In a story I am working on, the characters need a fixed-wing drone that can rendezvous with a blimp, where by "rendezvous" I mean "come within a very short distance at low relative airspeed". The challenge is that the blimp will typically be flying through powerful gusts and abrupt wind shear—ideally hurricane-like conditions or worse. The characters have the time and resources to design and build a custom drone for this purpose, and while I realize that I will probably have to stretch credulity at some point, I'd like the drone's design to at least seem plausible. Hence my question: What would a drone custom-built for such missions look like?
Here's what I found so far (and which I hope is accurate):
Wing loading is the single largest factor in gust response. If the only concern were dealing with the wind, the drone would have as much wing loading as could be managed. However, I also need the rendezvous to happen at low (blimp-relative) airspeed.
A long wingspan is a liability in wind shear, increasing the chance for an asymmetric stall and upping the rolling moment even if there is no stall; the drone should probably have its wings tucked tight to its body.
Given the risk for sudden stalls, the wings should be designed with substantial washout. They will probably not be swept (in either direction), both because drag reduction is not a driving consideration and because swept wings would tend to push the drone nose-up in a stall.
Anhedral wings, while less good for stability, would cause the drone to bank into crosswinds, which could be useful given the feedback delay the drone pilot has to deal with, and some of the stability could be made up by placing the wings high, creating a pendulum effect. But maybe stability is the more important factor here.
An inverted tail will cause the drone to both roll and yaw into crosswinds. I am not sure whether an inverted T or inverted V would make more sense.
I have also found some planes that are intentionally flown into hurricanes: the Lockheed WC-130, the Lockheed WP-3D Orion, the Gulfstream IV, the Douglas DC-8, NASA's ER-2 (a Lockheed U-2 derivative), and the AAI Aerosonde, the only drone on my list. The last, at least, backs up some of the ideas I have above.