The Unmanned Air (and other) Systems Thread

[Goatnapper'96]

That's my hometown.

I can't remember how long ago but back in the day the southern half of Ventura County, basically the Simi and Conejo Valleys, were bunched with Ridgecrest and the AFB out there in one hell of a gerrymandered district. It took in the two VC valleys and then followed the 118, I think I-5/and/or I-405, and then whatever other freeways/highways was neccesary to connect the two disconnected areas. I do think it was long before you, TripleD and I could even think about voting - I am thinking it might have even been when 3D and I were really young and you might not yet have been a glimmer in your old man's eye. It did not take in Flystripper's or Sufah's beloved Santa Clarita valley communities save perhaps some homeless folks living in freeway medians.

[Goatnapper'96]

ARISE YE PROUD SONS OF THE TWO OH! EIGHT and submit an application to the FAA.

http://www.avionics-intelligence.com...d-aircraf.html

True American patriots and true BYU quarterbacks. The two most honored and cherished sub-communities in all of human history! THAT IS MY TWO-OH-ATE, BITCHES!

[YOhio]

Popular Science does some prognostication, 6 sites that should make it and 1 that shouldn't.

Should:
1- San Diego, California
2- North Dakota
3- Sierra Vista, Arizona
4- Huntsville, Alabama
5- Creech AFB, Nevada
6- Dayton, Ohio

Shouldn't:
1- New York

http://www.popsci.com/technology/art...aa-test-drones

The reasoning provided for each site is sound, but I don't expect the FAA to select three Western states. San Diego is a shoe-in so the fight will be between Arizona and Nevada, though I wouldn't be surprised if the FAA pushed for the two locations to merge as a single site.

[YOhio]

Mississippi gets in on the action.

http://msbusiness.com/businessblog/2...-testing-site/

[YOhio]

University of Tennessee football team use octocopter for birds eye view.

http://www.suasnews.com/2013/04/2241...EMAIL_CAMPAIGN

[YOhio]

Nine poised to dominate the drone economy:
1- California
2- Washington
3- Florida
4- Texas
5- Ohio
6- Indiana
7- New Mexico
8- Oklahoma
9- Alabama

http://money.cnn.com/gallery/magazin...une/index.html

[YOhio]

5 Benefits of Drones

http://www.sri.com/blog/5-benefits-d...3&utm_term=p&s

[il Padrino Ute]

5 Benefits of Drones

http://www.sri.com/blog/5-benefits-d...3&utm_term=p&s

That site didn't mention another benefit of drones: If a drone kills a citizens while supporting law enforcement, there will be no need for a lengthy internal investigation to determine if it was justified. All that would need to be done is to never again fly the rogue drone and citizens would be worry free.

[YOhio]

Falcon UAV Supports Colorado Flooding Until Grounded by FEMA.

[Uncle Ted]

Falcon UAV Supports Colorado Flooding Until Grounded by FEMA.

Early Saturday morning Falcon UAV was heading up to Lyons to complete a damage assessment mapping flight when we received a call from our Boulder EOC point of contact who notified us that FEMA had taken over operations and our request to fly drones was not only denied but more specifically we were told by FEMA that anyone flying drones would be arrested. Not being one to bow to federal bureaucrats we still went up to Lyons to do a site survey for how we can conduct a mission in the near future to provide an adequate damage assessment to this storm raveged community.

Apparently FEMA doesn't want to recognize the fact that robots will take over nearly half of their jobs. http://www.technologyreview.com/view/519241/report-suggests-nearly-half-of-us-jobs-are-vulnerable-to-computerization/

[YOhio]

This is so cool.

http://www.stripes.com/news/air-forc...arget-1.243218

[il Padrino Ute]

This is so cool.

http://www.stripes.com/news/air-forc...arget-1.243218

That is beyond cool.

[YOhio]

Books via drones.

http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketc...,1497046.story

[Pelado]

http://www.gq.com/news-politics/big-...tion?mbid=gqpr

He was told that they were carrying rifles on their shoulders, but for all he knew, they were shepherd’s staffs. Still, the directive from somewhere above, a mysterious chain of command that led straight to his headset, was clear: confirmed weapons. He switched from the visible spectrum—the muted grays and browns of “day-TV”—to the sharp contrast of infrared, and the insurgents’ heat signatures stood out ghostly white against the cool black earth. A safety observer loomed behind him to make sure the “weapon release” was by the book. A long verbal checklist, his targeting laser locked on the two men walking in front. A countdown—three…two…one…—then the flat delivery of the phrase “missile off the rail.” Seventy-five hundred miles away, a Hellfire flared to life, detached from its mount, and reached supersonic speed in seconds.

It was quiet in the dark, cold box in the desert, except for the low hum of machines.

He kept the targeting laser trained on the two lead men and stared so intently that each individual pixel stood out, a glowing pointillist dot abstracted from the image it was meant to form. Time became almost ductile, the seconds stretched and slowed in a strange electronic limbo. As he watched the men walk, the one who had fallen behind seemed to hear something and broke into a run to catch up with the other two. Then, bright and silent as a camera flash, the screen lit up with white flame.

Airman First Class Brandon Bryant stared at the scene, unblinking in the white-hot clarity of infrared. He recalls it even now, years later, burned into his memory like a photo negative: “The smoke clears, and there’s pieces of the two guys around the crater. And there’s this guy over here, and he’s missing his right leg above his knee. He’s holding it, and he’s rolling around, and the blood is squirting out of his leg, and it’s hitting the ground, and it’s hot. His blood is hot. But when it hits the ground, it starts to cool off; the pool cools fast. It took him a long time to die. I just watched him. I watched him become the same color as the ground he was lying on.”

[Pelado]

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013...ic-microdrone/

Maveric has a bird-like profile with flexible wings, giving it the appearance of a raptor in flight. The drone, made of composite material, can fly as high as 25,000 feet and zip along at between 20 and 65 mph, making it just the thing for reconnaissance missions. And those super-stealthy guys in Special Operations...

Maveric weighs just 2.5 pounds and can be contained within a 6-inch tube. There’s no assembly required to prepare it for use, and it can be launched in less than 5 minutes by a single soldier. Once it reaches 100 meters, it’s silent to those on the ground. The battery’s only good for about an hour, but it takes just 30 seconds to swap a dead pack for a fresh one and have it ready to fly again. The drone is retrieved with a net.