $330/hour…

poikilotherm said:

Peak Warming Man said:

I looked into them for sitting on my arse and checking on cattle nad

Can’t you find something weird like that with google?

yeah use Google street view

CrazyNeutrino said:

poikilotherm said:

Peak Warming Man said:

I looked into them for sitting on my arse and checking on cattle nad

Can’t you find something weird like that with google?

yeah use Google street view

yeah, fo all those marked streets of your property…

smh

that what Google should do next

satellite view of streets from space

with a live video feed

With more rain predicted the farmers might be a bit over it and closely watching their bumper crops

AwesomeO said:

With more rain predicted the farmers might be a bit over it and closely watching their bumper crops

this week of rain and a hot burst next week, the farmers will be rolling in it.
canola here has exploded over the last 2 weeks

stumpy_seahorse said:

AwesomeO said:

With more rain predicted the farmers might be a bit over it and closely watching their bumper crops

this week of rain and a hot burst next week, the farmers will be rolling in it.
canola here has exploded over the last 2 weeks

Yeah, I drive to Maryborough and all the paddocks are yellow as far as you can see and it is pretty flat around here.

AwesomeO said:

stumpy_seahorse said:

AwesomeO said:

With more rain predicted the farmers might be a bit over it and closely watching their bumper crops

this week of rain and a hot burst next week, the farmers will be rolling in it.
canola here has exploded over the last 2 weeks

Yeah, I drive to Maryborough and all the paddocks are yellow as far as you can see and it is pretty flat around here.

Everyone having a bumper crop at the same time is bad news for commodity prices usually…

poikilotherm said:

AwesomeO said:

stumpy_seahorse said:

this week of rain and a hot burst next week, the farmers will be rolling in it.
canola here has exploded over the last 2 weeks

Yeah, I drive to Maryborough and all the paddocks are yellow as far as you can see and it is pretty flat around here.

Everyone having a bumper crop at the same time is bad news for commodity prices usually…

It is, you just have to hope it’s not bumper crops internationally, and some can be stored albeit a cost involved with that. And many of the crops are being traded before they are even planted, it’s a complicated business.

poikilotherm said:

AwesomeO said:

stumpy_seahorse said:

this week of rain and a hot burst next week, the farmers will be rolling in it.
canola here has exploded over the last 2 weeks

Yeah, I drive to Maryborough and all the paddocks are yellow as far as you can see and it is pretty flat around here.

Everyone having a bumper crop at the same time is bad news for commodity prices usually…

We can use drones to start fires in the USA, Ukraine and Russia.

Dropbear said:

pesce.del.giorno said:

They seem like a ridiculously simple, obvious and untraceable means of delivering a remotely detonated explosive device.

The payload is small but I guess if it’s C4 then it can be.. I imagine at significant VIP events, the wireless frequencies are jammed

It doesn’t matter if they jam the various radio frequencies that RC gear uses, it’s still not particularly difficult to program an autopilot to do the entire flight without having to touch the controls. No pilot input needed.

Dual Robot Arm Large-Format Drone PD6B-AW-ARM

dv said:

Dual Robot Arm Large-Format Drone PD6B-AW-ARM

Nice.

dv said:

Dual Robot Arm Large-Format Drone PD6B-AW-ARM

Looks promising.

Love to see one snatch Trump’s hair-piece off his scone.

party_pants said:

dv said:

Dual Robot Arm Large-Format Drone PD6B-AW-ARM

Looks promising.

Love to see one snatch Trump’s hair-piece off his scone.

And take a snap of the big empty hole underneath.

Ah, Trumplestiltskin, spinning gold into hair

Still, if you want payload, I imagine you’d get much more from a co-axial rotor machine of a similar size. Surely they can be fitted with similar auto-pilot and GPS type electronics. I don’t see that the 4 or 6 arm drone is the optimal layout.

Is there a limit to the size of any one rotor you may have on a drone?

party_pants said:

Still, if you want payload, I imagine you’d get much more from a co-axial rotor machine of a similar size. Surely they can be fitted with similar auto-pilot and GPS type electronics. I don’t see that the 4 or 6 arm drone is the optimal layout.

Is there a limit to the size of any one rotor you may have on a drone?

You mean a helicopter.
Yes they can lift a fair bit (~30 kg for a grunty one, but not for long) If you wanted something that could lift a reasonable payload and go fast, just use a fairly conventional RC aeroplane. There’s First Person View gear you can get that’ll give you a ~ 50 km range. Just fly it visually anywhere you like out to about that far.

I need a ruling. Can a copter not be a drone, technically?

dv said:

I need a ruling. Can a copter not be a drone, technically?

If it can be remotely controlled… That makes it a drone?

dv said:

I need a ruling. Can a copter not be a drone, technically?

Sure.