US Marines to get high-speed, radar-evading electric seagliders for rescue ops

(interestingengineering.com)

134 points jdmark | 1 comments | 28 Mar 25 21:56 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source

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fidotron ◴[01 Apr 25 13:46 UTC] No.43546733[source]▶

Ground effect vehicles could be the thing that's needed to make drone based delivery a reasonable thing to do, especially around lakes. It's one of life's perennial disappointments that such things only get done in military terms and under the ludicrous notion they are rescue vessels.

replies(2): >>43547220 #>>43549349 #

m4rtink ◴[01 Apr 25 17:25 UTC] No.43549349[source]▶

>>43546733 #

I think drone based delivery is a solved problem by now, thanks to the very rapid developments in the last 2 years ?

Some of the drones are now even fiber optic guided and thus resistant to jamming by the competition!

replies(1): >>43552459 #

1. tonyarkles ◴[01 Apr 25 23:50 UTC] No.43552459[source]▶

>>43549349 #

Lol depending on what you’re delivering and whether you want the aircraft back to fly a second mission or not.

For civilian drone delivery there are some use cases where you can squeeze out a small profit doing drone-based delivery as opposed to conventional truck-based delivery, but it’s not a sure thing yet in general. A Transit van can cover a huge number of miles for a relatively small capital investment. Covering the same number of miles with a drone (even factoring in that you aren’t constrained by the road network and can do straight line flights) for lower cost is… hard.

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