Shooting down an airplane at 20km altitude requires an expensive rocket and reveals position of the launcher. No, can't use cheap MANPADs for this.
My gut feeling tells me this airplane is potentially cheaper than a rocket, so if it is shot down, it is a win already. If it detects launcher position while rocket is on the way it is even bigger win. Potentially it reveals larger radar position too, that's another win.
It is difficult, expensive and risky to jamm objects at that altitude. In the current Ukraine-Russia war russians would probably not bother jamming it.
So, what these guys are developing certainly is a military technology. No way around this. High endurance, high altitude cheap aircraft will sell like hot cakes.
I don't know how they communicate with FPV drones 20-30Km away on the battlefield. They can't use cellphone networks, because they're compromised. I doubt you can fit a starlink terminal to a drone.
But this thing could be fitted with frequency-hopping comms, and could control a swarm of attack drones from 70,000 feet. It could also have a backlink to the pilot, allowing him to control any drone in the swarm.
I imagine the Ukrainian nerds are already all over this sort of idea.
My gut feeling tells me this airplane is potentially cheaper than a rocket, so if it is shot down, it is a win already. If it detects launcher position while rocket is on the way it is even bigger win. Potentially it reveals larger radar position too, that's another win.
It is difficult, expensive and risky to jamm objects at that altitude. In the current Ukraine-Russia war russians would probably not bother jamming it.
So, what these guys are developing certainly is a military technology. No way around this. High endurance, high altitude cheap aircraft will sell like hot cakes.