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posted by
Woods
on Saturday May 17 2014, @12:51AM
from the computerized-capers-create-cautious-cops dept.
from the computerized-capers-create-cautious-cops dept.
Russian border guards near Kaliningrad "detained" a low-flying drone entering the country from Lithuania last week. According to a spokesperson for Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), it wasn't on a spy mission-it was smuggling cigarettes. The autonomous aircraft, which had a four-meter (13-foot) wingspan, flew close to the ground following GPS waypoints and released cigarette cartons from its cargo bay at designated drop zones. When captured, it was carrying 10 kilograms (about 22 pounds) of illicit cargo.
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Russians Capture Cigarette-Smuggling Drone
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by BasilBrush on Saturday May 17 2014, @04:49PM
The PR stunt Amazon drones are quadracopters. The might be better at doing VTOL and precise manoeuvring, but they won't have the speed, lifting capacity or range of this plane type drone. And those are three things you want if you are smuggling.
Looks to me like this is an innovative use of drones. They seem to have made two mistakes: flying during the day, and following the same route multiple times. At night, with random routes and preferably different take off and drop off points, and this idea will be very difficult to stop, and harder still to locate the smugglers using it.
The war on drugs just became even more impossible to win. :-)
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