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When it comes to industrial copter-type drones, it's easy to think that there are just two varieties: little ones that carry Amazon-type small packages, and full-sized unmanned helicopters. Griff Aviation, however, recently announced an aircraft that sits somewhere between the two. The Norwegian company's Griff 300 weighs 75 kg (165 lb) on its own, and can reportedly lift a payload of up to 225 kg (496 lb).
The Griff 300 is an octocopter, meaning it has eight propellers each powered by a separate motor. Depending on how much it's carrying, one charge of its battery pack is good for a claimed flight time of 30 to 45 minutes.
It's manually flown from the ground using a radio remote control, although users can also opt for a custom helicopter-cabin-like mobile control station in which they fly it by first-person view.
Subliminal message filter returns: "go buy a drone".
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RedBear on Sunday December 25 2016, @12:39PM
I'm just going to venture a guess that the flight time when carrying the full load would actually be something more like 5 minutes. I think I'll wait for its big brother, the 800kg model, before I ask it for a ride any further than across the street. But it's a great concept, and a larger model with a flight time of 60-90 minutes at full payload could be pretty useful for Coast Guard type offshore rescue work. The helicopters they use here in Alaska only have the capability to carry maybe three or four rescuees at absolute maximum, plus the pilots, rescue swimmer and winch/basket operator. Take out the pilots and pertinent piloting equipment (chairs, windows, dashboard instruments, controls, etc.) and you might have weight carrying capacity for three more people. Or, since the drones will probably be much cheaper than the current helicopters, you send out several drones together, or in sequence, one every few minutes. One rescue swimmer jumps out of the first drone, stays in the water helping people into the lift baskets until everyone is rescued, then the swimmer gets picked up by the last drone. The drones in between can carry an extra person since there's no rescue swimmer on board. Or, in calm seas, a drone could use its carrying capacity to airlift you a large survival raft, or a dewatering pump.
I can definitely see this being a common usage for drones 35-50 years from now. Some aspects of this scenario will probably be in use within 15-20 years. All the relevant technology is already in use. We just need a larger drone with a little better runtime than what's currently available, and enough power to fly around in the rain in 40 knot winds for a useful amount of time. Hell, you could design a drone that floats and let it just land in the water after delivering its cargo, to be retrieved later by a recovery ship. It could help people at twice the distance a CG helicopter can go, since the CG helicopters can't land at sea and must return to base each trip. So they can only assist vessels within about 33% of their total operational flight range.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ