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Military Uses 'Bat-Hook' To Tap Power From Lines
Zothecula writes "As soldiers are fitted out with more and more electrical sytems to extend their capabilities, they become increasingly dependent on the power needed to run them. Since soldiers in the field don't always have ready access to an electrical outlet when they need to top up the batteries, the US Air Force has developed a device that taps directly into the electricity flowing through overhead power lines ... a kind of bat-hook for real-life superheroes."
You might think you are a real-life superhero, but you are probably not.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
There is prior art in Indian cities I believe. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4802248.stm
After you throw the hook over a line and jab it into the insulation, how do you take it back off? I didn't see the video address this and the shape of it doesn't seem like it'd be easy to get back down?...
check out the Mp3 Garbler I built!
Army? Yes.
Marines? Sure.
The Air Force? I wasn't expecting that!
How far do the Air Force guys get from airplanes and hangars and runways? It seems like they don't really have the same type of "field" that the land based grunts do.
You post this on Veterans day? Pitty I already posted in this thread and can't use my mod points :(
-jon
I thought tapping into power lines to steal electricity is illegal. In fact, even using an induction antenna to steal power is illegal. Will the military have a special contract with the power companies to let them do this?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
Go to South America. Poor people use them in places like Venezuela and Argentina to steal power for their shanty towns. It's quite common and not a new idea at all. Just don't get caught!
Just grab through the air from overhead power lines.
http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2004/360
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
It's a good thing that they are just tapping in to get free electricity... rather than tapping into networks to get free music downloads, otherwise the U.S. Military could be liable for trillions of dollars.
I never said they weren't necessary, but we shouldn't revel in their actions. And yes, like you say, sometimes they are doing what they do for the greater good. Many times it is just needless interventionism though.
http://CryoLANparty.com/ A lan I'm staff on!
with those who give the orders. Soldiers do. The vast majority (five nines thank you) are the best we have to offer. Why? Because they are willing to do what has to be done regardless of personal costs. I am a bit bias, I did four years back in the eighties, but honestly, these people are special in many ways. Most would never brag, most have core sets of values they really do live up to. They do far more than message board bitchers will ever do.
Look, they aren't perfect, but I respect the least of them more than you.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
This seems odd if you ask me. Anytime the US military assaults a populated area the first thing to disappear is the power grid.
Once they hold an area, they could just step into any building and get all the power they need. Who's going to say no?
Seems this is designed to be used for clandestine operations, where they need a fairly substantial amount of power from a power system they know is still operational.
But look at the size of the cable notch and you can see this is to tap into building feed lines (entrance lines), its not big enough for high tension lines, (which generally aren't rubber coated any way). Any line small enough to fit in that notch
Does that mean this is planned for suburban/residential areas or locations where there are building feed lines overhead? Some of the images on the linked page seem to show this (the unshielded cable in the images being for suspension only, and the other two conductors for power).
Yet that kind of entrance is not all that common in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, so one wonders if this isn't for domestic use in disaster relief situations where no one will begrudge them the power.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I'm sure that's exactly what those prisoners at Auschwitz thought when Allied soldiers showed up. That's certain one particular example, but nearly every war in history has been fought for far more complex reasons than simply because a bunch of guys were bloodthirsty.
Unfortunately you have a simplistic and unrealistic impression of how the world works.
Soldiers don't do any of the things you suggest. The entertainment industry (ironically pacifist) glorifies violence and the government defines policy regarding death and/or murder.
Most Air Force critters aren't pilots. Plus, Air Force Para-Rescue as well as Forward Air Controllers are specialized grunts who happen to work for the Air Force. The military is full of weird situations like this. For example, the Army operates 119 vessels (we're not talking about inflatable rafts here).
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
If you're not going to give them a parade, then you need to pay them more.
Military is the only profession where part of your job description is to give your life for others if necessary. Not to mention that it's a very hard job and for not that much money. I think they deserve a bit of credit, considering that they protect your interests as determined by the politicians that you elect, who are actually the ones who control what our military does and who they invade or not invade. If you disagree with a particular war, fine, blame the politicians who started it. By calling the soldiers murderers, you are no better than the ignorant hippie pieces of shit who spat on the crippled Vietnam veterans and called them baby killers.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
What I blame is the Military Industrial Complex, the politicians that pander to it, the ex-pentagon/military officers that retire to cushy jobs lobbying for the Industrial Giants that have raped and pillaged our government (and the tax payer in particular), and the self serving representatives who have played at war for no other reason than to justify pumping the vast majority of America's resources into this immoral, objectionable, enterprise.
Soldiers are men and women (most from poor economic situations) who have chosen for the most part to sacrifice themselves for the greater good of defending our nation in war, and healing our nation in times of disaster. For these people I have nothing but the greatest of respect. The sad fact is that in the most recent conflicts we've fought, the largest single cause of death or injury is not from the enemy, but all the problems and mishaps that come from moving large numbers of young people around with weapons, and having them live in constant state of near terror. Our leaders have done a piss poor job of protecting and honoring our soldiers. While publicly honoring our fighting men and women, the last administration cut funding for critical medical care to returning soldiers, and failed to make absolutely certain that those soldiers were being properly taken care of. Every expert on the subject has proclaimed the need for providing our soldiers with psychiatric counseling and care to alleviate PTSD and ease them back into civilian life. To this day, such service is being virtually ignored. The one thing in our military most neglected by our representatives, has consistently been our soldiers. Its an insult to their sacrifice.
Our country spends more on it's weapons of mass destruction, than the next top 27 military countries on the planet combines. Simply said, it's killing us. The sane answer would be to create a small highly mobile team of experts with insanely advanced cutting edge military technology, so at the first hint of trouble, they could make powerful tactical strikes. We live in a time when the greatest threat to America, is not hostile nations, but rogue international organizations (usually religious or politically based.) Our current military is almost useless in the face of that kind of enemy. We could keep a relatively small arsenal of ICBMs, for larger global threats. Dismantle the rest, reduce our army/navy/marines/air force to 10% of it's current size, and then outfit that 10% with space age technology. We build a robotic, fly by wire fighting force, so the number of soldiers in the field are reduced by another 90%. Finally we make certain we have a huge National Guard (in particular, we could cycle huge numbers of non-violent men and women out of prisons) to ensure our safety in case of a catastrophic event either natural or man-made.
In doing this, we still have the strongest militarily on the planet, but it costs us 80% less, its orders of magnitude more mobile, easier to scale and apply to specific situations, and for Americans, less likely to be the source of needless casualties on the field (ours or theirs.)
Of course it would demand that we change our focus from making a buck, to doing the right thing, serving our nation, promoting the common defense, and ensuring domestic tranquility. It saddens me to see that our greed centric society has made suffering, moral degradation, and religious fanaticism the gross national product.
They are invading a country where they aren't wanted and are murdering people.
And we are responsible for sending them there.
Own up to the fact that we have let our political leadership run wild with our recent wars. The military answers to Civilian authority. Soldiers very literally have no ability to refuse their orders. This is ingrained in them from the moment they enter basic training. Civilian authorities like that because it means we can send these guys to do our bidding while publicly denouncing the horrendous necessity of their existence.
They are doing exactly what our political leadership is asking them to do. Our political leadership is elected by people like you and me. You can't put those atrocities on them without accepting equal responsibility for allowing it to happen.
But if it makes you feel good about yourself to shit on these guys on Veterans day, go right ahead.
You're making the assumption that a strong military invokes blood lust.
something about having a hammer and only seeing a lot of nails maybe?
Parity tends to produce cooperation, overwhelming superiority tends to produce arrogance towards those you are superior too.
Do you seriously thing we would have invaded Iraq if we didn't know our military could kick the crap out of them? (note this is different than actually planning for the consequences of *after* kicking the crack out of them which we didn't do either).
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I'm not disagreeing your statement. But I don't think they would have done it if we didn't have the overwhelming military superiority we had over Iraq.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
People have done it here too... we call it... stealing power.
Yes, you can steal power from lines, you can even do it via induction.
Also... inverter? You only use an inverter to go from DC to AC. It was probably a small power transformer.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
On paper, nice concept. But just one minor problem: the power grid's most likely down, or was never built. I served in Iraq in 2006-2007 and again in 2008-2009. Even six years after invading the place, the central grid worked only sporadically. Most Iraqis had portable gasoline-powered generators. Other countries such as Afghanistan or Somalia probably never had a functioning electrical power system (outside of a few capitol cities). I was with the Marines in Iraq. We got by fine with batteries and some small utility generators. The only reason for tapping local power would be to run air conditioning, without which the Air Force is probably out of the fight. Second point is if US soldiers were to tap the local grid for power, guess who would be blamed for every power outage? It would drive unit commanders insane paying damages for spoiled milk every time the power went down. And we would pay to avoid controversy.
And yet, they still do a (mostly) thankless job, at great personal risk, which you or I would be unwilling to do. Much of what they do is good, some of what they do are for reasons which we might disagree with... they're still courageous.