Personally I'm pretty disappointed that hobby drones use so much power, when the seagulls just glide out there, not even flapping their wings for minutes on end. We should be able to manage the same with microcontrollers now, surely?
Radio controlled gliders are a thing but quite tricky to fly compared with a quadcopter. I built one in my 20s which worked very well until it hit a concrete pillar at about 50mph.
I sometimes wonder if you could put in a sophisticated processor that could do dynamic soaring like albatross and probably seagulls do. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_soaring)
Then you could chuck it in the air and have it fly across the Pacific or some such. It would probably want a pop up propeller for take off also. It could maybe recharge the battery if it hit a good thermal. It's tricky though even for a good human pilot.
We've been able to manage the same even without microcontrollers. Radio controlled model gliders and sailplanes have been popular among hobbyists for decades. I see them flying at a local park all the time.
I think we can build light drones as well, but we really cannot replicate wing flapping in a way birds do. So you would need both, making it heavy again.
