Watch: Russian Drone Pilot Flies Quad Toward Space

A Russian drone pilot has flown a custom drone to the edge of space. He caught the whole thing on camera.

For a bunch of reasons, drone pilots in most countries around the world are subjected to limits on how high they can fly. The most obvious reason for this limit – usually around 400ft – is to lessen the likelihood of a drone coming into contact with a manned aircraft.

However, in Russia, no such limits are in place as far as we can understand. If they are, this drone pilot will no doubt be due for a run in with the authorities.

In the video below, we watch as pilot Denis Koryakin flies his custom, 2.3-pound drone to an incredible height of almost 33,000 feet above Strezhevoy.

A typical commercial jet cruises at between 28-35,000ft.

In a statement accompanying the video, he wrote, “Experiments with the quadrocopter continue. This time the goal was to reach a height of 10 kilometres (33,000ft) and return safely to the launch site.

“By popular demand, and with the help of kind people, a display of air temperature appeared. Due to the inertia of the thermometer, the current temperature does not immediately display. On the street that day it was about -10 degrees. The minimum temperature during the flight was 50 degrees centigrade in the area of 8,000 meters.”

For obvious (and legal) reasons, we don’t recommend you try this at home, unless you also live in Russia that is. But there’s no denying that it’s both a spectacular feat of engineering and some incredible footage.