As if launching one drone alone wasn’t good enough, hobbyists at Flite Test have decided that what’s required is a drone carrier. Yep, this video shows one drone take off from the back of another.
The carrier drone is a modified quadcopter, with four rotors supporting a long, rectangular strip. Sat on the back, a small horizontal-launch drone. The carrier clearly struggles a little bit with balance—it’s a good job that the second drone is quite small—but sure enough, it makes it reliably into the air, and then the little drone manages to take off, too.
So, when can we expect a full-grown version? Likely, not for decades. Quadcopters, after all, are massively power hungry. Indeed, Popular Science points out that a human-sized version would require “the same amount of force as that generated by some 70 Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters to lift it into the air.” So, err, we’re in for a wait. [Popular Science]
