Why Bigger is Better When it Comes to Drones

Drones come in all sizes—from very big to very small. One would think that the larger, heavier drones would have shorter flight times, right? Surprisingly that is not the case, according to Rhett Allain from Wired Magazine. Rhett did some research on the physics behind why bigger drones can fly longer.

If you want to take a deep look at the physics of drones, you can read how varying the power to four rotors allows the vehicle to fly in every different way. I also looked at the power needed to hover using very basic physics models—a question that actually started with my estimation of the power needed for the SHIELD helicarrier to fly (it's huge).

Let's recap how I can estimate the power need to hover a drone. Imagine you have a drone with spinning rotors. It actually doesn't matter if you have just one rotor (like a helicopter) or four like a quadcopter or even eight like an octocopter. What really matters is that the rotors take stationary air above the vehicle and push this air down.

Now for the fun stuff. Let's look at the battery size and power for two drones.

These small drones have to save mass for other important stuff that just can't get any smaller. The sacrifice for small drones is a short flight time—at least for now.

Read the complete article on Wired to take a deeper dive into how Rhett came up with his conclusions. It’s pretty interesting and worth a look.