100 MPH Drone?

[PeteTheJack]

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

I had to use a VPN to read the article and I'm not sure it was a "drone". If it was, might it be of military origin? Definitely a UFO, or what is now known as a UAP, doing something that no known drone could do. Just the latest of many explanations for something unidentified.

 

[jaswalt]

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.

You wouldn't need cell phone signal to control it. There are plenty of radio frequencies and equipment that can easily reach all parts of the sky in and around Tucson and technically even out to the horizon +10%. None of it is terribly expensive or hard to come by. Any of the radio equipment needed is capable of 2-way communications with data and images possible.

 

[PompousWindbag]

Northrup Grummun Bat. At least, that's my guess... Northrop Grumman Bat - Wikipedia

 

[Bob27]

I don't think many of you guys realize just how doable this is with off the shelf technology, a bit of diy, and knowledge. I have a small side business in building custom li-ion battery packs for super long endurance drones, rc airplanes, and even maned ultralight aircraft. I have helped build search and rescue drones with 45+ minutes of usable flight time all while lugging around a 500 gram payload, helping people get nearly an hour of flight from tiny sub 1 pound foam rc airplanes, built a sub 250 gram quadcopter capable of 55 minutes flight times, and more. Anyway, one of my latest projects I am working on is building a flying wing radio control drone with some crazy specs. It only has about a 4 foot wing span, 2 foot length, and weighs about 2 pounds, yet at low speeds it should be able to stay airborne for 90+ minutes and on paper the top speed is north of 125mph. With a slightly different design and scaled up a to be in the 15-30 pound range, I believe that I could build a drone capable of everything this super drone did using entirely off the shelf components, a custom airframe, and my custom li-ion batteries.