A new drone shaped like a bird. Chinese developers have shown a new drone made in the shape of a bird.
Such an invention can turn the drone industry upside down.
The drone is able to fly with the help of wing flapping like a real bird and looks the same.
ornithopters arent exactly new
Exactly
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festo_SmartBird
Not exactly bird like like these other ones though…
How about this one?
https://schylling.com/product/tim-bird-blister/
Largest living bird species wingspan is 3.6m.
How many species have a larger wing span than that? It’s not that many…
That would look out of place in the majority of the world. Condors aren’t exactly flying over every city mate…
It’s so hard to tell how far a bird is by eye that I and, I think, most people would be easily fooled. Especially in clear weather.
Smaller than bald eagles, I see them all the time
You’re clearly being watched!
It also seems to have fewer purposes. If you are trying to get footage or even just a picture it seems like a normal drone is much easier. Takeoff, landing, hovering seem to be weighted to the quad copter design.
These would have fantastical scouting capabilities. Pretty alright at being undercover as long as the target isnt looking for them. You could easily storm a few places unexpectedly with a little bit of explosives and these. This is that shit the Wizard and the evil chick were drooling over in Wicked.
If you’re putting explosives on these things I don’t think it matters. You wouldn’t hear the whirl of the rotors until after it got within striking range.
https://youtube.com/shorts/rmRnw-PzV0U
I would assume the visuals are key here. You can’t normally hear birds flapping anyway. These just look like birds until its too late.
It’s the perfect weapon to spy on other countries for them because any bird would stick out like a sour thumb in China so it can’t be used against them. Meanwhile in other countries it wouldn’t even be looked at.
Is this a Mao Sparrow reference or did all their air pollution kill the birds?
Their bird population never recovered because even migratory birds have their fixed routes and when you exterminate thousands upon thousands of swarms that have settled there for countless generations it breaks the cycle. I guess environmental pollution also doesn’t help. It‘s not like bird populations are doing great anywhere these days but with that history it‘s extra hard for them.
The one thing it has going for it is covert surveillance.
Bird circles 80 times with 15 second gaps of the camera pointed in the wrong direction is all I can imagine. You’d have to swoop the bird directly at the target you wanted to capture the image of unless you are controlling the bird and using a floating camera that you are pointing at the target and rotating separately. Which means the odds of you crashing are going up drastically.
Imagine a camera on the bottom of the body instead of where the eyes would be. Now have it circle like an eagle, flapping as needed. Telephoto lens.
Actually the whole point of birds not having their eyes on the body is that they can essentially stabilize their head with their neck so it is not affected by the flapping motion so much.
Just use a 360 degree camera with stabilization
This might be much more efficient
Plane vs helicopter I imagine. Plane should have a longer range, helicopter is better to get footage.