Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Culture

Wasp Turns Your Boring Drone Into a Flamethrowing Assault Copter

By

It’s August, and that means it’s time to start updating your holiday wishlist. We’ll assume you’re the sort of sophisticated gentleman who already has a stable of exotic cars, a personal submarine, and a quarter-million-dollar bar cart suitcase. What you most definitely do not have is a flamethrower drone. Worry no more, because the wait is over.

Throwflame - Introducing the TF-19 Flamethrower Drone
s

As the name implies, the TF-19 Wasp Flamethrower Drone attachment is exactly what it sounds like. The one-of-a-kind kit converts almost any decent drone into a fire-shooting aerial assault copter. It boasts a 25-foot range and 100 seconds of trigger time on a single, one-gallon fill. The ultralight 3K carbon fiber shell keeps the weight to just four pounds, so it’ll mount to most common drone platforms with at least a five-pound payload capacity.

The TF-19 flamethrower drone kit is marketed as a versatile and reliable solution for “[clearing] debris from power lines, pest management and nest elimination, forest fire containment back-burns, and remote agriculture burns.” All of those seem like perfectly logical reasons to purchase such a device. But, let’s be real: That’s not why you’re buying one and probably not why the company has received so many orders that the kits are back-ordered for up to six weeks. They’re selling out for the same reason Elon Musk launched a Tesla into space; why some guy designed a Back to the Future-inspired DeLorean hovercraft; and why one Indian oil magnate built a billion-dollar, 400,000-square-foot skyscraper home. They’re selling out because most men are living in a state of arrested development. We’re all just waiting for the moment we’re rich and brazen enough to realize our most absurd adolescent fantasies.

Now, if you’re the sensible sort, your first question is probably, “Is this even legal?” The good news according to Throw Flame: “Flamethrower drones are federally legal and not considered weapons; however, users are still required to comply with the FAA’s UAS rules in addition to local ordinances.” No need to consult a lawyer. If it’s on the internet, it has to be true. What’s more, the company promises no annoying waiting periods, tax stamps, or pesky background checks. God bless America.

Recommended Videos

The TF-19 WASP Flamethrower Drone Attachment is now available direct from ThrowFlame.com for the low, low price of just $1,499. It seems, however, that everyone is looking to get their hands on one so expect a lead time of more than a month.

If your home security or “brush clearing” strategies are decidedly more ground-based, grab a “Not a Flamethrower” from Elon Musk and check out our favorite practical uses for it.

Mike Richard
Mike Richard
Contributor
Mike Richard has traveled the world since 2008. He's kayaked in Antarctica, tracked endangered African wild dogs in South…
The best sci-fi shows streaming right now
From Lost to The Twilight Zone, these are the best sci-fi shows ever made
The cast of Lost.

Sci-fi television has been around since the earliest days of the medium, and it's evolved along with the rest of television. In every era, though, there have been great sci-fi shows that remind us of how well the genre can fit on television.

Great science fiction can reflect on the world we know, even as it expands our understanding of what's possible. Regardless of exactly what these shows are about, though, each of them tells their story in gripping fashion, taking full advantage of what TV is capable of.

Read more
‘The Brutalist’ director Brady Corbet says he’s made no money promoting the film
The director said that he makes more directing commercials than he does making movies.
Adrien Brody in The Brutalist

It can be wonderful to get nominated for a bunch of awards, but The Brutalist director Brady Corbet said that it's not exactly a profitable one. In an interview on WTF with Marc Maron, Corbet said that he hadn't actually made any money promoting the movie.

“This is the first time I’ve made any money in years,” Corbet said, saying that his first real paycheck in a long time came from directing three advertisements in Portugal. “Both my partner and I made zero dollars on the last two films we made. Yes, actually zero. So we had to just live off of a paycheck from three years ago and obviously, the timing during an awards campaign and travel every two or three days was less than ideal, but it was an opportunity that landed in my lap, and I jumped at it.”

Read more
John Malkovich said that he rejected Marvel movies prior to ‘Fantastic Four’ over low pay
He explained that Marvel movies took a lot of time, and he wanted to be paid accordingly.
John Malkovich in Fantastic Four

Over the course of its 15 years of existence, Marvel has lured a number of surprising actors into its orbit. We live in a world where Angelina Jolie and Harry Styles have both appeared in Marvel projects (actually the same one).

John Malkovich was one of the last Marvel holdouts, but that's changing with The Fantastic Four: First Steps. In an interview with GQ, Malkovich explained that he had been approached to do Marvel projects in the past, but had always turned them down.
“The reason I didn’t do them had nothing to do with any artistic considerations whatsoever,” Malkovich explained. “I didn’t like the deals they made, at all.”
He explained that he simply wanted more money to work through the conditions required to make a movie on this scale.
“These films are quite grueling to make…. If you’re going to hang from a crane in front of a green screen for six months, pay me. You don’t want to pay me, it’s cool, but then I don’t want to do it, because I’d rather be onstage, or be directing a play, or doing something else," he continued.
Malkovich is, perhaps unsurprisingly, playing villain Ivan Kragoff, also known as Red Ghost in the film. He explained that working on the movie was actually like stage work in some respects. "It’s not that dissimilar to doing theater,” he said, “You imagine a bunch of stuff that isn’t there and do your little play.”

Read more