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The Marines are testing flying, remote-controlled grenades...
The Marines are testing flying, remote-controlled grenades... What to know about a small device called the Drone 40, and how it can become an airborne explosive.
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With hands held overhead, the Marine waits for the grenade to spin up, and then releases it into the air. With a drone and its four rotors attached to the top of its body, the grenade takes off, a gentle flight for the typically hand-tossed munition. Later in those same exercises, the grenade, still unexploded in this exercise, flies back for a landing, and the Marine catches it by a tether.
This scene took place July 7 at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, as part of a training exercise. The flying grenade is a Drone 40 modular quadcopter. It can be either a scout or a loitering grenade. In action, it looks goofy, like someone saw a “Sky Dancer” flying toy from the 1990s and decided it would be a great basis for a bomb.
What sets the Drone 40 apart from a host of other small drone designs is the long, vertical fuselage. Unlike most quadcopters, which are wider than they are all, the Drone 40 is alien in appearance. The shape of its body, and the name, both refer to the 40mm grenade launcher, a standardized way to hurl an explosive in battle. The Drone 40 can be both hand-tossed, as in the video below, or it can be fired as a grenade from a launcher.
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https://www.popsci.com/technology/ma...nade-drone-40/
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