Over the weekend, Latvia basically shut down their airspace after an SIA UAVFactory drone went missing during a test flight. Normally it would be fine right? Let’s just wait the standard 30-35 minutes, and the drone will run out of juice and we’ll be good, right? WRONG. This behemoth, 57 lb, 18 ft drone had 90 hours worth of fuel. For reference, that’s the weight of the average 8 year old, capable of hurling through the air at 45 mph for almost 4 days.
Can you imagine you’re in a nice Latvian cafe, eating your potato pancakes and beetroot soup, and a Pterodactyl lands on your table?
By Monday, flights were resuming normal activity, so they must have found the drone feeding on local school children or terrorizing a small village.