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UK MOD To Spend 20 Million On Toy Size Spy Drones
garymortimer writes "The Ministry of Defense (MOD) is making 20 million pounds available for Nano UAS. This is the second story this week in which military organizations seem to be looking for small multicopters. A market to date that has been ignored by the big defense contractors and a space owned by small start ups. No doubt some of those small start ups will soon become big defense contractors!"
How long they'll get used into ominous use by police force? Not that the CCTV stories in UK reveal much usefulness for them, but... new toys, extra budgets, too tempting to refuse.
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UK MOD to spend 20 million Pounds on toy sized drones which will then be added to every McHappy meal sold in the UK so that they can watch the not quite toy sized British youth.
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Toy sized drones swallowed by British Air Marshall's at testing grounds, thought to be hors d'oeuvres.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
No doubt some of those small start ups will soon become big defense contractors!"
Or they'll be bought by big defense contractors, and the existing big defense contractors will continue to be the big defense contractors....
How long till they're available to public, so I can put a frickin laser beam on it.
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Fixed that for you.
... oh, this isn't about some IRC mod.
Nevertheless, same rules apply.
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That's nice and all, but this looks much less like a drone. Cute, when you don't consider the implications of a virtually invisible spy drone.
OK - I know I might sound a bit ignorant declaring this, but this story really excited me because I read the title as; "UT MOD spends $ on 20 million mini helicopters."
I know what you might be thinking - 20 mill mini copters wouldn't be nearly enough for a one night frag fest - but seriously; tiny cameras and laser lights to simulate in the real world ---- it would just be so Epic!
but then I realized the last time Epic and Unreal crossed paths and then I realized this was just a wasteful military scheme to find another way to cram more tiny cameras into England.
Defense is the American spelling.
Is 20million less than it cost to run the 2 Tornado squadrons the MOD have just disbanded?
Note, this sounds very much like a follow on from the competition the MoD ran in 2008, focused on Afghanistan issues. £20m is chump change anyway. http://www.science.mod.uk/engagement/grand_challenge/grand_challenge.aspx
The US and indeed, nations around the world, are implementing or preparing to implement aircraft regulations for UAV's (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), which includes the model aircraft of us radio controlled airplane hobbyists. While there isn't much in common with the typical model aircraft and a Predator drone with a Hellfire Missile, there is a LOT in common between these new nUAS's and a model aircraft. Just look at the thing. I have seen hobbyists at my local hobby field fly similar hobby planes they purchased for a few hundred dollars that already fly 20 minutes and longer. In case you weren't aware, the aircraft model hobby is moving in huge numbers from gas powered planes to the new LiPo battery powered planes. There are now battery-electric motor combinations that match the power of every gas powered model airplane engine in the world. And my own batteries easily keep my planes in the air for 20 minutes each, same as these military specifications. There is a good overview of upcoming regulatory actions worldwide, on the "sUAS News" website: http://www.suasnews.com/uas-regulations/.
On a tangental note, I enjoy flying radio control helicopters, I have three of them (a "micro sized" heli, T-Rex 250, with a rotor disc of about 25 cm diameter, weighing about 350g), a 500-size and a 600-size (which weighs about 2.5kg, IIRC with a rotor diameter of 1.6 metres), all of them are collective pitch and extremely agile (they are all aerobatic models). All of them are electric too.
What worries me a little is that the wider political world will see the small drones, which don't look an awful lot different to a model RC heli, then start invoking the "terrorism!" bogeyman and trying to ban/restrict the RC flying we do or making us go through a painful registration process to be able to buy parts or helis. It won't take a huge leap of imagination for some politician to think that my T-Rex 600 could be some sort of threat to a public figure if fitted with an FPV (first person view) system, and then we have yet another avenue of pleasure closed off due to the war-on-terror :-(
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I read somewhere that in the late 80s the UK was procuring RC helicopters to patrol the North/South Ireland border.
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"UK MOD To Spend 20 Million On Toy Size Spy Drones"
What will the rockers counter with?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The MOD covers all of the UK, not just England.
There's absolutely nothing to see over here except worn down people, rubbish all over the streets and people happily flouting traffic regulations.
Don't forget that we've reintroduced both corporal and capital for even minor motoring offences.
Copyright Jeremy Clarkson probably.
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