Originally Posted by
jester_s1
Has this conversation actually degenerated to arguing over semantics? In common parlance, "drone" is a multirotor vehicle with a camera on it. I'm aware that the more traditional meaning of the word is an autonomous military aircraft, but the common usage of the word has come to include multirotors too.
I have to agree with Jester on this one. The term "drone" has come to mean, in the R/C world, anything multi-rotor that is controlled by a radio, regardless if it has an FPV camera on board. Obviously, that wouldn't include a model of the Boeing H-46/47 Chinook helicopter or the Bell/Boeing V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor, even though they are both multi-rotor aircraft. If we really want to get technical, the military refers to "drones" as being any remote controlled aircraft, be it a Predator that can be flown half a world away or the little hand carried scout chopper that ground troops can use to see over a wall or into multi-storied buildings. They also use the term "drone" to designate an aircraft that is remote controlled for use as an airborne training target, such as the QF-16, which is nothing more than a radio controlled F-16 that is deemed to be too old or has too many flight hours to use with a pilot on board in combat operations. Interestingly, the term "drone" was also used in the sci-fi world of Star Trek gaming to refer to unguided missiles launched by actual controlled ships, much in the way destroyers launched torpedoes in and prior to WWII.