The guys who launch Ukrainian drones follow the drone on the runway, “To make sure it takes off”. Why? Can they not see that it is airborne on instrumentation?
Good bet the takeoff is hand-flown by the drone operator and not just left to a computer. That’s vastly easier to do when you’re looking at it with your own eyes rather than trying to fly off instruments that have uncertain lag in them from the intervening radio link and network.
Imagine it’s windy and just as the drone is getting light on its feet and about to lift off a big gust hits and now it’s about to drag a wingtip, cartwheel, and explode. far better to be right there to see & react instantly (at least human-instantly) than wait 1/2 or 3/4s of a second to see the results on your instruments and then react at human speed.
Once the ground is 15 or 30 feet away that need for instant reaction drops away. They probably do something similar on landing.
Lastly, fancier drones do have automatic systems that can make safe takeoffs even in adverse conditions. But for what’s really a one-way mission with a flying bomb, why invest in that more expensive computer sensor suite when you can solve the problem as easily with a reusable car and driver?
Could be, it being dark. It may just be a trip to drive two cars at 100KPH down the runway.
If doesn’t take off he can tow it back with a car.
Good point.
Note the units, there. 100 KPH is just normal highway speeds (a bit on the slow side for highways, actually), no great adventure.
but how often do you get to drive on a runway? That’s the novel part.
I was on an empty, closed runway late one night last month. It was very tough not to give into the temptation to see if I could get a car to take off (despite the lack of wings). I could have reached more than the necessary speed & had about 8/10 of a mile to do it!
If you work at an airport or in drone launching, several times a day. Otherwise, darn near never.
I have a few times ridden in a pickup driven by ground staff around a busy hub airport. It’s really disorienting and kinda scary. These huge machines are moving around, you can’t see the drivers, and nobody has turn signals or brake lights. You feel like a mouse skittering around amongst the migrating elephants, where one zig when you should have zagged and you’ll be a grease stain squeezed between elephant toes. Even going 60mph you feel like you’re crawling, trying to get around in this vast space devoid of familiar car landmarks like lane lines. And just like a mouse, there’s safety along the “walls” and impending death out in the open.
Weird. But fun weird.
Yeah, just “driving on a runway”, in itself, is probably cool the first time you do it. The next time, well, it’s Tuesday and that’s your job.
Yes, I picked 60 mph and changed the units. That is a crazy speed to drive with a drone 12 feet in front of you and a car twelve feet behind.
I can see one car to use the remote, but two seems nuts.
The second car is the one carrying the news reporter for the filming of what we’re watching. Its probably not normally there.
Ah, thanks.
The U-2 chase planes got to have a little more fun, as the touchdown speed was reportedly a little over 100 MPH.
ISTR this is basically how the US manages its military drones. They are famously flown by pilots who sit in virtual cockpits in the US, but only during the middle part of the flight, where the laggy satellite-linked control inputs aren’t much of a problem. During takeoff and landing at their forward base, control is handed off to a pilot at that forward base, who controls the drone through a direct radio link, with negligible control lag.
If they have GPS for navigation, then they would likely have speed info, but maybe not - in which case the car’s speed can tell the drone operator when to rotate.
The other thing the car provides is lighting. In the OP’s video, they’re launching in the dark on a runway with no lights. No reason to waste money equipping the drone with headlights or night vision; this saves construction costs, and increases the payload capacity of the drone.