How Much Weight Can A Drone Carry [Expert Answer]
So, more often than not, I wonder about how much weight can a drone carry. Why? Because it is absolutely the future! Remember you heard it here first, folks. Is there a more convenient mode of transportation than flight?
With that said though, the question pop in the mind, is it safe? And how to find my drone get lost. I mean, sure, a drone can carry around like a little phone or camera but a package can contain objects that are much heavier and perhaps even much fragile. That is why, today, in this article, I will answer the question “how much weight can a drone carry?”
Factors of Influence
The easiest way of looking at is to compare it with something that we are familiar with. Let us go with Cars for this example. So, all cars carry a certain bit of weight but not all cars are designed to do so. Some cars are built for speed like a supercar and others are built to carry things around like a pick-up truck. The types of wheel, the shape of their body, the engine inside etc.
It is the same with Drones. Drones vary when it comes to motor power, the size, number of propellers, type of battery, the weight of the drone and much more. A drone’s build quality and power also determine how well it will be able to environmental factors like rain, heavy winds, the moisture and pressure of the air, gravity etc.
We can go deeper and try to understand the physics behind how drones fly but that is going to take some time so I will pass but do read up on that if you are interested.
how much weight can different Types of Drone carry
As we discussed earlier, there are many types of drones out there and different categories of drones have a different carrying capacity. Let us look at 3 main types of Drones:
As the name might suggest, these drones are those extremely cute and tiny drones that you may have seen flying around. Naturally, due to their size, these drones do not weigh a lot. They are usually built from plastic, have small batteries and can only fly around for 10 to 15 minutes tops.
These drones usually are for children and beginners that do not wish to spend a lot of money and rather just give drones a shot. How much weight they can carry? Yeah, unsurprisingly, not a lot. They can carry like 2-6 grams of weight. These drones are fairly cheap, costing you around 100 dollars.
Okay, so I am gonna assume that most of you came to know about the carrying capacity of Hobby Drones. Hobby or Consumer Drones are the classic, most famous kind of drones you see out there people using. These drones are a perfect midway between toy-and-professional as they actually have a decent carrying capacity.
These drones can carry around 3-4 Kgs of weight. Which, in itself, may not seem very useful but that is more than enough to carry a Go-pro, gimbal or phone, meaning you can use these to make videos and click pictures.
These drones are mid-sized and should not be flown indoors unlike the trick drones which are small and safe enough to fly inside your home. These drones cost anywhere from 400 to 1200 dollars and can fly for around 30 minutes on an average. Numbers vary model to model, needless to say.
Here are the big boys! These drones are built like tanks! The SUVs of the drone world. These drones are the ones that companies use to deliver their packages to you and professionals video and photographers use it for carrying their equipment for those fabulous drone shots. Using these drones, you can carry anything weighing around 15 to 20 Kgs!
They will come equipped with auxiliary sensors such as accelerometers, barometers and GPS and an impeccable build quality. With that said, the only downside to these drones is that getting your hands on of the these is going to cost you a lot. Like, 12000+ dollars! So, it is a bit tough for average fans to get a hold on these but if you a professional or a hardcore drone, these might just be worth it to you.
Conclusion
I have answered the main question here which was “how much weight can a drone carry” Well, it depends upon the kind of drone we are talking about. However, the most common types of drones can carry around 2 to 5 Kgs while professional ones can carry 15 to 20 Kgs. Unless and until you get your hands on one of those military drones somehow, this is the best you are going to get. Hope this article helped answer your question.
