Do Drones Make Helicopters Obsolete?
Posted4 months agoActive4 months ago
nationalinterest.orgTechstory
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DronesHelicoptersVtolMilitary Technology
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Drones
Helicopters
Vtol
Military Technology
The article 'Do Drones Make Helicopters Obsolete?' sparks a discussion on the potential replacement of helicopters with drones in various applications, with commenters weighing in on the limitations and potential uses of drones.
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Sep 15, 2025 at 9:46 PM EDT
4 months ago
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-- Gemini
Maybe for some facets of warfare however they will be used for transporting humans in places that planes can not land and where VTOL would pick up fod foreign object damage into the engines.
Drones can be used in conjunction with FLIR to detect wildfire hot-spots, but they can not put out the hot-spots. Drones are not useful for fighting forest fires by carrying large containers of water as they are not powerful enough. Water is very heavy. Fighting wildfires will still be human piloted aircraft including jets, cargo planes, prop planes, helicopters for quite some time.