Re:Guy builds nightvision drone to hunt feral pigs
by josefresco on Monday September 26, 2011 @10:14AM
(#3038996)
Those guided missiles while very explosive can be delivered with some shockingly accurate precision. I believe it was a recent Frontline where I heard they could guide these missiles through a car window (no reference sorry) of a moving vehicle.
The high explosive part seems more for insurance than a requirement for a successful hit.
Civilians of course don't have access to this stuff, but if the military has the capability now, it will eventually trickle down.
Re:Guy builds nightvision drone to hunt feral pigs
by flexd on Monday September 26, 2011 @01:32PM
(#3039888)
The other difference is that a predator or reaper drone is the size of a small plane, his plane (or anything like it) is about just a basic remote controlled model, a bigger plane would fly much higher and be much more stable.
- Small.
- Far away
- Moving quickly in relation to the aircraft.
Additionally, you have lots of vibration (from the engine, and air turbulence) and you have to count every gram of payload; which makes precision weapons unhappy, since they're both heavy and want to be held very still.
You can solve the killer trio with very high rates of fire, or explosive projectiles.[1] These are both either very expensive or illegal for civilians; and you wouldn't want to be using them on a rice field anyway.
There's a reason Predator UAVs use guided missiles, not small arms.
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[1]: The canonical ground-attack weapon, the GAU-8/A, uses both: 30mm explosive shells at 4,200 rounds per minute. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger