Would anyone with a drone want to volunteer to try this? Probably could rig up something out of cardboard and steel wire to hold some clays.
Maybe. Iād have to see what the weight capacity is of mine.
According to some informal testing on the internet mine can fly with a ~1kg load:
Starting sound like ācan fly and is generally controllableā is more like 250g:
So for the specific aircraft named DJI FPV, a realistic operational payload is roughly 100ā250 g, while the absolute lifting capability appears to be substantially higher under ideal conditions. DJI simply does not provide an official payload limit.
A standard shotgun clay target (āclay pigeonā or ābirdā) weighs about 105 grams.
Most manufacturers and sporting-clays specifications put a standard 108ā110 mm target in the range of 105ā110 g, with 105 g being the most commonly cited figure.
For drone-lift calculations:
- 1 clay target ā 105 g
- 2 clay targets ā 210 g
- 3 clay targets ā 315 g
- 4 clay targets ā 420 g
For a whole 3 minutesā¦
(
(But yeah, probably greatly reduced flight time with a load. I generally get about 15 minutes per battery, so with a āmanageableā load still likely have enough juice to take off, flight out to end of the range, u-turn and come back towards the firing line).
I do have multiple batteries, BTW.
Many years ago in England, a friend who flew model planes had an airframe he was scrapping. He offered people a chance to shoot it down with bird shot for GBP5 per fly-by.
If his avionics were damaged, he would take the cost of those out of the pot, otherwise it all went to charity.
The plane was peppered but still flew when people ran out of money.
The pilot was smart enough to only be in range when he had a tail wind so the bird was travelling pretty fast when people were shooting at it.
I was at an RC fly-in a bunch of years ago, and as a fundraiser they had one or two beater models up flying, and for a fee you could shoot paintballs at them. A couple bucks for 5 paintballs, as I recall, with the planes making continual passes down the flight line. I scored no hits, and in all the time I was watching only two or so hits were scored, neither taking down the aircraft.
Yeah, to be clear here, my expectation is that Iāll be slinging a clay on a LONG ENOUGH line that the drone itself wonāt be in danger. I probably wouldnāt allow first-time shooters a try at this though.
Wouldnāt do this on a multi-party firing line eitherā¦
