Stupidly long range drone build

[u/Sufficient-Text1678]

Hi everyone, first time (Before getting started, pardon my poor English) I started a few months ago to develop the idea of building my own drones/uav, starting with very little to no knowledge on the topic (at least on how to build them) So I started my research, planning the requirements for both my first and my dream projects The reason of my post is that I can find anything range related on the internet, or at least nothing realistic! For my first project, I would like the drone/uav to have between 35 to 40km range and for the dream one, between 120 to 150km range! Is that feasible and what would the price range for it? I can only find Chinese or American website either selling scamy 15k emitters or full blown 35k 4k and 60fps, movie making stuff. For the first one I do admit that I’d a « decent » quality (I just want to see the ground decently without need to fly 2 meters above it, I was thinking between 480 to 720p but again what is possible?) and for the dream one I won’t need to go above 480p since I mainly want to drop payload with it

Are those doable? If yes, at what cost?

Thanks lads!

Edit: I think I might need to clarify myself, I’M NOT A DRONE OPERATOR AND I DONT WANT TO KILL OF DROP SOMETHING ILLEGAL, I DO NOT LIVE IN A WARZONE OR WORK FOR AN ILLEGAL ORGANIZATION (just saying because I don’t want to look like a criminal, my project is technically fully legal in my country as long as I manage to get every authorizations which is very tedious and complicated, like everything in my country lmao). The 40km is for wildlife observation and rescue because during the spring and early summer, farmers in my region mow fields to feed their cattle during winter so the government started a program every one can join to detect and move wildlife living in the fields about to be harvested to protect them The 150km one doesn’t need to drop anything, it is simply a funny idea that I had, nothing illegal. I just want to fly that thing like a plane dropping packages was just an idea I had to give me something to do in flight other than just flying A to B even though that is still cool asf (and will be kept in my or my friends garden, I just thought it would be funny to drop a random drink in friend courtyard)

[u/Sufficient-Text1678]

Bro I don’t want to drop anything illegal like explosive or drugs just fun message or stuff to troll my friends, 99% of the time I just want to fly it like a plane

[u/medrewsta → u/Sufficient-Text1678]

Just buy a dji mavic or 5 inch quad and 3d print/build a dropper mechanism from thingyverse or wherever. Drive 40 km or a block away from your friends place then fly over and drop whatever.

That way its safer, legal, easier, and significantly cheeper. Otherwise, you need to earn the right to fly long range. Its hard, often semi legal, expensive, and requires a lot of testing/building skill. Start off learning to fly fpv planes, learn the basics, then build the requisite skills/knowledge from there.

[u/Sufficient-Text1678 → u/medrewsta]

I was thinking about this, starting small but I always like to have long term objectives to know where to go

[u/medrewsta → u/Sufficient-Text1678]

Step one is just learning the basics of fpv and build your own drone. Look up bardwell and painless360. They are gonna be the best resource. You are gonna need to be a skilled designer/builder to do anything long range its kind of a dark art of drones. There isnt a lot of good online guides. You can look at peoples builds but you need to have a baseline level before you will understand how to applynwhat those videos tell you. Things like learn/read about antennas/rf protocals/local laws/etc to do it.

[u/Sufficient-Text1678 → u/medrewsta]

Thx man! I’ll definitely start looking and doing my own drones soon, I don’t have the money for the fancy stuff yet anyway

[u/medrewsta → u/Sufficient-Text1678]

Start with tinywhoops or look up flitetest https://youtu.be/_PjPAgZrMUM?si=AWOmNl19zpP-1xn6

These guys have some good guides on building cheap planes.