Drones have relatively limited range.

MALE/HALE UAVs have an endurance of 30> hours and a range of nearly 4-5000 (7000km>) nautical miles without aerial refueling.

Thanks, I had no idea regarding range. Although, if launched from mainland China a round-trip to Canada is still pretty darn far, eh?

But now I am playing the guessing game a bit too much for my own liking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-altitude_long-endurance...

You assume it was launched from the ground, both air and sea launches are quite possible too.

Also there is the Arctic you can take off and land on ice and use either an icebreaker or a sub for deployment and recovery.

China does have some advanced drones with a substantial range e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guizhou_WZ-7_Soaring_Dragon

Ofc how they perform in reality vs their published specs no one knows.

In the past at least likes of China and Russia tended to inflate the specs that they made public whilst the west tended to keep the real figures hidden and release far more conservative figures especially when it came to things like maximum speed, range and operational ceiling.

Sure, but those have wings. A cylinder would have to maintain altitude with some kind of thrust. Lets imagine something like a jet engine oriented vertically. How much flight time do you think that could manage?

I don’t personally think that the 2nd object was a drone at least not a traditional aircraft UAV, I just replied to correct the assumption that drones have a relatively short range and low endurance.

That’s no moon.