FW Hercules 3 drone modified with a platform to transport personnel.

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uh60chief@reddit

We tried this decades ago, but technology is improving

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11middle11@reddit

At least the blades are above the pilot and not below.

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Do you think we will look back at this film in one hundred years the same way we look back on earlier films that were black and white? Like the goofy ones of contraptions with flapping wings and being pushed off buildings only to crash into the ground and think how “advanced” we are today.

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LightningFerret04@reddit

I feel like the ideas are going to be similar, but the technology of the future actually makes it practical and widespread. There’s a few examples of single-person hovering vehicles from the 50s, but they didn’t have the refinement of modern technology for them to be able to work well.

Nowadays we have generally the same idea, since aerodynamics doesn’t change. It’s more refined as before but not quite practical

I feel like the next technological advancement is going to be a superbattery technology that allows us to fit a whole lot of power into a very small space. Then stuff like this machine will be able to operate for extended periods of time with no problem

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earthwoodandfire@reddit

Im actually really impressed that they managed to lift a human. But it also seems relatively useless in practice. It looks like they want to drop a medic, but I can't imagine the range in that is very good, and it looks incredibly unstable and very vulnerable.

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Captain_Jeep@reddit

Seems more like a search and rescue setup after a disaster for reaching areas that are cut off. Even then it's a great start to developing an improved version.

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earthwoodandfire@reddit

Non combat role makes way more sense. Thanks.

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Tank7106@reddit

This would be insanely useful for non-combat operations. Search and Rescue and med-evac, both land and water based. Mineral and land processing, moving people into remote areas to search for rare earth elements, take soil samples after a disaster, or putting someone on ground level to get data on topography. Blue collar work at heights would greatly benefit from this. Think about tower climbers or high line electrical workers, being able to be lifted to the top of a structure for repair or maintenance work without needing to climb or involve a helicopter.

But I honestly can't think of a role in combat that this would fill, that isnt done better by other equipment or technique

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JeSuisOmbre@reddit

I thought the bars on the bottom were for a stretcher. This might have some use shuttling wounded out of front line areas where casualty evacuation isn't possible. In some parts of the front in Ukraine the time to get off the front to a stabilization center can be hours or days.

The obvious downside is that contested areas have horrendous amounts of electronic warfare devices used everywhere. A crash is a guaranteed fatality. In some situations getting flown out on one of these is going to be a lesser risk than going without higher levels of care.

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Mrsuperepicruler@reddit

The stability problem is largly just a tuning problem, with a side of thrust to weight ratio being low. With some time and tuning it corretly it can become very stable. Either way it will be useful in carrying supplies.

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Arctic_chef@reddit

Better option is the leave medics embedded with the unit. Change the platform to handle stretchers. And, use a drone to medivac out critically wounded once they have been stabilized.

Definitely still needs stability upgrades though. Unless you just use it to drop supplies like IVs and such.

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LengthinessOk8602@reddit

I’m sorry 😔 I can’t comment.

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DeltaVZerda@reddit

You just invented helicopters

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Captain_Jeep@reddit

At a fraction of the cost and size.

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DeltaVZerda@reddit

A comparable helicopter is actually cheaper than this drone, and it's 44% faster and with 4x the weight capacity.

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xor_rotate@reddit

Your point on cost is a fair point. This does have some advantages in some situations assuming its range is more than 1km (which it might not be)

- A helicopter requires a trained pilot to fly, helicopter pilots are expensive, hard to find and hard to train. You can just GPS coordinates into this and let it do its thing.
- This runs on electricity which is easier to get. If you have gasoline, you can generate electricity but if you don't have gasoline you can generate electricity.
- It is smaller, and more compact than a helicopter or gyrocopter. You could put this in the back of a truck, drive until you hit some impassable terrain and then use this to cross that terrain. Or if you need to exfiltrate someone, hide this in the woods and then tell the person where to find it and which button to push and let the drone handle the rest.

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larry_flarry@reddit

Also, you can fire up that drone anywhere you've got a ~6 foot gap in vegetation, and land it in the same. You'd need a substantial helispot to launch or land that ultralight.

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DeltaVZerda@reddit

16 feet, not exactly rare. If you can fit a Toyota Hilux, you can land that.

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larry_flarry@reddit

16 feet with a 19.5 foot rotor? Interesting...

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DeltaVZerda@reddit

So it is, I read the length and didn't see the rotor diameter. Fwiw the Hilux takes a 18.25 ft clearing.

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larry_flarry@reddit

A Hilux isn't a circle.

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DeltaVZerda@reddit

According to the Physics department we can assume it is.

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siamesekiwi@reddit

This will work assuming a perfectly spherical hilux.

Fuck now I want a chibi hilux model.

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Paltamachine@reddit

it's not. He just added a reseller's page

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Captain_Jeep@reddit

Are you factoring in the cost of pilot training and pay for that helicopter?

You also need significantly more room to land a heli

If this is being used in a disaster area where their might be lose terrain or debris I think the drone is less likely to cause disturbances than a helicopter but that's just a guess.

The drone is also controlled by someone else which means they can use it to ferry injured people (with modifications to the carrier depending on injury) while that helicopter can only carry its pilot.

And in the event of a problem a helicopter crash is likely to be more serious than the drone crash considering how that drone can problem lose a prop or two and make a softer landing than if that helicopter loses its single prop.

I'm not saying their setup is perfect but it's definitely progress towards a good system.

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DeltaVZerda@reddit

If a helicopter loses power to the entire vehicle, it can glide to the ground and make a soft landing, it's called autorotation. If a drone loses power it falls out of the sky at terminal velocity. If there's a person in a vehicle, it's usually ideal for the person in the vehicle to be the one operating it, since you get much greater situational awareness if you are physically there. In a warzone, you don't want to go over treetops, see bad guys aiming weapons at you, and have to get a message over the radio, competing with the drone's loudness, that the pilot needs to evade fire, and wait for someone else to do it. It is useful to extract someone injured maybe. That helicopter isn't exactly going to struggle to find acceptable landing spots, that's kind of a strength very much shared between either kind of 'copter. Either one of them could land on top of a small shed, or in a driveway. Faster training is the biggest advantage to this system, but it trades a lot of capability and cost efficiency for it. The difference in upfront cost is enough to pay the entire training program for 3 helicopter pilots, which aren't paid more than UAV operators are.

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Kaymish_@reddit

Armies have been trying to reinvent the helicopter for decades. Some of the things the Americans developed in the 1950s and 60s are hilarious. This is those concepts being rediscovered and the reasons they were abandoned will also be rediscovered.

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Both-Employment-5113@reddit

used with an really long range sniper it might be really OP but the dude not wearing an parachute is something else

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robot_Ov-erLorD@reddit

So you put a guy in there with his lunch box, assume the drone operator is competent and doesn't crash, and the guy and his lunch make it over the battlefield. Then what? He is a slow-moving, hilarious target. He will be dead and the sandwich will be shot to hell.

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haveananus@reddit

If it works, I jerks.

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Clo_miller@reddit

Did you notice how small the passenger was compared to the others. Smallest and lightest gets to go. Makes sense for battery life.

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Smallp0x_@reddit

Got the child soldier on there fr lol

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teriaksu@reddit

technically a hexacopter

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JoeyToothpicks@reddit

My favorite part is how the dubbed in helicopter noises and cheesy budget video game rock to hide what is probably a very annoying electric whine. I could see some specialized uses when traditional air or ground transport isn't viable but only in emergencies.

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