
Record-breaking hybrid drone stays aloft for over four hours - prostoalex
https://newatlas.com/quaternium-record-endurance-drone-flight/52758/
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bri3d
The usable energy density of fossil fuel is hard to beat, especially in a
weight-constrained application like a drone. I'm surprised more of these
haven't hit the market yet. The refueling advantage is substantial in a fleet
application, too.

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aptwebapps
Weight-constrained and energy-hungry. Fixed wing drones can stay up for much
longer.

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lathiat
Have both, a quadplane.. (or triplane in the below case).

VTOL (Vertical Take Off & Landing) plus the economy of fixed wing flight. In
the case below, flown automatically by ArduPilot. [https://youtu.be/hDG-
KlYyYDU?t=65](https://youtu.be/hDG-KlYyYDU?t=65)

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Lerc
Something that has been on my mind for a while is how much efficiency is
needed (and how far from that are we) to have a drone hold itself aloft on
it's own solar power.

It's probably a bit tricky to get data on solar panel efficiency by weight.

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extrapickles
You can have an easier time if the solar panels are mounted on the bottom of
the drone, and you shine a large laser at them. Disclaimer: I am involved with
a company that does it this way.

Nasa has built[0] a drone awhile back that flies on solar power, though it was
limited to flights during daylight hours as not enough mass was available for
enough batteries to last the night.

[0]:
[https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/history/pastprojects/Era...](https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/history/pastprojects/Erast/centurion2.html)

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chillingeffect
This is something I've wondered about for a long time. Good to see it happen
:)

Could it go even longer if the motors burned the fuel directly?

Could fuel motor speeds be controlled with enough bandwidth to remain stable
like electric ones?

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ggg9990
Four separate gasoline engines would be very heavy and a single engine with
distribution driveshafts would be mechanically complicated. For fuel-powered
rotary wings the speed cannot be varied fast enough to maintain control, so
you'd use a collective pitch control on the rotor blades to achieve stable
flight.

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gaze
That's a super weird camera angle. I wonder if it's in ground effect?

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asgioiobuio
Can we stop talking about quadcopters as if they're the only kind of drone on
the planet? There are other kinds of drones with far better endurance, e.g.
Predator drones which can stay in the air for 24 hours.

