The lander was not flying.
What Apollo landers did was not flying.
Yeah, but that's not flying.
You cannot fly in the moon as there is no air. You cannot hover indefinitely either, as that takes infinite amount of fuel.
Consider a simple thought experiment. You add more fuel to the Chinese lander so that it can hover longer. Now that you have added more fuel, the lander has more mass. More mass means the Moon can exert a more powerful pull on the lander through gravity, so the engine has to work harder to hover and burns more fuel. To compensate for that, you need to add even more fuel, which makes the lander even more heavier, leading to an even more powerful engine which burns even more fuel. It is a viscous cycle.
So, what you have suggested is simply not doable with current technologies. The closest you can do is send a probe to orbit the Moon at a very low altitude, such as what China did with Chang'e 2. However, that's not flying either.
1. the lander hovered for a while before landing:
Was it doable? it did.
Was that called flying? i think it was flying - went horizontally in the air against moon gravity, albeit for a very short one.
2. Apollo came back, didn't it?
It means that even without air or with thin air, it somehow managed to overcome gravity from the moon surface upwards and went vertically at some stage, for some time.
Was that doable? of course, it did.
Was that called flying? i think of course it was flying - went vertically in the air against moon gravity, albeit using a lot of fuel.
So, from 1 and 2, they have managed to go both horizontally and vertically, against gravity - that's my definitonn of flying, and successful flying as well.
The difference however, from convetional flying, say, a F-16 jet fighter, is that the former required much more fuel, and lasted considerablely shorter time. Then still, they were flying.
The only fundamental questions here then become:
1. fuel economy (i.e. better and more efficient fuel types, to decide how far and for how long it flies)
2. a better weight-thrust optimisation (nonethelss, an optimation is already feasable as proven by above facts)
3. a combination of both verticle and horizonal moves ( to make a variety of different movements at that altitutue over time, to make it more like a drone on earth that we're familiar with)
All above 3 are questions of better tech and skills, but not about theoritical feasibility of flying itself, because they flied, after all.
Therefore, calling that one cannot fly a drone there simply because of thin air is a misnomer against the known facts.
Furthermore, think about long jump, can one jump on the moon surface?
Of course he can. And it's likely that he would break the world's long jump record as well.
When you jump before you land, you are effectively flying.
If you have some sustained fuel source, you fly longer before you're forced down by gravity.
If some push you a bit when you 're in the air, you then fly horizontally...
Therefore, even you yourself can fly at that altitute, the only question is for how long depending on external power plant.
A tiny drone the size of your keyboard , with a jet engine capable of directional thrusts and some high energy fuel, can be operated (pre-programmed? in the same manner as they did to the lander) both vertically and horizontally closely above the moon surface , say 30m or 100m, for some time like either 2 mins or 5 mins? or 10mins? even 20mins?... either way that's flying and that's enough in my book.
