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Comment by dist-epoch | Hacker News Reader

It could have a small spool of wire to drop to the ground to make contact. This would allow the drone to rest on the wire while charging.

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This would vaporize the drone, the wire, and anyone or anything nearby, sending flaming battery and electronics shrapnel in many directions. High tension does not mess around.

See what happens to a branch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4ph-h7l_aM

Or a conductor hauled up by fishing line

https://youtu.be/mqRT7J86rco?si=Za9B-dA-VO-Fl5Z8

Not if you put a large enough resistor in the line. It might be enough just to extend a spike to bleed off charge, though.

There's nothing gentle about 38kV. You're not going to lower down a line and bleed off some charge. Once there's a viable path to ground, current will flow all over whatever is making that path, including the very air around it. The entire drone, wire, and the air it is inside of will turn into vaporized plasma as if hit by a bolt of lightning. And 38kV is low voltage in the high-tension world.

Creating current flows from a field is what induction is, so if you're imagining that you could just generate electricity from a field, well, that's what they're already doing. It doesn't take lowering a probe. You can just use an inductor.

That is exactly opposite of what would keep the drone safe. In a power transmission network the earth is a conductive path. Touching a phase and touching earth allows the grid to push as much power through you as your impedance and grpund contact will allow.

That, and long spools of loose wire and spinning propellers are not a good combination.

If it can make contact with the ground it should be able to charge from the static field.

https://makezine.com/article/craft/1000-fluorescent-lights-p...

The link below is a video showing the explosion that would occur if someone attempted what you are describing.

https://youtu.be/LCRfYIwFbxQ

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