Posts by Dana Taylor64

Jeremy James3 said:So, if you're looking to crunch the numbers on that quadcopter, I guess the formula would look something like this: you take the mass of the drone in kilograms and multiply it by the height it fell from in meters, then multiply that whole thing by Earth's gravity, and finally divide the result by the total time in seconds squared. It sounds like a bit of a mouthful, but maybe that's just how the physics works out!

So, if we're talking about a little device weighing about half a kilo, how many Joules are we looking at? I suppose the maximum altitude and top speed really ought to be clearly defined by the manufacturer, right? I don't actually know any of those specs—all I know is that my quadcopter is roughly half a kilo, and my remote control range seems to max out around 300 feet or so!

So, I was trying to wrap my head around this idea—the one suggesting that drones shouldn't fall under certain regulations as long as they can't generate more than 79 Joules of kinetic energy. I guess the logic is that if the batteries die mid-flight, the impact from the weight of the drone hitting the ground wouldn't exceed that specific energy threshold? It seems like a bit of a technicality, doesn't it? I mean, how much mass are we actually talking about here... does anyone happen to have a formula handy for calculating Joules? I feel like I must have been fast asleep during my high school physics lectures when we covered this stuff. 😵