How is it able to fly such long distance, without running out of fuel?
Drones for war = one way trip? It won’t be capable to return from a long journey right?
In: Engineering
The Airbus A380 has the following specifications:
– Empty weight: 285,000 kg
– Max takeoff weight: 575,000 kg
– Max Fuel capacity: 254,000 kg
– Cargo, crew and passenger max weight = 36,000 kg
Max weights as a % of total weight:
– Aircraft: 50%
– Fuel: 44%
– C,C,P: 6%
The oldest military drone in use by the US military is the MQ-1 Predator, which first started being used in 1995.
Here are its specs:
– Empty weight: 513 kg
– Max weight: 1,020 kg
– Max fuel weight: 387 kg
– Payload max wright: 120 kg
Max weights as a % of total weight:
– Aircraft: 50%
– Fuel: 38%
– Payload: 12%
As you can see the vehicle itself makes up about half the weight in both cases. The aircraft has a larger fuel capacity likely due to needing a higher margin for error given passenger lives are involved. But even then the values are not drastically different. For the drone nearly 2/5 of the weight is fuel. The fuel tanks aren’t really that small.
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