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Thanks for the update Don, detailed and extensive as always 👍

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QUESTION: How high do the winds have to be so drones can't fly.

Pardon my ignorance I served in the military in the early 1980's..... and Dinosaurs roamed the earth back then.

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In classical military parlance, "it's METT-TC dependent." Or, "it all depends" on a myriad of factors: design / type of the drone, whether or not its tethered, risk acceptance of the commander.

Having said that, Colugo advertises that its ARC1000 drones can fly in 35 knot winds (https://www.colugo-sys.com/). Similarly, Wave Aerospace claims its drones can fly in winds up to 30 kts. Mistral's tethered Kite drones can stay aloft up to about 20 knot winds (https://www.mistralsolutions.com/homeland-security/products/mistral-kite-tethered-drone-system/). Finally, DJI recommends not flying their drones in winds above about 20 knots, as well.

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Thanks for your detailed answer.

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"The drones" is super broad term.

Generally, the higher is the wing/rotor loading, the better is the ability to operate in windy conditions, but the worse is the efficiency/loiter time.

I can't say much about planes, but for example for quad copters, average racing 5" quadcopter can still operate in very strong winds (25-30knots range) and

the same holds true for the average FPV strike drone (10" rotors, ~5kg AUW).

On the other hand, higher endurance ISR assets (Mavic drones, plane-type drones like Shark, etc.) would be grounded long before that.

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"His unit stopped 10-15% of the moving vehicles with drones, and then finished off the damaged vehicles with drones."

Maybe you mean that 10-15% were stopped by ATGMs, then the rest finished off with drones?

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No, it wasn't written very well: Most of the vehicles were destroyed or immobilized by mines and ATGMs. 10-15% were destroyed or immobilized by drones. All the immobilized vehicles were then destroyed by drones.

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