Stefan Leahu
Member
Well, being an amateur drone pilot, I'm sort of starting to love this discussion. However, I'm a bit short on time today, so I'll try to make this short for now . I'd say that, while a quadcopter drone does emit noise, it can be barely inaudible when at height. In this sense, they can be used to spy simply due to being too small to see/hear when flying at a few hundred feet up and there is ambient noise. Some drones have optical zoom (e.g. a Mavic 2 version), some have digital up to 10x (Fimi X8) but given the fact that most have relatively high-res sensors, details can probably be deduced from most photos/videos.
Now, range and flight time for off-the shelf quadcopters is 30-40 min max and around 6 to 10 miles ( with return) for the good ones. Both can be extended through modification, but it depends.. BUT, as long as the video feed works, most modern drones also record the video feed on the phone, so it's conceivably not necessary for the drone to come back once it got the data. It could, for example, overfly a carrier as it's passing close to land and then autoland itself in the sea on low battery. Sure, they cost at least a few hundred bucks a piece, but for a state actor/ organization , that is nothing.
The real risk/capability lies in the fpv racer and flying wing crowd, as posted above. Those are much easier to customize, including for example using 800 MHz or lower frequencies for long range, or using the 4G mobile network for video feed and control .
I'll leave a few YouTube examples of what is capable using modified consumer drones. As far as I understand, most of these are small enough so their radar footprint is too tiny to be picked up, and at the same time small enough to pass unnoticed if flying at a few hundred feet.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDdawbk6GVE
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTExaurnxUA
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-3reK7i9jQ
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_a9x0vT8l0
Now, range and flight time for off-the shelf quadcopters is 30-40 min max and around 6 to 10 miles ( with return) for the good ones. Both can be extended through modification, but it depends.. BUT, as long as the video feed works, most modern drones also record the video feed on the phone, so it's conceivably not necessary for the drone to come back once it got the data. It could, for example, overfly a carrier as it's passing close to land and then autoland itself in the sea on low battery. Sure, they cost at least a few hundred bucks a piece, but for a state actor/ organization , that is nothing.
The real risk/capability lies in the fpv racer and flying wing crowd, as posted above. Those are much easier to customize, including for example using 800 MHz or lower frequencies for long range, or using the 4G mobile network for video feed and control .
I'll leave a few YouTube examples of what is capable using modified consumer drones. As far as I understand, most of these are small enough so their radar footprint is too tiny to be picked up, and at the same time small enough to pass unnoticed if flying at a few hundred feet.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDdawbk6GVE
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTExaurnxUA
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-3reK7i9jQ
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_a9x0vT8l0