from Hacker News

New Electric Drone Has Groundbreaking Flight Time

by kevitivity on 9/16/18, 6:46 AM with 38 comments

• by jjcm on 9/17/18, 4:08 AM

  I feel like this is more advertising than actual innovation. They claim that the battery packs form part of the structural frame, but based on the images on the site [0] it looks like they're just loose batteries inserted everywhere. The lithium batteries themselves aren't providing any structural integrity by the appearance of the drone, and I suspect that they end up using more surface area that has to be structural to encase them than if they just had one giant brick in the center with carbon fiber arms.

  I'm playing armchair scientist here, but I think the advertising and marketing are better than the actual breakthroughs.

  [0]: https://i.imgur.com/usZuqFG.png

• by kawfey on 9/17/18, 3:08 AM

  After scrolling through their website [0] I can't help but to think of Portal 2's "Official Turrets" trailer [1], except it's batteries instead of bullets.

  [0]: https://impossible.aero/ [1]: https://youtu.be/GGPIQ72-2Vg?t=7

• by allthenews on 9/17/18, 6:39 AM

  >“It never made sense to me that it was possible to have a battery-powered car that could drive more than 300 miles but not have a battery-powered drone that could fly more than about 20 minutes,” he says.

  I don't see why...drone flight requires substantial power output to counteract gravity, which increases in proportion to the battery mass. Unlike a rolling vehicle

  This stinks of marketing gibberish.

• by foobarbecue on 9/17/18, 6:01 AM

  Why do people buy into this sort of nonsense?? How are VCs and tech writers so incapable of basic conceptual verification?? This company appears to have built nothing except for ideas which don't stand up to the most cursory physical analysis.

• by bryguy on 9/17/18, 9:02 AM

  Does anyone know about hydrogen-powered drones? Something worth considering? https://danieldonatelli.wixsite.com/hydrogen-generator/hydro...

• by Hysterisis on 9/17/18, 6:00 AM

  Terms like “groundbreaking” and “game changer” get thrown around so much now that they’ve lost all meaning.

• by sonium on 9/17/18, 10:26 AM

  If someone would like to check the validity of their claim, here is a great calculation tool for drones: https://www.ecalc.ch/xcoptercalc.php

• by Tarragon on 9/17/18, 2:10 PM

  "Groundbreaking Flight Time" for a quadrotor.

  In 2005 AC-Propulsion flew a fixed wing drone for 48 hours and could have gone indefinitely.

  https://www.machinedesign.com/news/solar-powered-uav-flies-t...

• by mg96226 on 9/17/18, 4:18 AM

  Not sure how much innovation this is, considering it trades extended flight time for the inability to replace the battery pack. You get to fly longer, but once you're done, you're done until you can plug it in and give it the 90 minutes it needs to recharge. For most applications, field-swappable batteries are a must.

  The real breakthroughs will come from new battery chemistry and fuel cells.

• by fisherjeff on 9/17/18, 3:34 AM

  “It can reach speeds of more than 68 kilometers per hour, and can fly more than 75 kilometers before recharging.”

  So groundbreaking flight time is... one hour?