No runway, no problem: China demonstrates drone catapult made up of three trucks that interlock like Lego bricks and come in shipping containers

A screengrab from a social media post showing a drone flying off a modular truck-based catapult launch system.

• Video showcases China's road-mobile electromagnetic catapult launching an aircraft for the first time
• The footage comes from a now-deleted social media post from the Beijing Institute of Technology's School of Mechanical Engineering
• Leverages China's existing EMALS tech by miniaturizing what it already uses on its aircraft carrier

China seems to have solved one of the biggest challenges modern drones face: deploying without a runway anywhere on the planet, thanks to a miniaturized version of the EMALS catapults found on its newest aircraft carrier.