A squad of Myanmar pro-democracy fighters works quickly to ready drones for an attack on a nearby military base, the latest target in a wave of aerial assaults that has helped turn the war against the junta.

The team stood back as one contraption named "Bomber VIII" carrying a new six-kilogram explosive soared over a line of trees.

"The military position is four kilometers away from us," oe Thuya Zaw, the drone unit's leader, said as he punched coordinates into a map on his phone.

"It is within our reach."

Minutes later the drones had reached the position and at the push of a button released their "drop bombs" over the target.

The team counted two blasts. One had failed to detonate, but all three drones returned safely.

Opponents of Myanmar's junta use such attacks to challenge the military's dominance of the skies through its Russian- and Chinese-built jets and helicopters.

"While military pilots are flying fighter jets themselves and attacking us, we are also trying to conquer the sky of the battlefield," Soe Thuya Zaw of the "Mandalay People's Defense Force" said. 

Soe Thuya Zaw said his group's drone operations were entirely "the creations of our generation Z."

Myanmar's junta chief Min Aung Hlaing has admitted the drone barrages have forced the military to retreat from its positions.

An alliance of ethnic minority armed groups had used 25,000 "drop bombs" in their recent offensive, he said last month.

Ahead of the launch, Soe Thuya Zaw admitted the range of their drones is limited, making every attack risky.

"We are in the red zone and the military can hit us any time."

But in recent weeks waves of "drop bomb" attacks across Myanmar have displaced junta troops from positions, hit domestic airports and killed a brigadier-general near the China border.

The word has even entered the lexicon of junta-controlled media, which regularly attacks PDF groups — designated as "terrorists" by the military — for using them in fighting.