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Justherebecausemeh t1_je0wfse wrote

I feel like I’ve understood this tactical application since I saw the first YouTube video of racing drones 5-10 years ago.

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CygnusX-1-2112b t1_je15lqm wrote

Even worse, the terror potential.

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ChunkStumpmon t1_je1f8ji wrote

Kinda makes you think most of the sacrifices we make to stop terrorism is just security theater

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CygnusX-1-2112b t1_je1hecj wrote

The idea is too simple to pass up, and considering how often it's been showcased to be effective in Ukraine, it's a wonder terror cells haven't been using this method in developed countries.

There must be a reason it's not happening, something we're not privy to that is preventing it from being widespread.

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[deleted] t1_je27w3b wrote

Because terrorists aren’t as common as the government leads you to believe

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poqpoq t1_je5iee9 wrote

This.

Self preservation is a strong basic motivator. It’s extremely rare for an individual to both have enough desire to do something radical with planning while also lacking the will to keep living.

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ChunkStumpmon t1_je1lu42 wrote

It’s nothing- that’s the scary part. Just like philosophy’s mad quest to find out what ensured the scientific laws were obeyed and causation occurred- it’s just happening as it should for now without reason

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[deleted] t1_je21wyk wrote

[deleted]

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ChunkStumpmon t1_je2e2zd wrote

I’m sure they do, they can also stop lone gunman easily- but this is America and there are lots of people stroking guns without actionable intentions. Thank god for Netflix and door dash- our new opiates

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[deleted] t1_je2hw0z wrote

[deleted]

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ChunkStumpmon t1_je2j3pz wrote

I’m Canadian living in Florida- it changes culture. You don’t get in fights or road rage because people could just shoot you in the face. I think once you accept it, it is a way of living. Not without its costs though

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abramthrust t1_je2cccw wrote

FPV pilot (recreational) here.

The reason you don't see more FPV drones used in attacks is that they are quite difficult to fly, and as such skilled enough pilots are relatively hard to come by.

I am fairly certain that the FPV drone attacks we are watching are from people who were pilots before the war and are using the skills they already have.

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CygnusX-1-2112b t1_je2elch wrote

So while this is possible, I'm not quite convinced. Having owned a few cheaper FPV drones, and having a friend who is pretty deep in the hobby, I can say that it's not easy, but it's not a skill any more difficult to learn then good marksmanship, and it's a very innocuous one to learn with purchases that won't raise any red flags. A years time (the time since these drones started being used in combat) is plenty of time to learn how to reliably ram an FPV drone in roughly the area you want.

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Lint_baby_uvulla t1_je2vzr3 wrote

future

got it, AI autonomous murder bots will target FPV pilots in the first waves.

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slowslownotbad t1_je52bvl wrote

Now I really want to try an FPV drone. Former military pilot, I still think I’m hot shit, haven’t thought about aircraft in ages.

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abramthrust t1_je5ar04 wrote

They fly less like an aircraft and more like the most manuverable helicopter you've ever imagined.

Doubly so for the ones capable of 3D flight model (props can spin backward)

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[deleted] t1_je83h25 wrote

They’re fun as hell bro buy a controller and velocidrone on the computer and practice a bit then buy one!!

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IronicBread t1_je46rwh wrote

Nah that's not it, doesn't take long to learn and you can train using simulators. Learning to fly them isn't a big barrier to entry.

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mike772772 t1_je38lz0 wrote

Ahahaha you ain’t lying I got mine 2 months ago and can barely go half throttle lol scary fast and so much fun

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870223 t1_je53rsm wrote

So you're saying 9/11 was done by folks who were willing to go to flight school but FPV is too hard?

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abramthrust t1_je5acx2 wrote

TBH, yes.

They both take about the same pilot training (hrs wise) but FPV is far less destructive (and headline grabbing) than hijacking a plane full of people.

As a bonus*, the plane is already a bomb with all the fuel onboard. FPV terrorist has to make his own warhead.

*"bonus" is a highly subjective word here.

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870223 t1_je5eh4w wrote

Fair.

But can kerosine melt steel beams?

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abramthrust t1_je5fmab wrote

>But can kerosine melt steel beams?

Assuming you're not just memeing:

Not a mettalurgist, but IIRC it's can't fully melt structural steel, but it can weaken it until it no longer has the excess load bearing capacity to remain stable.

If Memeing: no one has conclusively proven that LiPo battery fires didn't cause the world trade center collapse...

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[deleted] t1_je83e28 wrote

Dude it took me like a week of playing with the simulator to be able to fly well enough to do something like that, it doesn’t really take any skill to fly a drone straight to a target

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apocolipse t1_je3vuu7 wrote

Logistically speaking, the size/weight of improvised explosives that deliver results terrorists are looking for are typically too heavy for small drones. Terror devices also typically employ various amounts of miscellaneous shrapnel, to get the most effect out of limited explosive power, but also significantly increasing payload weight. To make any use out of explosives that weigh enough to let the drone still be pretty fast, you'd have to swarm them. That'd be a pretty effective tactic, but it obviates the benefit of drones over just using any other long range weaponry, precision guidance. If you're just going to spray and pray, do it with something bigger. For super precision individual strikes, a racing drone could maybe take out small targets, 1-3 people, but that's not a terrorists target. And even worse for those cases, they're extremely loud and easy to spot, they wouldn't be too difficult to evade. They're fast and nimble but that's relative, you're looking at 60mph averages, especially with a payload. You can dodge a 60mph car, you can probably dodge a 60mph drone.
They're honestly most effective in Ukraine because Russia is just terribly incompetent. For military use they're effective at rendering stationary equipment inoperable, or taking out a lead truck in a convoy, or blowing up an ammo depot. They're easily deflected with proper equipment since we know what tech they're using (2.4ghz or 900/433mhz control links, 5.8ghz video links), Jamming them is actually easy, just Russia sucks and can't wipe its ass and shit on its elbow at the same time. If they had enough explosive capability to, say, blow up a bridge, you can bet the Kerch Straight bridge would be gone by now.

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Delbert3US t1_je1wh0h wrote

I think it is that currently they have to be individually controlled and are somewhat short ranged. That control signal can be tracked and intercepted.
Once they can be more autonomous, then the flood gates open.

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StatusSea5409 t1_je1yiuh wrote

All you'd really have to do is get close to the maximum range and go in. It might get intercepted but for now there's no real protection for it

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Delbert3US t1_je2kv4i wrote

I was talking more about signal tracking to the source. The farther away the longer you have to track the signal to its source.

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OcotilloWells t1_je3eqyk wrote

Even worse, I was just reading (I think on Hackaday) that at least some DJI drones transmit both its location and the controller's location coordinates unencrypted.

The thing is, you take that into consideration and there's ways you can mitigate the risk in that. Also, how quickly can the Russian figure that signal out, convert the drone coordinates into whatever they use, and pass that to a gun or missle battalion fire direction center? As well as how quickly that FDC can get that to a gun/missle section that can engage that coordinates? I'm sure the Ukrainians can say, with fair accuracy by now.

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StatusSea5409 t1_je2lugv wrote

Oh. Well that's easy. Grab a few burgers, find stray dogs, let them get a good smell and start begging, that's when you fly the drone do the damage, connect the controller to a stray, toss the bag of burgers and walk off. As long as you have your crime skill high enough you should be able to pull it off without a nat20

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Sharp-Accident-2061 t1_je4v9vx wrote

I imagine it’s very difficult to make an explosive charge small and deadly enough to fit on a drone.

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CygnusX-1-2112b t1_je4wmn1 wrote

Tell me, did you read the article at all, and have you watched anything to come out of Ukraine in the past year? It is in fact not so difficult as it may seem.

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Sharp-Accident-2061 t1_je4y2vq wrote

I did not read the article as it requires me to make an account. Still producing explosives is not an easy task. In the US you can but smokeless powder for reloading and such. But that won’t make a bomb without a sufficiently robust device to contain it. Don’t know what that process is like in other countries.

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Draymond_Purple t1_je54hs0 wrote

A drone bomb is still a bomb, so controlling bomb making materials still prevents drone bombs too

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skyfireee t1_je409dg wrote

Its not THAT effective in warzone, thats why you do not hear much about famous turkish UAV's anymore. It is very easy to distress any signals in area using low qualified soldier (driver + operator) and RLB-vehicle. When we see a drone putting a grenade (whatever side of conflict it is), ok, great, you wounded 2 soldiers in trench. What about other 12.998 that nearby?

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CygnusX-1-2112b t1_je4ne39 wrote

Because it's not about its tactical effectiveness, but its strategic effectiveness. You kill those two in a place where they were supposed to be safe, at a time when there was no event near, and most of those other 12,998 are going to always feel in the back of their minds like they could be next, no matter where they are. It shows paranoia, and damages event morale.

But even more, I'm talking about the targeting of civilians for terror purposes. The effect of fear based on the killing of a few is amplified greatly because it's done in a place they're definitely supposed to be safe.

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skyfireee t1_je62ny2 wrote

Thanks, I added another phobia XD And now Iam jealous for some "high life" and government buildings which surrounded with no-gps zone (drones (which relies) just drops down there)

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Artanthos t1_je1o6pe wrote

This is the almost certain extension of what is being learned in Ukraine.

It’s not a question of if, it’s when.

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SloWi-Fi t1_je38gkh wrote

I met a young guy in my area that says he sends modified 3d printers to his friends families in the Ukraine for such purposes of building things. I don't remember if he said drones though...

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-tiberius t1_je29jnj wrote

A few years ago there was a choreographed drone display during the Super Bowl halftime show. I was horrified. If we can pre-program these cheap drones to dance around the sky, someone is going to pre-program a swarm armed with rudimentary explosive devices. The idea that some guy can buy these online, arm them, program each with an individual target, and launch dozens or hundreds out the back of a Uhaul is fucking terrifying. We need jammers. We need countermeasures. We probably need a watch list for people buying large numbers of these things.

Best they could give us in Afghanistan in 2016 was a Mossberg 500 and some birdshot. That shit was probably futile then, it almost certainly is now.

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ThePhotoGuyUpstairs t1_je2nvsp wrote

You've just made me reflect on the carnage that could be wrought by a swarm of tiny drones armed with small explosive packages, flown into the crowd from above at a Super Bowl or something.

And I don't know how you could stop it if a plan got that far...

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-tiberius t1_je2qquo wrote

Yeah, it's a terrifying possibility, and the more these drones show themselves effective in combat, the more likely I think it that some asshole will get the idea to try. Hell, ISIS successfully killed some French soldiers almost 9 years ago with a single drone loaded with C4. Thank god none of their adherents in Europe or the US were able to do the same, because they wouldn't hesitate.

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CygnusX-1-2112b t1_je2fgnc wrote

Yep, bingo on that. Birdshot is the current SOP for Russian forces, and see how well that's worked for them.

It is the most sobering realization to me that in all likelihood, if I were in a public place and an attack of this nature were to be enacted, my life would likely be forfeit. It's why I have to shamefully admit I don't go to many public places like shopping centers or malls.

A friend of mine builds FPV drones as a hobby, as well. If you've got them know-how, theyre incredibly cheap and easy to make. So you can't just flag drive purchases, but motors, wiring, 3d printer filaments, anything that can be used to make homebrew kamikaze drones.

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Boringredditor6 t1_je38iky wrote

You’re avoiding public places because of drone attacks that don’t happen? You need a good therapist.

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CygnusX-1-2112b t1_je3iexu wrote

Well... You're not wrong. Crowds make me irrationally nervous on edge and anticipating something terrible happening.

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MayIServeYouWell t1_je3a33w wrote

I’ve been waiting for the day a world leader is taken-out in dramatic fashion by a home made drone like these. I’m kind of shocked it hasn’t happened yet. I’ve been saying this for years.

That’ll change a lot of things related to drones very quickly, because people are ruled by irrational fear.

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MirLivesAgain t1_je44hc3 wrote

There are counter security measures for these things. I think they have a jamming gun and one that just shoots a giant net.

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MooingTurtle t1_je153vw wrote

Same with everyone else?

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Justherebecausemeh t1_je164c0 wrote

I assume. Kind of surprised we haven’t seen more of it.

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Valyrian_Kobolds t1_je16lk1 wrote

Rigging a reliable detonator is always the hard part.

Any idiot can make a bomb. Not any idiot can make a bomb that blows up their target and not themselves

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Mobely t1_je17cwy wrote

There’s a catch 22 to disagreeing with you lol

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Valyrian_Kobolds t1_je17ja7 wrote

Look I never said it would be a good bomb, good enough to blow your hands off though

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EggCouncilCreeps t1_je1m614 wrote

Heh. All the sparks that flew off our projects in physics class had to be worth something, but I have no idea whether they'd actually blow anything up. I've always kind of dreamed of having the kind of job where I'd get to test that shit tho.

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Artanthos t1_je1qc30 wrote

I wouldn’t go with a bomb.

I would go with an agricultural drone and spray homemade napalm over a large/dense crowd.

Flares are fairly easy to set up as an ignition source.

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awesomeguy_66 t1_je2eizt wrote

It’s surprising we haven’t seen any drone terrorist attacks or assassinations yet, apart from the middle east

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[deleted] t1_je0xm34 wrote

[deleted]

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Kael_Alduin t1_je1dqma wrote

The world as a whole is done I think. With ALL the greed humanity has, we are done. Between dictators using tech in horrible ways, to global warming, to nukes. Our days are numbered I think 🤔

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Remote-Ad-2686 t1_je1o1j2 wrote

The 1950s entered the chat….

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plopseven t1_je27nnr wrote

I dunno. In the 1950s a corporation couldn’t create a militarized army of combat drones and operate them from space…

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GatoradeNipples t1_je2yqm3 wrote

Yeah, we're basically in the version of the 50s out of Mike Pondsmith's nightmares.

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Trolodrol t1_je34ftn wrote

It feels like the leaders are getting crazier too. Putin is not Khrushchev

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jackel2rule t1_je4pohr wrote

Is there a corporation that has a militarized army of combat drones now?

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SalsaBueno t1_je4yr5i wrote

I’d wager that the statistical likelihood of that being true is somewhere around 100%

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jankyspankybank t1_je1iu5g wrote

Ever since I learned what a nuclear missile was I. Just new our days were numbered.

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ChampionshipKlutzy42 t1_je1ohn5 wrote

You are not wrong, you can probably blame capitalism for this, it's an ideology based on greed. As soon as those in power have AI/Android replacements, they will have no more use for us.

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Anonymous_linux t1_je2c6ew wrote

Communism on the other hands does not work either and from the past experience of my country I can say it is in fact way worse than capitalism.

So which ideology actually works?

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ChampionshipKlutzy42 t1_je2eknf wrote

Your communism likely failed due to direct capitalist intervention and/or greedy despotic leadership. Communism has a much better chance in succeeding, capitalism/ democracy has none.

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Anonymous_linux t1_je2f0r5 wrote

I don't agree with you on this. But that's all right. Seems like you do not live in the post-communism (post-Soviet) country to actually know how bad communism can be. And no it was not because of capitalist intervention.

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ArnoF7 t1_je4zrch wrote

As a person who grew up in post-communism country, those persons in the west who keep commenting about how communism works and if it’s not for xxx it would have worked really make me depressed.

Like can we just move on please. It has already caused some of the most traumatic moments in the entire history of this land. Can we please just move on from this? I don’t want any risk that my future kids have to live through what my grandparents live through just to keep doing this mostly baseless ideological experiment.

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Neo_Techni t1_je434h9 wrote

If communism can't succeed without the support of capitalism, then you're admitting it can't succeed.

And communism will always have greedy fascists in charge, and always has

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TurdFrgoson t1_je528kx wrote

They have been saying that for decades....and we're still here. The earth was supposed to be uninhabitable by the year 2000, then it was 2012, now I think they're saying 2030. Florida was supposed to be underwater already. It's a lie to get you to give up your freedoms.

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Lopsided-Simple-422 t1_je21nrb wrote

I agree except there’s no such thing as global warming. That’s why they rebranded it as climate change.

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Mephistophol t1_je1crv8 wrote

I was actually privy to this although lightly, apparently China has been working on drone swarms since 2018 and that’s why the Navy is now backing it so heavily.

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slowslownotbad t1_je526s5 wrote

Yeah, and you just need an AI to command it strategically. Chat to it, if you will. About strategy.

Luckily nobody has invented such a chat bot, let alone a 4th version of it…

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ChessCheeseAlpha t1_je4di8p wrote

Super cheap and super effective. I’m sure all the weapons manufactures just love it

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Slight_Nobody5343 t1_je2tg5w wrote

My heart dropped at the blue swarmer drones knowing where this was going. Broodwar.

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pyromaster114 t1_je18ipf wrote

>the Angry Birds

Umm... guys... we are truly living in the future-- they've named a military unit after a mobile phone game.

This is... the Meme War(tm).

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reversularity t1_je4w4k9 wrote

Someone just pitched this to Amazon as a Chris Pratt movie.

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heretowastelife t1_je1aeic wrote

Battlefield 4 UCAV spam irl

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Flashwastaken t1_je4q3fw wrote

I think Bad Company 2 was the first use of this tactic that I remember. Particularly on Arica Harbour.

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PMmeYourRobots t1_je2ejzo wrote

Can someone please copy and paste the article? I really don't want to sign up unless someone can provide a compelling reason.

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TheMagicalSock t1_je3pscm wrote

If you have an iPhone, you can open the link in safari and read the article in reader mode.

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Wrinklestinker t1_je424wl wrote

I’ve seen them use drones with VR headset and a regular Xbox controller, is this something you can have as a civilian? It looks really neat

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Ok-Anywhere1022 t1_je4ccj5 wrote

yeah they’re called fpv drones but this honestly isn’t good for the hobby with so many excessive rules and regulations coming around

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Frisky_Mongoose t1_je4zp2x wrote

“We’ve greatly simplified the landing sequence!”

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