#video on Australian #PPDS #drones: cardboard, or waxed-paper foamboard sandwich, airplane-shaped, “origami of death”, being used in #Ukraine for #weaponry. 24 shipped flat-packed in a pizza box, front propeller, catapult launch, straight wings attached with rubber bands, 5.3 “pounds” empty, 6.6 “pounds” payload, 37 “miles” per hour, 75 “miles” range. Unit price speculated to be between $670 and $3350, an oddly precise upper bound suggesting wankery around exchange rates. It’s claimed that the MiG-29 and four Su-30s destroyed at the Kursk airbase were destroyed with these drones at well over their nominal range. #slaughterbots
on 02025-02-27another #video #toread on #PPDS #Slaughterbots #weaponry in #Ukraine #flying
on 02024-06-25#video from 9 months ago on flat-pack waxed cardboard drone #weaponry in #Ukraine “destroying Russian jets”; the airfoils and the rest of the bodies are assembled with rubber bands and tape and can be repaired with a hot glue gun, cardboard, and tape. Looks like there are some wooden rails (dowels?) for mounting the airfoils. Mainly powered by a single #brushless motor and propeller. Brands printed on the body are “Tanglewood Group Ltd.”, “SYPAQ Australia” (who exhibited it at a military trade show this year), and “CORVO precision payload delivery system” ("PPDS"). There’s what look like laser-cut balsa or other hardwood spars in the kit, at least in some cases plywood. SYPAQ’s Michael Partridge is quoted as saying a laptop allows you to “mission plan and launch” it, so presumably it’s not FPV, though FPV seems to be the main approach used these days. “About a shoebox size [unassembled], can carry roughly three kilos. (...) we've delivered over 600 of the PPDS into Ukraine.” Has been supplying “100 of these every month since March”. Mentions a strike at an airbase at Kursk destroying “five fighter jets, a missile launcher, and an air defense system,” then another attack on a Russian site a few days later destroying two cargo planes, also probably with these cardboard drones. #Pricing quoted at AU$5000 per drone. #Slaughterbots #flying
on 02024-06-25