Speaking of which, why do we keep calling hobbyist quadcopters and such "drones"? Using the same word for unmanned military bombers and (relatively) harmless toys seems a bit counter-productive.
I'm sure there's a name for this phenomenon. We shouldn't be calling remotely piloted quadcopters drones either, but "drone" has become a modern colloquialism for any UAV that isn't a remote controlled hobby plane.
I imagine this is one of the ways in which language evolves, for better or for worse.
At the time we were still calling them quadcopters, it was a conscious effort to not use "drone" because that word was in the media a lot due to military use (killing humans).
Quadcopter enthusiasts didn't want that to turn into societal concern or extra regulations.
"Drone" is another one that angered many at first. Articles were written, angry comments posted. "It's not a drone!".
But the horse bolted and now everyone calls them drones, including the manufacturers of consumer quadcopters. The name "quadcopter" is so clunky it had no chance against the zippy, effortless "drone".
The problem with the word "Drone" is that it's been used to mean everything, from the $5 toy that hovers above your hand, the $3000 VR Headset racing models, the military versions of the same that serve as recon tools, the modern man-portable-anti-tank weapons like the Switchblade [1]
, to full-sized ground attack airplane replacements like the Predator. It's insane that they've all been lumped under a single label.
Yeah. There was a time maybe 8-9 years back where at least a section of the hobby tried to push back against the people using the term "drone" for any quadcopter/multirotor, and trying to educate people that only things capable of autonomous flight were "drones", while regular non-autonomous quadcopter really are just RC helicopters.
We lost that fight a long time ago.
(And I'm not even sure we were "right" to be honest. The term "drone" got used back in WW2 era for radio controlled aircraft used for target practice. There sure as hell were not autonomous... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioplane_OQ-2 )
Well, as an aerospace engineer, I don't think any vehicle should be called a drone. Unmanned [Combat] Aerial Vehicle is a better term, or even Remotely Piloted Vehicle.
But if we must use the label, let's say that a 'drone' meets one of the following:
* Has weapons
* Operates autonomously
* Operates over the horizon
* Requires runway facilities -- large remotely-piloted aircraft
Everything else is just RC, including the quadrotors in the article.
> The connotations of "drone" are not great. (The next word in the bi-gram would be "strike"...) Maybe we can go back to "UAV" or pick another term for non-militarized, commercial delivery.
You have your connotations backwards. You'll see no consumer drones marketed as UAVs, but plenty of military drones are called that.
Sounds weird, because we're used to media spam. But "drone" wrt. flying machines basically has 3 popular meanings - RC multicopters, any RC aircraft, and those big RC aircrafts with surveillance cameras and Hellfire missiles. Back because multicopter mania caused all RC aircraft to be rebranded as "drones", we used to call them by category - RC plane, RC helicopter, etc. So personally, I'm totally fine with NASA using the word "helicopter" - though I expect the name that's even more cool than "drone" - an UAV.
'Drone' has become a fad word. But it has a real meaning - an un-manned aerial vehicle. So technically even a model helicopter is a drone. I've resisted using 'drone' carelessly, and always say 'quadcopter' or 'helicopter' or whatever is appropriate.
I really hope they don't use the word 'drone' when these go to market. This is my new least favorite overloaded word since 'hack'.
There are two kinds of autonomous flying machines that we call drones: small quadcopters that hobbyists fly around, and winged planes that our govt. uses to monitor and attack their enemies.
Most people think drone == drone. So there are two camps. The first thinks all drones are killing machines. This is wrong and causes irrational fear about our cool toys. The other camp thinks all drones are the friendly Amazon delivery helicopters. This reduces their concerns about a troublesome government program.
Sorry for the mini-rant. I just wish we'd separate the terms so we can deal with toys and war machines separately.
I dislike the use of the word drone too. To me it means something that is autonomous. Most hobby quadcopters are not autonomous, although they could be with a sophisticated flight controller. So they can technically be autonomous but usually they are not. So "drone" is a generalisation. It's kind of like saying "I drove my vehicle" rather than "I drove my car".
The word "drone" is such a buzzword, I used to have a radio controlled aka RC plane as a kid and the US military tends to a military remote controlled aircraft an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle UAV.
But drone is single word easy to say with some buzz to it and I guess it also sounds ominous.
My understanding is a drone in the military sense is a flying target a UAV is not.
It took 20 years for people to stop calling anything tech/Internet related "cyber" now calling anything that flies is a drone that word will be with us until 2034.
Yeah, I can see that. Too bad because "drone" also has the connotation of "dumb" or "slave", which is the opposite of what you want an autonomous vehicle to be that's sharing your airspace. (It makes more sense in the remotely-piloted case, as in the military versions.) But words take on their own lives, and I guess there are now "drones".
Same reason my 550lb glider and a 100-ton B-52 are both "airplanes." It's a general word that encompasses a lot.
The problem isn't so much the use of the word "drones" but the lack of any further qualifiers on it. Sometimes it's evident from context (an article about military drone strikes isn't talking about a 2lb quadcopter, for example) but sometimes it's not, and I think writers need to be a little more careful with it.
Yes. And generally speaking, the term 'drone' is dumb and should be avoided because everybody gets weird ideas about what it means. It started as a pun, applied to a radio controlled aircraft rigged as a gunnery target, designed to fly once before dying like a drone bee. In just about any case where you might say "drone", there is a more precise and self-explanatory term you could use instead. For instance
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