Ukrainians have come up with a way to increase the range of the American-made Hornet kamikaze drone, which already has a range of approximately 120 km. The new system is currently being tested. Ukrainian specialists have come up with the idea of attaching Hornet kamikaze drones to a balloon and sending them to the launch site. The balloon is said to deliver the drone up to 42 km away, after which it is released. The drone's battery remains virtually intact, depleting no more than 5%. Thus, a Hornet kamikaze drone dropped from an altitude of 8 km significantly increases its target engagement range.

This specific method of launching a drone significantly increases its range of use in three ways: by increasing the balloon's flight range, by increasing the drone's drop altitude, and by preserving its battery's capacity.

Potentially, in the future, once this system is fully developed, this drone with an installed Starlink terminal will be able to hit targets at a range 1.5-2 times greater than that stated by the developer.

The Hornet kamikaze drone was developed by the American company Swift Beat LLC, which produces drones for Kyiv. It is an aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with a warhead weighing 4-5 kg (estimates vary), capable of reaching speeds of up to 200 km/h and a range of 100 to 145 km (precise figures are unknown). The drone is equipped with a target acquisition system with elements of artificial intelligence.

Russian media

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[–] rockerface@lemmy.cafe 5 points 10 hours ago

Finally, Bloons Tower Offense

[–] Fishnoodle@lemmy.world 13 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

Nice! I've been wondering if this would be a viable\low attention way of moving drones long distances before activating them near the target.

It's also a great mind fuck. Do it successfully once or twice, then just start launching mass numbers of balloons when conditions are right and only put a drone on 1% of them.

Make your enemy scramble fighter jets and waste millions to shoot down some cheap ass weather balloons

[–] froh42@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

99 Luftballons....

[–] Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Floating in the summer sky

99 red balloons go by

[–] bluGill@fedia.io 6 points 12 hours ago

The German version is better.

[–] homes@piefed.world 12 points 13 hours ago

It sounds crazy, but these Ukrainians clearly know what the hell they’re doing

[–] deft@lemmy.wtf 3 points 11 hours ago

Imagine being Russian and seeing this is where your three day special operation brought you

[–] Kowowow@lemmy.ca 3 points 13 hours ago (5 children)

I wonder if it's possible to make stealth balloons that are as invisible on every spectrum as possible and float to major targets deeper in

[–] froh42@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

The other way round. Make them very very very visible on radar. Ballons are cheap, just use hundreds and make 90% just decoys.

[–] rockerface@lemmy.cafe 2 points 10 hours ago

They can just deploy the laser monkey to deal with them, not really worth it

[–] blueworld@piefed.world 2 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I'm not sure it's necessary as the RCS on this in float is less than 0.1 m2 and given it loves with the air mass at 8km it's likely going to be filtered out by the Moving Target Indication filter. Also at 8km (26k ft) it is outside the range of a Repeynik Russian counter-UAV radar (5 km altitude limit, at 10km range).

They might get it when it is in powered flight mode and comes down, but still might be interesting.

[–] Kowowow@lemmy.ca 1 points 10 hours ago

Maybe if they built them right they could act as air deterrent for anything like a jet that moves real fast and costs a lot, if it had something kind of like caltrops on its lifting rope you wouldn't want to run into them and might not be able to see them easily if it's cloudy or foggy

[–] bluGill@fedia.io 2 points 12 hours ago

unlikely - even if the balloon is, the electronics and explosives are not.

[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

Probably easier to overwhelm detection than to evade it

[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 1 points 9 hours ago

For every balloon with a drone, send 100 with a washing machine. The orcs like those.

[–] azimir@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

This is brilliant. The ability to float long distances before changing to powered flight makes the system have a notably different behavior profile than a standard drone.

Slava Ukraini

[–] NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago

Now make a balloon that can reach all those oil facilities currently out of range.