asciilifeform: you cannot actually discount the friction, aha.

asciilifeform: terminal velocity for the dart is usually much less.

asciilifeform: laziness, of this type, is a sin, PeterL .

asciilifeform: they also had little darts.

asciilifeform: caltrop dropped from biplane.

asciilifeform: PeterL: ww1 state of the art

asciilifeform: PeterL: great if you're 70km in orbit

asciilifeform: there are even, iirc, white phosphorous shells.

asciilifeform: (for what, i have nfi.)

asciilifeform: iirc they are even commercially sold in usa.

asciilifeform: can fit these, and more, in '12 gauge' shell.

asciilifeform: what's that

asciilifeform: low-pressure; smooth bore.

asciilifeform: more or less ideal weapon for the scenario

asciilifeform: btw if yer firing straight down, why not shotgun shell.

asciilifeform: http://btcbase.org/log/2016-09-08#1537276 << oblig. ☝︎

asciilifeform: dog-heads!1111

asciilifeform: quite reminiscent of the 'balloon boy' incident.

asciilifeform: (astonishing how many imbeciles bought it wholesale)

asciilifeform: PeterL: not that idiocy again

asciilifeform: 'straight up' will likely convert the thing to a brick immediately.

asciilifeform: and entirely coincidental with center of mass.

asciilifeform: ideally straight down.

asciilifeform: they, as every aficionado knows, reliably shatter if they so much as touch a blade of grass.

asciilifeform: i know of no example with anything but plastic props, incidentally.

asciilifeform: (in endurance)

asciilifeform: the cost.

asciilifeform: https://www.google.com/search?as_st=y&tbm=isch&as_q=aluminum+quadcopter+frame << no shortage.

asciilifeform: (fella built 1,001 types.)

asciilifeform: diametric is quite likely flying an oddball chopper as we speak. roust him from his sleep, and ask.

asciilifeform: and this is , unlike much of the other matter, not a theoretical question, folks have sweated over 'what is the smallest aluminum chopper that can fly' , read them, not me.

asciilifeform: (even the fabled glock, cracks. but at least not right away. might want to look into what glock frame was made from.)

asciilifeform: plastics crack.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: fatigue is not the issue. behaviour under shock wave is the issue.

asciilifeform: try it on paper. take the useful payload lift of the toy engines, and subtract the mass of the aluminum airframe from it.

asciilifeform: they don't scale down from that size.

asciilifeform: (yes)

asciilifeform: once in a while you hear of a fella who got carried away at the controls, lost his head.

asciilifeform: modellists build aluminum choppers, they are motorbike-sized.

asciilifeform: small engines have atrocious power-weight ratio.

asciilifeform: know why these are not in the toystore ?

asciilifeform: the latter is typically made of soft, light stuff.

asciilifeform: that's the other thing - impedance mismatch between weapon and airframe.

asciilifeform: which is to say: you ~could~. exactly ~once~.

asciilifeform: firing, e.g., luger, from a toy chopper, is roughly similar to the notion of firing 'big bertha' from a 'warthog'.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: roughly arithmetize the mass of the bullet / mass of the aircraft , in each case.

asciilifeform: who recalls the a10 gunship.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: this was, believe or not, a problem even for large plane.

asciilifeform: if you can avoid roll.

asciilifeform: !#s gyrojet

asciilifeform: this way you avoid eating the blunt end of newton's 3rd law.

asciilifeform: very simple to manufacture, also.

asciilifeform: ... before we lose this thread, i will point out that the correct projectile weapon for a toy flyer is 'gyrojet' rocket.

asciilifeform: whack it with a table tennis paddle.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: buy a toy and try it.

asciilifeform: it has to be immediate.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: you cannot compensate for dynamic instability (roll, spin) 'over time'

asciilifeform: sorta same reason why 'virtual glove' never is able to simulate banging your fist on a hard table, it always ends up being a 'gellatin' table.

asciilifeform: the motors are too small to adequately compensate for the 'jerk'.

asciilifeform: and you'll see.

asciilifeform: buy toystore chopper and then kick it in flight

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: the small chopper that fires so much as a 'bb' accurately and stays upright is afaik yet unsolved problem.

asciilifeform: it is common enough problem in towns with 'traffic camera.'

asciilifeform: in usa there are even aficionados who shoot'em out

asciilifeform: (ordinary vandals live in every town and lenses unscrew)

asciilifeform: melt the ccd.

asciilifeform: lens is too cheap.

asciilifeform: great with a balanced diet of that 30w laser diode.

asciilifeform: BingoBoingo, mircea_popescu : more 'bang for the buck' if parasitically ovipositing on rooftop chimneys, lights, street lamps, similar.

asciilifeform: plane - not.

asciilifeform: chopper converts to brick (models do not have the inertial mass to autorotate) if power cut.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: it depends what means 'flight'

asciilifeform: bottle is rolled by the waves.

asciilifeform: the nifty thing about my (circa 2009) sketch of 'naval gossipd' is that power is cheap

asciilifeform: (he had - and afaik still has - a 'drop sealed champaigne bottles from airplanes, with messages, track currents' project)

asciilifeform: some years ago i had a very lengthy exchange with al schwartz about an ocean bottle relay

asciilifeform: H2 has ~1g/L of lift. He2 - slightly less.

asciilifeform: which is why few folks are riding dirigibles today.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: wind.

asciilifeform: and other terrorisms.

asciilifeform: we also had a thread some years ago about flying machines draping parasitic inductor-powered relays on power lines, etc.

asciilifeform: in fact, the ideal machine would likely be an ornithopter that - unlike any extant ornithopter - rides air currents.

asciilifeform: trinque: no especially good reason. plane with well-programmed comp can probably just as well keep station.

asciilifeform: shinohai: the whole point of cheap chopper is to piss on 'restricted'

asciilifeform: (unless tethered to the ground, and you can recall how well that worked for usg last year)

asciilifeform: all the while blown around by the four winds

asciilifeform: and pops in a month or so.

asciilifeform: thing is still visible from half a continent away on radar.

asciilifeform: ergo not a suitable instrument for the bite of 10,000,001 gnats against the back of a dying sovereign.

asciilifeform: they leak. and have gigantic radar cross-sections.

asciilifeform: balloons suck

asciilifeform: (how long could it sit put at a few km altitude if it had solar battery etc.)

asciilifeform: i have wondered what the state-of-the-art in ~stationkeeping~ re quadcopter presently is.

asciilifeform: (recall the saddam gps jammer thread)

asciilifeform: it would significantly complicate enemy triangulation, if you had a great many.

asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: chopper as ~radio relay~ is imho more interesting.

asciilifeform: Framedragger: we traded games like 'elite', rather than lolcat vids, but otherwise similar.

asciilifeform: lel sneakernet is 'exotic' now ?

asciilifeform: which is ~all you get from extant batteries.

asciilifeform: esp. if all you're trying to do is to cover a 10min flight range.