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Ultra-Light Micro Air Vehicles
Roland Piquepaille writes "Dutch engineers have built the third generation of the DelFly autonomous air vehicle. The DelFly Micro made its first public flight earlier today in Delft. This micro air vehicle weighs only 3 grams and has a wingspan of 10 centimeters. This very small remote-controlled aircraft carries a 0.4 gram camera. The DelFly Micro, which looks like a dragonfly, can fly for 3 minutes at a maximum speed of 5 meters/second. It could be used for observation flights in difficult-to-reach or dangerous areas."
You'd still notice this in the girl's shower.
OK, they win. I was going to moan about the refresh on the camera being inadequate, the flight time being useless, and the inability to hover meaning that it has two modes: flying, and crashing.
But having seen in action? Must... own... tiny... whirring... affront to God. Must.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
In an issue of Meat & Poultry magazine, editors quoted from "Feathers," the publication of the California Poultry Industry Federation, telling the following story:
The US Federal Aviation Administration has a unique device for testing the strength of windshields on airplanes. The device is a gun that launches a dead chicken at a plane's windshield at approximately the speed the plane flies.
The theory is that if the windshield doesn't crack from the carcass impact, it'll survive a real collision with a bird during flight.
It seems the British were very interested in this and wanted to test a windshield on a brand new, speedy locomotive they're developing.
They borrowed FAA's chicken launcher, loaded the chicken and fired.
The ballistic chicken shattered the windshield, broke the engineer's chair and embedded itself in the back wall of the engine's cab. The British were stunned and asked the FAA to recheck the test to see if everything was done correctly.
The FAA reviewed the test thoroughly and had one recommendation:
"Use a thawed chicken."
I hate printers.
Hm...I don't think they'll survive easily if they get sucked into a jet engine. They're kind of small and don't look that durable.
What I wanna know is: does it fly ok in, ahem, rainy or otherwise humid conditions?
3 minutes is not very useful. By the time you reach your destination and actually get some good images, you've run out of time to return and have effectively lost your ...
Ahem. That's what she said.
You may also want to check if the reflective surface of bathroom tiles mess with its navigation or imaging in any way.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)