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MIT's Acrobatic Helicopter
YourHero writes: "MIT has a new toy, a remotely-piloted helicopter that's agile, stable, and in the current public mood, perfect for urban combat and reconnaisance and surveying disaster sites. Oh, and it's also good for aerial photography. It's so good that it even does 360-degree aileron rolls at the flick of a switch. The release gives some basics, videos and other juice are here.
This cost $40k, excluding labor, because technically, student labor is "priceless" - so a nod to Kara Sprague, Alex Shterenberg, Ioannis Martinos, Bernard Mettler, and Vlad Gavrilets, who probably provided most of the labor. Stringfellow Hawk has not been reached for comment."
Oh, and it's also good for aerial photography.
... anywhere (bow chika bow wow!))
How long until someone starts selling these with some stupid pop-up ad campagin, a la X-10 cams.
(Works
Yet despite all of the physics and scientific perfection...
;)
...there is still no Helicopter Ejection Seat
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Now I can easily move my storm troopers and GI Joe's into battle without risk of a human pilot falling into harms way!
Stringfellow Hawk has not been reached for comment
untill this thing can go mach one and lift ernest borgnine, i really doubt stringfellow hawk will need to comment...
I believe sex is highly over rated... unless it involves me
Just in case you don't know who he is.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Imagine this: The Pentagon offers to transport, arm, and fuel home-built drone aircraft to fly against Al Qaeda. Your aircraft must meet the following requirements:
- On-board GPS
- On-board video capability
- Must be controlled via a soon-to-be-built wireless IP network in (let's say Somalia)
- 500-pound payload
From the comfort of your home, you can patrol your Pentagon-assigned territory, and engage targets as designated by the JSTARS targeting system.I figure the Pentagon can probably turn a profit by charging fees as they provide what is essentially the world's most realistic flight simulator. As an added bonus, they could sell the TV rights to the on-board video. Wouldn't it be fun to watch "The World's Most Terrified Terrorists"? Imagine what the MIT folks could build for this mission!
I think the most ironic part of the whole idea is that it turns the tables on the bad guys. Under this scenario, their most terrfying time of day would be when school gets out in the US. "Oh no! Schools out! Everyone head for the caves!"
What a neat application for embedded Linux.
The Comanche costs (will cost? may cost? link is from 1997) $26M each. Even at the current cost that means approximately 650 of these helecopters for the cost of one Comanche. They are (were?) taking about buying 1600 Comanche helicopters. That works out to 1,040,000 drones for the same cost.
Imagine you add a saturday night special to the helicopter and you send a million of these things sweeping into Iraq. Now the only problem is finding enough trained pilots.
Wait. Scratch that thought. I just had a vision of a million, unsupervised 14 year old boys in control of armed, remote control helicopters.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
"Wait. Scratch that thought. I just had a vision of a million, unsupervised 14 year old boys in control of armed, remote control helicopters."
Did you ever watch the Robin Williams movie _Toys_? They were basically doing this. The movie, while not being *good* per se, is a pretty interesting watch, if just for the visuals.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
If MIT can make a helicopter do aileron rolls maybe they can also get airplanes to auto-rotate.
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