The NTSB concluded that the crash was likely caused by a short circuit igniting fuel vapours in the main fuel tank.
From the breaking news thread:
This is one of my pet peeves. Once upon a time, ‘little airplanes’ were called ‘Piper Cubs’ by the non-flying public. The Piper J-3 Cub was indeed ubiquitous; but there were Aeroncas and Cessnas and any number of manufacturers that may or may not have a passing resemblance to the Cub. Somewhere along the line, ‘every’ ‘little airplane’ came to be known as a ‘Cessna’ (probably because of the relative rarity of Cubs in later years). At least the article says ‘Cessna-style’, but it still makes my teeth itch.
A classic Cessna 172 can haul a half-ton load as far as 700 miles.
It’s true that a Skyhawk can fly almost 700 miles (at 55% power at 12,000 feet). A Skyhawk has a gross weight of about 2,450 pounds and an empty weight of about 1,700 pounds. It carries 56 gallons of fuel, at six pounds per gallon: 336 pounds. That leaves a ‘payload’ of 414 pounds. I assume the 56 gallon fuel capacity is with the optional long-range tanks. The Skyhawks I’ve flown had a capacity of 42 gallons. Smaller tanks reduce the range, but increase the weight it can carry. But that’s still only a quarter of a ton.
Assuming no other modifications to increase payload. I assume you can rip out a lot of your don’t have people in it. Have to add stuff as well. I imagine you gain some capacity.
Still, half a TLAM for probably 5% of the price isn’t bad.
A moment of confusion for me - this Skyhawk, not that that Skyhawk 
.
I’ll take either one.
Are those ranges the drop-dead absolute maximum, or do they include some standard safety margin? Because for a suicide drone, you can probably justify tighter margins.
That’s with a 45 minute reserve.
Per Tamerlane’s link, it will fly 696 miles at economy cruise on 56 gallons of fuel. IIRC, two gallons are unusable, so call it 54 gallons. That comes out to almost 13 mpg in still air. But to put it in more useful (and usual) numbers, 55% power should deliver 112 smph for a maximum endurance of 6.2 hours with a 45 minute reserve. (That still seems very optimistic to me.) Anyway, 45 minutes at 112 smph would be an additional 84 miles.
As for the drone used in the attack, I can’t tell what kind of aircraft it is. It resembles a Flight Design CT, with its headquarters in Germany (so it would not be difficult to get). With two seats, this is a smaller aircraft that a Cessna Skyhawk. Empty weight is 701 pounds. Maximum takeoff weight is 1,323 pounds. Fuel capacity is 33.6 U.S. gallons, or 201 pounds. So 1,323 minus 701 minus 201 comes to a payload of 421 pounds.
From comments on Peter Zeihan’s Youtube video about this, the plane is an Aeroprakt A22LS two seater.
Thanks for finding that. It looks similar to my guess, It makes sense they would use one of those, since it’s a Ukrainian aircraft.
I know very little about airplanes, but I assume that there is easily a 20-50kg of payload to be won if you don’t have to have a “real plane with real people” flying … stuff like seats, yokes, cockpit, A/C and lavatories 
that you don’t need…
that’s what? 15-20 gal. potential extra fuel / explosives
‘Little airplanes’ don’t tend to have air conditioning or lavatories.
Assuming the Aeroprakt A22LS, the seats are little more than lawn chairs, and the yokes look very lightweight. I’d wager that the remote controls/servos and associated hardware are fairly weighty.
ETA: Since endurance is in gallons per hour rather than miles per gallon, a good, free, way of extending your range is to launch the drone on a day when you have a nice tailwind.
I’m guessing private aviation is not a thing in Russia? Strange how Russian air defense didn’t care about the aircraft.
General Aviation in Russia + a little bit about my experience by a Russian pilot.
Currently the only way to get a Russian pilot’s certificate is to go to a state university and get a CPL, so most new pilots go straight to airlines, clocking their only Cessna or Diamond hours at the university.
However, GA in Russia still exists, albeit at a very tiny scale…
Most flights conducted here are sightseeing flights by the local air club - there are barely any private flights, and even those are just local VFR around the field or patterns. So while in the rest of the world GA is considered a mode of transport, here it’s seen as either an expensive toy or a business.
There are companies now designing AI-driven “robots” to fly unmodified planes. It’s a box that “sits” in the pilot seat and has mechanical “arms” that connect to the existing yoke or stick, pedals, and engine controls. The intent is that, like a human pilot, it’s a drop-in device that requires no modification to the airplane.
It weighs a bit less than a human, maybe 100lbs, in current designs. So some gain, but not lots.
Their idea is they do the engineering just once for all planes, rather than constructing a customized interface for each type of plane to be de-humanized.
This is not exactly where the Ukrainians are, but the connection between this and UKR is that there are tradeoffs between minimum mods and delivery times. If I was UKR, I’d be all about “cheaper” and “faster” while ignoring “better”.
yep, as long as it makes boom where and when it should, good is good enough … and more is better
He’s not helping Ukraine with these comments. Experts were telling Ukraine from the beginning that it takes time to train and equip a modern Air Force.
I see the point that rockets, ammunition and shells are the most urgent need right now. Ukraine is in serious peril along the 600 mile front.
Come to think of it, it occurs to me that, for a lot of missions for a suicide-drone plane, additional fuel is, itself, a payload: When you reach your target and crash, whatever is left in your tanks will burn. So you probably don’t want to drain your tanks completely dry, unless there’s some specific target you really want to hit and that’s the only way to reach it.
IIRC, that’s one of the benefits of firing upon an enemy at short range rather than long range: not only do you stand a higher chance of scoring a hit, but your antiship or cruise missile has more un-expended fuel with which to inflict more damage via fire after hit.
I don’t know if I should add a link, but the capital of Myanmar was attacked by a group of 29 drones. This sounds quite similar to what you folks are discussing.
Myanmar is in the midst of an active insurgency.
Large portions of the nation are not fully in control of the official government, which gives the insurgents a lot of territory and safe supply lines to operate from without worrying about interference or arrest.
That would be quite different than an attack from within the territory of the US, where law enforcement and intelligence agencies are quite vigilant. There are no large-scale safe harbors for the logistics and operations of such an attempt.