Some quick searching shows that the heavy duty cargo drones top out at about 480 lbs of payload. At 8.33 lbs per gallon, 480 lbs of water is about 57 gallons. According the Wikipedia the smaller end of aerial firefighting planes hold about 800 gallons. So you’d need 15-16 of the most heavy-duty drones to match the output of one plane, and of course it’s simpler and quicker to refill one large tank than fiddling with 16 smaller ones.

[–] ShareThatBread@hexbear.net 31 points 5 months ago (2 children)

8.33 lbs per gallon, 480 lbs of water is about 57 gallons

USAian nonsense.

Metric. 1 kilogram = 1 litre

[–] Orcocracy@hexbear.net 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

This reminds me of a kettle I saw once that had temperature controls for boiling water labelled in fucking Fahrenheit.

[–] keepcarrot@hexbear.net 10 points 5 months ago

The thing that would probably get cheaper is pilot costs. At least here, a pilots licence is about 200 times a commercial drone licence, and I assume insurance costs would come down due to not actually putting people in the air.

There's also an advantage to having more eyes in the sky to spot smaller fires breaking out, and potentially putting them out with a smaller payload.

I can see it having its uses, but the main use would be selling drones.

[–] Enjoyer_of_Games@hexbear.net 8 points 5 months ago

this is ignoring that the planes already barely have an impact on controlling the fires

[–] regul@hexbear.net 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Also, fixed-wing aircraft can still take off even if their thrust-to-weight ratio is less than 1, because they generate lift from forward motion.

Basically you sacrifice accuracy for capacity, but with the unpredictability of winds over wildfires, I doubt how much accuracy you'd truly gain using a drone.

[–] keepcarrot@hexbear.net 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Could you hypothetically use a drone plane (instead of a quadcopter?)? (Or a drone helicopter) (ignore the silly rich man image in OP)