upvote

points

by cudgy10 hours ago |
comments
upvoteby ehnto10 hours ago|
next
[-]
Unfortunately drone companies have a habit of pivoting into defence before realising their initial civil intentions.
reply
upvoteby sandworm10110 hours ago|
prev|
[-]
And how fast is this drone ship? I bet slower than the helicopter. And how do you get people onboard? A drone with a robotic arm? Will it be like the claw game, but with wounded people being clawed up?
reply
upvoteby rmunn9 hours ago|
parent|
next
[-]
Claw "game" (scam) machines have deliberately-weak grasps, designed to drop the item they've grabbed whenever the arm is jolted — and then it's jolted at least once, usually twice, in the process of bringing it to the output bin. They are designed to drop their packages, so that people will feed in more money.

I'm not saying a drone with a claw arm would be the right design. But if it turned out that that was the right design, it would be designed not to drop its "packages", as opposed to the claw machines where dropping the package is the intended result.

reply
upvoteby TylerE5 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
next
[-]
Even the longest ranged helicopters are WELL short of "middle of the ocean" range. The longest top out around 600 miles, and that's straight line, not out and back, and certainly not with any loiter time in the middle.
reply
upvoteby stockresearcher1 hours ago|
parent|
[-]
The Navy has helicopters that can do in-flight refueling. If an aircraft carrier is close enough it might be called upon (1).

But if not, this is what they do:

> the plane’s crew dropping a bundle of medical gear into the water near the ship, and then four pararescuemen from the 131st Rescue Squadron jumping out themselves. Once in the water, they swam to the Franz, boarding it and treating the fisherman.

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/air-national-guard-parachute...

(1) https://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?do=main.textpost&id=88E4...

reply
upvoteby swiftcoder7 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
[-]
> And how do you get people onboard? A drone with a robotic arm?

Nets. Nets are how you get people on board in basically all emergency scenarios.

Not that drone rescue ships seem like a particularly good idea, mind you.

reply
upvoteby Dan_-2 hours ago|
parent|
[-]
No, they use harnesses or baskets. And there’s a rescue swimmer to make it less likely that you die.

https://youtu.be/1B1dnSf6rPk is one example but there are plenty videos of these guys (heroes).

reply
upvoteby swiftcoder1 hours ago|
parent|
[-]
For rescuing small numbers of people from a helicopter, yes. If you have a large number of people in the water, and you are rescuing from a surface vessel, you would likely deploy netting (at the very least as backup)
reply