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New Draganflyer Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
John Jorsett writes "I've long lusted for the Draganflyer indoor-outdoor radio-controlled helicopter, but now I've got a new object of desire. Since seeing it flown on The History Channel's 'Tactical to Practical' show last September, I've been waiting for the Draganflyer Predator, modeled on the military aircraft of the same name. Electrically powered, the $750 Draganflyer Predator can be equipped with video cameras and a GPS receiver to carry out radio-controlled or pre-programmed self-guided surveillance missions of up to 20 miles range, the company claims. Time to buy my own UAV and find out what's really going on over there in Area 51."
it'll be interesting to see if the government will impose some restrictions on such device, so that it can't be used for anything threating the homeland.
more importantly, can this Predator still be controlled if someone's using a jammer of some sort?
I'll bet they's toast your flying machine pretty quickly if you sent it into their airspace ...
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Be fun to try, though.
Oh, yeah, have a realtime video link back to your base - I doubt if you'd get your video camera back. In fact, I doubt you'd really want to ask for it
A Remote Threat
This past June, quoting a German intelligence official, the Reuters news agency reported that al Qaeda might be planning to attack passenger aircraft using model airplanes. Some have dismissed this threat as unlikely or fanciful, but other terrorism experts foresee terrorist groups' using remote-control planes, boats, helicopters, and other delivery devices to attack people and sites without sacrificing any of their members.
Is the time ripe for such attacks? With the Western world hardening its defenses after 9-11, terrorists will be looking for creative ways to get past security, says Louis R. Mizell, a private security expert and ex-U.S. intelligence officer.
Mizell, who gathers data on security and terrorist incidents, says precedent for such attacks exists. He has recorded 43 cases involving 14 terrorist groups in which remote-control delivery systems were "either threatened, developed, or actually utilized." Only last year it was reported, for example, that Osama bin Laden considered using remote-control airplanes packed with explosives to kill President George W. Bush and other heads of state at the G-8 summit in Genoa, Italy. In 1995, reports indicated that Aum Shinrikyo, the Japanese terrorist group that attacked the Tokyo subway with sarin gas, planned to use remote-control helicopters to spray dangerous chemicals from the air. The helicopters crashed during testing. In the 1980s, the Basque separatist group ETA tried to blow up a Spanish patrol ship using a four-foot remote-control boat packed with explosives.
The U.S. military is devoting considerable resources to its own remote-control delivery systems. For example, engineers are working on enhancing pilotless "drones" to make them effective means of attack without putting a flight crew at risk.
Critics have downplayed this threat because of the relatively small payloads that such devices can deliver. But some remote-control devices on the market can hold large amounts of explosives. A Mississippi company called Bergen R/C Helicopters, for example, advertises over the Internet a five-foot-long remote-control helicopter, costing $4,000, that can carry a 20 kg (44 lb) payload for 30 minutes without needing to refuel. Yamaha Motor Co. markets over the Internet a remote-control helicopter with a 20 kg payload as a pilotless crop duster. And, Mizell points out, terrorists could use many vehicles with smaller payloads en masse to create the same effect.
Other experts agree that the threat is legitimate. "Do you want to know if this is a real threat?" asks Gary Richter, a systems analyst at Sandia National Laboratories who evaluates the goals and capabilities of terrorist groups. "The answer is an unequivocal yes."
Robert Blitzer, a former chief of the Domestic Terrorism/Counterterrorism Planning Section in the FBI's National Security Division, said he hadn't personally encountered that threat while with the FBI but conceded that it was viable. "I wouldn't be at all surprised that al Qaeda would have the wherewithal to do something like that," Blitzer says.
"Remote-control vehicles of various sorts do have to be considered," agrees RAND analyst Brian Jenkins, "but they have a limited spectrum in terms of utility." He points out that remote-control bombs "would barely dent a skyscraper" and wouldn't compromise the dome of a nuclear reactor. Jenkins adds that remote-control delivery devices would be unnecessary in situations where terrorists could simply plant a bomb and walk away--in Times Square, for example.
But Mizell sees a much broader scope of potential applications, such as boat attacks on maritime vessels and littoral utilities, as well as plane, helicopter, or car attacks on targeted VIPs' vehicles. "Real-life analogous situations show us what could be done," he says. For example, in 1998, a radio-control model airplane forced the pilot of a DC-9 to change his approach to Dulles International Airport.
source
MoFscker
You want Area 6413.
Hardware like this is trouble for organizations which want to be private.
How long until we can build a cheap mostly-plastic flier that can fly high enough, yet take good enough pictures, of secret sites?
What's stopping us from finding an open WAP nearby and dropping a cheap WAPWireless Controller bridge? Perhaps with a few more cheap relays if we don't have the range.
Sit down in an internet cafe, bounce your signal through eastern Europe, and get ready to get your own pics of Area 51. Sure, you lose the flyer, but so what?
Perhaps we'll end up living in a transparent society...
I just transfered from the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and while there my Microprocessor Systems Professor who took me in shared with me information of the UAV project that he was starting. The following was the information about the UAV he planned: -It will be small, the craft being a helicopter -It would be cheap. $15k ($7k - Helicopter, $8k Electronics) -Price to public would be $50k-$75k -It would be easy to fly & user friendly. Requiring NO pilot training. Would be similar to flying a video game airplane. -Allowing for single-user operation. With high level command structure. -Object-oriented design with much more robust software to ensure it won't fail like the Predator in combat. -Includes GPS & Video for non-combat survillance work. Most people in the Aviation field laughed at him after making most of these statements including the price. Unfortunately, they don't understand his background and full knowledge of the field. After being a Microprocessor Engineer for Texas Instruments and Intel he took a liking to flying and started an aviation business for UAV flight control system in 1994. His knowledge and abilities will be make it able for him to help the students of Embry-Riddle create the UAV despite the many people who continue to laugh in his face!
if you really wanted to get it done, train a bird to carry a camera and then fly it over the base. any radar signature outside of a bird would probably trigger a big response and a triangulation of any radio signals in the surrounding area. of course being paranoid enough to annex the mountaintops around the base means that they probably auto eyeball every object in local space.
Nope, the skunkworks operations moved to Edwards AFB in California. The restricted area around Edwards is MUCH larger than that around Area 51, the only downside is the improved runway is only about half as long so super and hypersonic craft need to lose more energy before landing.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
[The ATF tried asking model rocket engine manufacturers to supply them with some engines for testing. All refused. So they came up with a court order, forcing one of the manufacturers to supply some engines. They complied]
"I'm suprised the judge didn't laugh them out of the courtroom & tell them to drive down to the local hobby shop and but the engines themselves. Doesn't part of the the point of showing that consumer-grade off-the-shelf parts can be a threat showing that they can be purchased by anyone on short notice? It's not like they don't have the budget to buy these things."
They were trying to test high powered engines, greater than G class. Not many places stock those. They *did* try to purchase them at first. The manufacturers turned down the ATF purchase order.
High powered engines require some pretty stringent licensing already, developed by those in the hobby, as well as ATF licensing for low power explosives. You'd think they'd be satisfied. Particularly since the licensing brings in income and gets the users (and potential sources for leaks) registered. Theor going against the nomral grain of goobermint agency actions like that just indicates they're working way outside their already twisted framework of logic, and are simply out to score FUD points. That's become a major federal occupation since 9/11 -- pretending they're doing something to make us feel less afraid and more thankful to them for doing so, no matter whether we want it or not.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B