100 MPH Drone?

[BikerGeek]

Tucson police chase 100 mph drone across city

New details are emerging about a drone that led police on a high-speed chase across Tucson before disappearing.

www.12news.com

 

[JackL]

I can't even manage to orbit a boat at 30 MPH and this thing is doing it to a helicopter in flight? I want this drone.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

..
Our very own Vic nailed it in the report.

Possible, but very unlikely any sort of standard drone pilot would be behind this flight, even the top notch modified racing drone pilots.
To fly like described at night is almost impossible to comprehend, especially given it orbited a helicopter in flight at approx 100 mph.

Maybe this should be in the UFO thread elsewhere on the forum, or it was a very high end GOVT type programme, with a pilot / camera optics that could manage such flying at night.

 

[JackL]

..
Our very own Vic nailed it in the report.

Possible, but very unlikely any sort of standard drone pilot would be behind this flight, even the top notch modified racing drone pilots.
To fly like described at night is almost impossible to comprehend, especially given it orbited a helicopter in flight at approx 100 mph.

Maybe this should be in the UFO thread elsewhere on the forum, or it was a very high end GOVT type programme, with a pilot / camera optics that could manage such flying at night.

High res thermal cameras seem like they would be just fine. If it was linked to 4G cell backup with some sort of high end RC control with tracking antennas it seems quite possible, IMO. Not sure where you get the mini nuclear reactor to power it for such a long flight though. A hybrid CNG powerplant is a great theory. I would definitely buy one.

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

High res thermal cameras seem like they would be just fine. If it was linked to 4G cell backup with some sort of high end RC control with tracking antennas it seems quite possible, IMO. Not sure where you get the mini nuclear reactor to power it for such a long flight though. A hybrid CNG powerplant is a great theory. I would definitely buy one.

Yep, not your average pilot or drone (if it in fact was one).
If something like this was buildable by your average person (or commercialised), it'd be perhaps $100k or more with such tech, even then not sure it'd be legal in the FAA sense of a drone, it'd be military type rules and governance.
Flying with thermal at those speeds orbiting a heli in flight would be terribly difficult, all over town, no heli thermal camera footprint.
This is odd in all aspects of the report, and not practical other than some sort of GOVCO thing.

 

[JackL]

Yep, not your average pilot or drone (if it in fact was one).
If something like this was buildable by your average person (or commercialised), it'd be perhaps $100k or more with such tech, even then not sure it'd be legal in the FAA sense of a drone, it'd be military type rules and governance.
Flying with thermal at those speeds orbiting a heli in flight would be terribly difficult, all over town, no heli thermal camera footprint.
This is odd in all aspects of the report, and not practical other than some sort of GOVCO thing.

It is funny that $100k was my exact estimate as well. If it was a DIY I'd bet some sort of gas turbine generator would have to be the power source. That would be the real problem since power is going to be a significant portion of the weight.

I feel like the heli motor would be a big bright spot that something like spotlight on a DJI could lock onto and make the maneuvers semi autonomous.

I definitely would not rule out a military drone since they probably have stuff that can do this and way more. I would imagine they do fly and test them domestically.

I'm dreaming of having the ability to orbit a Cigarette boat doing 90mph over some crystal blue Florida Keys water now

 

[MAvic_South_Oz]

I'm dreaming of having the ability to orbit a Cigarette boat doing 90mph over some crystal blue Florida Keys water now

A high performance FPV drone can do that right now.
Build it yourself, BNF, or complete ready to go, tuned and all.
Not even as costly as a higher level DJI drone, but a long learning curve to fly, and fixed cameras that need more consideration in flight and editing later.

 

[Drone_Pilot]

Yep, not your average pilot or drone (if it in fact was one).
If something like this was buildable by your average person (or commercialised), it'd be perhaps $100k or more with such tech, even then not sure it'd be legal in the FAA sense of a drone, it'd be military type rules and governance.
Flying with thermal at those speeds orbiting a heli in flight would be terribly difficult, all over town, no heli thermal camera footprint.
This is odd in all aspects of the report, and not practical other than some sort of GOVCO thing.

And traffic control radar did not detect the drone.

 

[JackL]

And traffic control radar did not detect the drone.

We certainly did have a chopper pilot for WSVN here in South Florida highly exaggerate an encounter with a drone. The possibility does exist that these guys are misremembering or overstating the performance. of this craft...

 

[Drone_Pilot]

We certainly did have a chopper pilot for WSVN here in South Florida highly exaggerate an encounter with a drone. The possibility does exist that these guys are misremembering or overstating the performance. of this craft...

I don't know if you use flight radar but I tend to see that the helicopters most of them that are from the news fly under 500 ft

 

[GFields]

As I read "couldn't even see it" I wondered how then do they know it orbited them?

 

[fguthrie]

As I read "couldn't even see it" I wondered how then do they know it orbited them?

I agree - it seems we don't have the whole story here.

 

[offtheback]

Yep, not your average pilot or drone (if it in fact was one).
If something like this was buildable by your average person (or commercialised), it'd be perhaps $100k or more with such tech, even then not sure it'd be legal in the FAA sense of a drone, it'd be military type rules and governance.
Flying with thermal at those speeds orbiting a heli in flight would be terribly difficult, all over town, no heli thermal camera footprint.
This is odd in all aspects of the report, and not practical other than some sort of GOVCO thing.

Amazon sells them for $29.95 on Prime day?

 

[cgmaxed]

IT SOUNDS LIKE A LIQUID FUELED, maybe electricity, PROPELLED FIXED WING DRONE. They can easily do what this drone did. DJI's dragonfish VTOL can fly for 120 minutes probably less than that at full speed. But only 67mph. I'm sure if a Dragonfish VTOL can get close to what this drone did, A home made fixed wing drone could easily do it, as long at it was communicating via cell phone tech. A converted jet propelled R/C plane could accomplish it with 4g LTE link sending flight data back and forth. An image isn't required to fly at night at high altitudes. Instrument flight would be easy enough. GPS data, speed and altitude would be all the data you needed to mess with the police. No camera would reduce the weight significantly.

 

[cgmaxed]

HobbyKing® Radjet Ultra 100MPH Airplane 790mm (PNF)

HobbyKing® Radjet Ultra 100MPH Airplane 790mm (PNF)

hobbyking.com

Here is an electric jet r/c plane that flies at 100mph. Changing the r/c to 4g/lte and adding gps data, altitude and speed and other data systems wouldn't do it, but you certainly could do some illegal things with it. Changing it over to fuel powered engines would keep it aloft for greater than an hour. Who knows what someone did. A CONVERTED R/C JET WITH NO CAMERA AND INSTRUMENT ONLY PILOTING COULD HAVE DONE THIS EASILY.

 

[Drone_Pilot]

HobbyKing® Radjet Ultra 100MPH Airplane 790mm (PNF)

HobbyKing® Radjet Ultra 100MPH Airplane 790mm (PNF)

hobbyking.com

Here is an electric jet r/c plane that flies at 100mph. Changing the r/c to 4g/lte and adding gps data, altitude and speed and other data systems wouldn't do it, but you certainly could do some illegal things with it. Changing it over to fuel powered engines would keep it aloft for greater than an hour. Who knows what someone did. A CONVERTED R/C JET WITH NO CAMERA AND INSTRUMENT ONLY PILOTING COULD HAVE DONE THIS EASILY.

I have a lot to learn about this hobby,,?Jet fuel propelled modify fix wing hybrid mutant aircraft. The sad part is it might not even be a drone but yet drones are going to take the blame ?

 

[DARKSeifer]

I think there are lots of RC enthusiast that could do something similar, any customized fixed wing, jet powered (or not) and a camera and a 4G connection is all you need.

Consumer grade quadcopters are quite new, but RC enthusiast have been decades there, building their own planes.

You can just pick up any fast cheap fixed wing Rc plane, add a 4G module and a camera, increase the battery capacity and you can do 160Km trips easily.

 

[cgmaxed]

I think there are lots of RC enthusiast that could do something similar, any customized fixed wing, jet powered (or not) and a camera and a 4G connection is all you need.

Consumer grade quadcopters are quite new, but RC enthusiast have been decades there, building their own planes.

You can just pick up any fast cheap fixed wing Rc plane, add a 4G module and a camera, increase the battery capacity and you can do 160Km trips easily.

I think this is the most likely possibility. Camera or not. Well, maybe a small fpv cam, why not. But 4G link, a GPS map system, Alt, speed and compass are all you need. And yeah, those guys that have been flying fixed wing r/c planes could do this easily. (( Maybe they did it on purpose, to make us drone pilots look bad . lol )). I almost 100 % lean toward a modded ,or not, fixed wing r/c plane with 4G. An experienced r/c pilot could easily do this at night. No way in hell they would catch the guy at those speeds. It sure as hell wasn't a consumer or even a professional UAS/Drone. "Those DARN drug dealers." Grrr. The fact the media and the helicopter pilots chose to call this thing a drone show how poorly educated and biased they are relative to, terminology, and the the current state of the drone/UAS market relative to the R/C market. Drug dealers are even using torpedo like subs equipped with floating sat phone antenna buoy's to move drugs across the ocean. Some of these are even fully independent submersible drones, with pre-programmed GPS arrival coordinates. Set it and forget it.

 

[Joethedrone]

With today’s lightweight materials, and some still in development, and the range of propulsion options available, 100mph is certainly achievable. Circling at that speed is another matter. But if there out there, put me down for one lol.

 

[cgmaxed]

With today’s lightweight materials, and some still in development, and the range of propulsion options available, 100mph is certainly achievable. Circling at that speed is another matter. But if there out there, put me down for one lol.

Trust it wasn't a quad or hexacopter design. It had to be VTOL OR FIXED WING. When flying in fixed wing, very little power is used. Fixed wing and some Vtols can stay up longer than 2 hours easily.