The “Payload” is the whole point behind Drones and although not an entirely technologically prohibitive tool for those who have not developed and fielded such a weapon to date, it is not such a simple technology to master when you consider using it as an offensive weapon other than a “kamikaze” drone.
Too many people overestimate the actual feasibility of this tool at this time. To suggest that ISIS will soon be sending waves of Drones into the U.S. manned with Hellfire type missiles to terrorize Americans is absurd.
That will change in the future as technology advances along with the availability of such platforms, but currently it is simply a propaganda tool, IMO.
“To suggest that ISIS will soon be sending waves of Drones into the U.S. manned with Hellfire type missiles to terrorize Americans is absurd.”
Who was suggesting that?
I am very familiar with widely available hobby components and completed platforms with payload and guidance capabilities.
We are not talking about a weapon of mass destruction — which takes a nation-state to engineer — but a tool or terror that terrorizes people when it flies overhead similar to V2 in WWII. Even a large firecracker would scare people if they think it might land on them. Send a few over a market area and customer traffic would go to zero.