Black Hornet Drone . . .

Captain Spock · Oct 27, 2023

waynorth · Oct 27, 2023

The Black Hornet was developed 12-15 years ago in Norway by Prox Dynamics, which was bought by Teledyne FLIR in 2016 for 134 mill. dollars. The Hornet is now used by miltary in many countries.

DARKSeifer · Oct 27, 2023

I've always thought the same about this drone, an overpriced toy to steal tons of public money through military contracts around the globe.

Even the Mini 1 performs better than that.

PS: At least the 4th iteration (since it was bought by FLIR) comes with thermal camera (fixed ofc) at a price of... who knows, the previous iterations where above 250K per unit (the bundle with the controller + two batts). You can buy 50 M3Thermal for every unit of that.

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Captain Spock · Oct 27, 2023

waynorth said:
The Black Hornet was developed 12-15 years ago in Norway by Prox Dynamics, which was bought by Teledyne FLIR in 2016 for 134 mill. dollars. The Hornet is now used by miltary in many countries.

@waynorth : I had not realized it had that history. thanks for posting

MS Coast · Oct 27, 2023

DARKSeifer said:
Even the Mini 1 performs better than that.

The Mini 1's thermal imaging system?

DARKSeifer · Oct 28, 2023

MS Coast said:
The Mini 1's thermal imaging system?

The at least 50 M3T you can buy for the same price of one of this overpriced toy combo yes, they do, 50 in fact, and a telephoto, which is what you want for situational awareness and data gathering.

Climb with a M3T (or equivalent) to 500m, and you have an advantage point that can cover as much as 75Km on a clear day.

Reverse engineer (aka copy) a M3T and mass produce it at a fraction of the price wouldn't be that expensive; maybe go on the cheap side/DIY and go a little bit bigger/not foldable, maybe put a 24-2000mm equivalent optical zoom, like the one in the Nikon P950.

That's the tactical use of a drone, climb high and zoom and stay unheard/undetected, much like the hot air balloons in the WW.

The drone operator sitting away zooming around with the thermal camera, feeding data to the ground units, maybe having some stuff deployed with a bomber drone (like in the recent Ukrainian war), maybe painting with a laser for an aerial strike, maybe getting intel for the artillery, maybe strap a nade on a FPV-like and pass it through a window and detonate inside, that's an example of how you use a drone in warfare, and all those variables are easily and cheaply done with DIY equipment.

The Black Hornet is useless and pointless, too tiny to equip anything useful or have any performance whatsoever... and heavily overpriced.

Reginald E Johnson · Oct 28, 2023

DARKSeifer said:
I've always thought the same about this drone, an overpriced toy to steal tons of public money through military contracts around the globe.

Even the Mini 1 performs better than that.

PS: At least the 4th iteration (since it was bought by FLIR) comes with thermal camera (fixed ofc) at a price of... who knows, the previous iterations where above 250K per unit (the bundle with the controller + two batts). You can buy 50 M3Thermal for every unit of that.

View attachment 169612

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Guess what? I think that I saw a Chinese knockoff of this on TEMU! Go figure?

DARKSeifer · Oct 28, 2023

Reginald E Johnson said:
Guess what? I think that I saw a Chinese knockoff of this on TEMU! Go figure?

Captain Drone had a video of one of the copies.

I remember seeing the video feed of the BH (the real, not a copy) on some video, although I don't remember which version it was (I suppose it was before the FLIR acquisition), and was not that different, pretty much like a low quality slideshow.

I suppose the 4th version is way above it, but still, it's nonsense. Not necessarily in DJI, the Skydio X10 is around 15K € and cleans the floor with the BH at a fraction of its price.

AnzacJack · Oct 29, 2023

DARKSeifer said:
The at least 50 M3T you can buy for the same price of one of this overpriced toy combo yes, they do, 50 in fact, and a telephoto, which is what you want for situational awareness and data gathering.

Climb with a M3T (or equivalent) to 500m, and you have an advantage point that can cover as much as 75Km on a clear day.

Reverse engineer (aka copy) a M3T and mass produce it at a fraction of the price wouldn't be that expensive; maybe go on the cheap side/DIY and go a little bit bigger/not foldable, maybe put a 24-2000mm equivalent optical zoom, like the one in the Nikon P950.

That's the tactical use of a drone, climb high and zoom and stay unheard/undetected, much like the hot air balloons in the WW.

The drone operator sitting away zooming around with the thermal camera, feeding data to the ground units, maybe having some stuff deployed with a bomber drone (like in the recent Ukrainian war), maybe painting with a laser for an aerial strike, maybe getting intel for the artillery, maybe strap a nade on a FPV-like and pass it through a window and detonate inside, that's an example of how you use a drone in warfare, and all those variables are easily and cheaply done with DIY equipment.

The Black Hornet is useless and pointless, too tiny to equip anything useful or have any performance whatsoever... and heavily overpriced.

Id say from your post that you have no idea on the applications this drone was used for, or any hands on experience with this drone in these applications.
Overpriced? Yes. As is anything that is milspec. Thats the nature of equipment used by the military and not specific to drones. Just a handful of nuts and bolts from an F111 would cost the average person a months wages.

Captain Spock · Oct 31, 2023

Geeez! Never expected my post would stimulate such interest. Thanks all for weighing in.

BigAl07 · Oct 31, 2023

DARKSeifer said:
........

The Black Hornet is useless and pointless, too tiny to equip anything useful or have any performance whatsoever... and heavily overpriced.

I would imagine the fact they have sold over 20K units and they are in use in over 40 countries says at least a little bit about their usefulness. It's not like it's a new clone on the block or anything. They have been around the block and gone through several iterations and rounds of improvements.

If they were simply over priced toys I doubt they would have that many sales and still going strong. Just my 2-cents though.