Comments by "Orbital_Inclination" (@Orbital_Inclination) on "Cricket: Germany's new autonomous VTOL battlefield flying stretcher" video.

Anything is an easy target if you use it poorly, don't plan effectively, etc. Thankfully, we put more effort into protecting our kit that people seem to think.
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No one said its going to entirely replace MERT, but kit like this could supplement the demand very nicely, especially if they allow a stabilised casualty to reach medical care within the golden hour.
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You clearly don't understand electric vehicles very well
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@TJ-wo1xt and? The addition of a crew makes no difference if it gets shot down, just more casualties to evac. As for this vehicle's use cases, it could easily be outfitted with a defensive aid suite, or provided with Apache escort in the same way MERT helicopters are. Besides that, it has a lot of potential for uncontested airspace, as you pointed out.
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@mememachine5244 shall I put it into easy words for you? A normal helicopter has one or two main rotors. If one fails, it falls out of the sky. This has multiples, and is designed to still operate with a loss or two, providing greater survivability.
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What? Are bots just coded poorly, or do you just not understand what this clip is about?
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Same as what happens if a MERT helicopter is shot down, or your ambulance hits a landmine. The idea is to put effort into the planning and protection so that doesn't happen very often.
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This is quieter, exposes less crew to danger, cheaper to operate and maintain, greater redundancy and less critical failure modes than a helicopter, to name just a few. I don't see this replacing medivac, not by a long shot, but it is a good addition
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 @SWGOHWARS-66 not on this demonstrator, but that doesn't mean the final in-service product won't. This is just an evaluation trial, not a final acceptance test.
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It has a red cross on the rear of the vehicle
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@JJ_Khailha not really. The rotors here are in pairs, and there are plenty of examples of air taxi prototypes, etc, where the other rotors instantly compensate for loss of thrust or sudden perturbation, maintaining stability.
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@JJ_Khailha still far more propulsive survivability than a normal helo, and this is just a proof of concept trial. The final product could easily be more armoured and feature a defensive aid suite. This vehicle also has a smaller profile than any MERT aircraft due to lack of crew, as well as lower noise due to electric propulsion. Not sure if you've ever stood near a chinook, but turboshaft engines and massive rotors aren't quiet. Electric motors and higher frequency rotor noise (so greater attenuation) means lower acoustic footprint.
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how exactly is it underpowered? What data do you have to hand? To gain EASA approval it will need to demonstrate acceptable flight conditions in a broad variety of failure modes, just like any helicopter. It's literally no slower than any medical helicopter when in the most vulnerable phases of flight, and lightweight by design due to lack of a crew and associated systems. Again, no one is saying it will entirely replace MERT, but it is a great addition for getting personnel back to a trauma centre within the golden hour. As for the 7.62 comment, that's a moot point as there are plenty of examples of actual helicopters being taken down by that kind of fire too, so this isn't a unique vulnerability to a drone.
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Maybe, but shooting something with the red cross symbol is a war crime
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@seanwoodyatt7342 You've perfectly proved my point. Let's address the battery materials first. They're predominantly lithium, and over 99% recyclable. Your arguement over making fuel from plants is moot because that doesn't happen on any significant scale to make any actual impact, and the land/water/agricultural machinery and processing requirements for such an operation are unfeasible at any decent scale. Let's also not deny that plenty of the materials found in modern ICE vehicles aren't also mined, or that the fuel that powers them doesn't primarily come from environmentally disastrous drilling operations. As for the recharge time, that would only be a factor if you only operated one or two. On an average squadron of helicopters, there are a dozen or more. The odds of them all being airborne at any one time are practically zero, due to necessary time on the ground for maintenance, and rotation of airframe use for fatigue life management. That leaves plenty of time for recharging, which can be done by any military diesel gen-set that are widely available, if renewable grid options aren't available. It is also far easier to swap an electrical drivetrain than a conventional turboshaft or piston one, due to far less plumbing involved, and far fewer components. That makes maintenance far easier.
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 @TJ-wo1xt where did I say that?
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A lot of propulsive redundancy vs a conventional helicopter
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@JJ_Khailha it won't just drop, it has far more redundancy than your average helicopter, so total power loss is highly unlikely. You have no idea how much armour this could take, it's excess thrust, etc, so that assertion is baseless. It literally has fewer points of critical failure than your average helicopter
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@_Breakdown EASA is the European Aviation Safety Agency, the people who regulate all aviation activity across Europe. MERT are medical emergency response teams, basically another name for medivac helicopters. The golden hour is a concept that if an injured person reaches treatment in the first hour, their odds of survival are far higher
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 @JJ_Khailha the same is true of a regular helicopter, which is why the people who actually plan military operations put effort into ensuring the risk is minimised.
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 @SWGOHWARS-66 EW includes IR countermeasures, and this vehicle has a very low IR signature anyway due to the electric drive, so a seeker is going to have a hard time getting a decent lock
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@bobskywalker2707 any helicopter or drone is vulnerable to small arms. That's why actual front line kit has armour around critical components. This is just a trial of a prototype, not the end product.
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@JJ_Khailha your comment about it being shot down within 5 minutes. Helicopters and drones are equally vulnerable in that regard.
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@JJ_Khailha none of that is based on reality. As for batteries being a weak point, you realise that fuel tanks and turboshaft engines also don't do well with small arms fire? Batteries are also already shielded for fire protection, which provides armour.
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 @JJ_Khailha what does that even mean? 😂
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Any relevance to this clip?
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Yes, that it's being operated by the German armed forces
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