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Ask Slashdot: Can You Identify This UAV?
garymortimer writes "It's not as sexy as the Beast of Kandahar RQ 170 Sentinel, or as well known as a Predator. But we think the bird-shaped drone that crashed in Pakistan last week might be a U.S. special forces tool. At first it was thought to be a homemade job, but packs with FMC (which means 'Fully Mission Capable') written on them, and an American date style as well, really points to something else. sUAS News is not AvWeek or Flight International so getting scoops is tricky whilst holding down a day job. Our exclusive pictures of the damaged C130 that struck an RQ170 was pretty good for us. We would love to identify this drone. Maybe it is just a homebrew job, maybe it's not. It's not a Festo Smartbird, though, the most popular choice of pundits."
This is an espresso machine. No, no wait. It's a snow cone maker...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
http://www.ted.com/talks/a_robot_that_flies_like_a_bird.html
and I've seen a lot of shops~
Seriously, it looks like the UAV the send out with recon groups.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I thought of this first too, though by the looks of it, it'd have to have gone through about a billion revs to get to this guy if its flight characteristics were the same.
I'd guess it's just a wing-like profile... it looks like a fixed shape. Though I loved the video on the original site... who decided to co-opt the original Airwolf theme music for their report.
It's a hs1fa@*ldk NO CARRIER
to install self destruct devices into "secret" new tech.
To my (somewhat) trained eye, this looks like any other R/C airplane run by amateurs who fly them strictly within line of sight (though many have been putting FPV equipment so they can fly them with a first person view, often a few miles away.)
From time to time our R/C planes do malfunction and will fly off out of our control, or something will go wrong and they'll crash and we won't be able to find and recover them. Perhaps it's just some hobbyist's plane that got away from him? It certainly looks like something a hobbyist made rather than an expensive commercial/military model.
Though I guess this does bode poorly for the hobby -- ham radio operators don't bring their radios with them when they go to many countries because people often equate radios with spies ... I guess the next step is to equate people flying R/C planes with spies?
I think Bellisario should sue... They totally ripped off the Airwolf intro music.
On a side note I love how they took the festo smart bird video and dirtied it up to look military lol...
http://www.festo.com/cms/en_corp/11369_11439.htm#id_11439
---In a time of Chimpanzees I was a Monkey.
Obviously is is part of an alien spaceship! Where are the remains of the pilots??? ;^)
When will the Air Force show us samples of a weather balloon??? ;^)
It's obviously a pelican illuminated by the reflected glow of swamp gas.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I could tell you. But then I would have to kill you.
Don't know what the bird-thing is, but the background music to the (pakistani?) news video is definitely from the 1980s tv show Airwolf. lol.
http://www.kalam.tv/ur/video/87696/index.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr_CJL1YQRc
Do you really think that anyone who could identify that UAV, provided that it's a UAV, would respond to your question?
Let's reason.
Those who really can do it would be among:
- people from the company who built it
- people from the DoD who required/bought it
- people from the army/company who operated it
- spies from a dozen of countries.
Now check one by one these categories. None will answer here as a comment. And not even as a private message, as Slashdot has none and because online stuff is traceable.
I would also exclude the email (gary@yyyyyyyyyy) and the phone (0778 6666666) for the same reason.
I would expect a few fake money request into your post box in the Somerset.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
...whatever that means but it's not a military style date.
Military ineptness jokes aside, I'm pretty sure they don't go around labeling and dating parts of their vehicles with masking tape.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
FMC is the usual term for Fully Mission Capable, and while I've never seen masking tape used to mark aircraft it is light enough to provide a good background for magic marker. (When marking light-colored surfaces, grease pencil was common in the Air Force years ago.)
There is obviously no place for a "781" forms binder in such a small machine. :)
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
It's Skarmory. *cerealguy.jpg*
The more you know, the more you have to say and the more you should listen.
Grease pencil on weapons placards was common (the Navy may still use it).
When we deployed to Al Dhafra, grease pencils were even used for nose art:
http://www.f-16.net/interviews_article33.html
Note the old-school white placard on this O-2:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/54/432712455_fda36d0f7d.jpg
Tape is available and produces the required contrast. There is no functional reason not to use tape and marker.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
In the world of unacknowledged weapons and surveillance systems pretty much anything could be anything. Just because someone slapped some US military lingo and American formatted dates does not mean anything. Maybe it was built by someone who had been in the States and thought nothing of it but is not connected with the US officially, maybe someone else made it and used surplus American components, maybe someone wanted to try and embarrass the US by making it look American, maybe someone else is spying and does not want it know so just made the thing to look American encase it was captured.
Just off the top of my head it could be:
ISI
CIA
Israel
Some engineering students who have been recruited by extremists
A hobbyist
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Time to don the tin hats, people.
"...the number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with more expected..." - Dennis Ritchie/Ken Thompson, 1972
Somebody lost it in a bar.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
Yes. the TED Video is a demonstration of the FESTO Smartbird, see also Youtube Video. This Video is a stupid mash-up. They seem to have found an small video drone, bird shaped, with fixed wings. Any of intelligence agency or a good RC plane builder can build those. But Smartbid is entirely different. As you can see in the above TED Video it has many organic build internal conjunction. The above shown picture and open body is much simpler. So maybe the found a RC Plane that looks like a bird. Maybe it was even used by a foreign power in an Arabic country. But that video does not give you any clues beside some shaky videos and pictures....
Whoever built it was intent on convincing people on the ground that it's nothing more than a vulture circling overhead for the past 3 days.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
You don't generally get too many hobbyists in war zones.
Looks pretty close.. http://www.suasnews.com/2010/07/421/afrl-bird-sized-uav-project/
These days the CIA is more "military" than the real military. They are the ones orchestrating the drone missions in that area.
I understand nose art, and labeling an aircraft to described what it's armed with, but would you stick a piece of masking tape on a missile and write "missile" on it?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
they are surprisingly inexpensive ($500 plus some labor w/ analog video downlink). they are also likely to have been repaired quite frequently (that is if you're lucky and didn't leave a pile of kindle your last encounter with gravity).
on an unrelated note, it's fun to watch confirmation bias in the wild.
Interestingly featured in this Pakastani military website.
Took about 45 seconds to find on Google. Most of the time was spent opening the beer can.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
http://www.theissaviation.com/AOL.html
we have a bunch of these.
Clearly it's a weather balloon.
You can't handle the truth.
or a red and blue striped golfing umbrella.
[Insert pithy quote here]
This isn't China... yet.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Claymores have "Face Toward Enemy" written on them. Nothing would surprise me.
It flies like this: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/a_robot_that_flies_like_a_bird.html
clearly the next stage in evolution of cylon birds
This is clearly a marketing ruse to encourage us to buy SilverHawks on DVD, which has a cyber-bird named Tally Hawk.
Hmmmm it appears to only be $10 now....
I think it is that paper airplane I threw over the cube wall.
Seriously? I came across that in manga and thought it was a silly joke.
This website: http://defensetech.org/2011/08/29/mystery-drone-crash-in-pakistan/#more-14195
Notes that this Drone is likely a modified Lockheed Martin Desert Hawk. From the looks of it, it very well could be.
You don't generally get too many hobbyists in war zones.
That sounds like crazy talk to me. Of course you get hobbyists in war zones - they're called the "inhabitants" of the newly-created "war zone". Right before it was a "war zone" is was a "place to live" where people probably did have hobbies.
Sadly, it is true...
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Yes, but once it is a war zone we call them terrorists because their hobby *may* help the bad guys. If we can't pin terrorist on them we call them a sympathizer or some other tag that makes it ok to at least harass them.
</whishful sarcasm>
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
No, but if I had a bunch of components in a storage shed in a deployed location I'd mark the "good ones" after bench-checking them so users could "grab and go". It's a helluva lot easier than bouncing serial numbers off a logbook.
FMC, PMC (Partially Mission Capable), NMC (Not Mission Capable), and other codes are the usual shorthand. If you need to make one out of two, "cann" (cannibalize) parts from the NMC equipment and have at it.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
"Claymores have "Face Toward Enemy" written on them. Nothing would surprise me."
OK. Picture a PLAIN Claymore. Not particularly intuitive.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
It could be a migrating Swallow.
Sigs are for losers
You sir made my day :)
EULA : By reading the above message, you agree that I now own your soul.
Yes, but once it is a war zone we call them terrorists because their hobby *may* help the bad guys. If we can't pin terrorist on them we call them a sympathizer or some other tag that makes it ok to at least harass them.
Not to get in the way of a good rant, but other countries do this. Link.
Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
I didn't know Pakistan was in Arkansas. I really have to get an atlas.
No such thing. It is actually cast into the metal..
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/US_M18a1_claymore_mine.jpg/300px-US_M18a1_claymore_mine.jpg
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
From what I've seen and heard, there are actually surprisingly large number of R/C hobbyists in the military. Sometimes those toys find their way into the line of fire.
Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
Could it be a modded raven?
While not very technically advanced, I'd say (based on my R/C and Military experience) that this is in fact some type of close recon UAV, deployed out of a backpack. These guys that are "interrogating" the craft are probably very lucky they weren't the intended target, as the person that launched it is probably on the next hill.
I will add to the date controversy with this tidbit. The US Military writes their dates Day/Month/Year. It was one of the first things I had to learn. Hell I still do it to this day. I get asked all the time why I use the European convention. Then I have to explain, "no, it's the military convention".
So let me suggest that it was deployed by an American, "civilian" organization? Who could that be?
We show geeks how to get their dream girl at EyesOfOdessa.com
Harry Hamlin gotta eat!
I don't quite get it even with the inscription. Is it a directional explosive?
The scary thing is that they are more dangerous because they believe things like the geneva convention only apply to the army and such forces. The lack of accountability is truly troubling.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I don't quite get it even with the inscription. Is it a directional explosive?
Yes, it's a directional explosive with lots of little metal balls for shrapnel inside. It has 700 1/8" steel balls, with an effective range of about 50 yds in a 60 degree wide cone that is very flat. Typically command detonated.
See M18 or M18A1 Claymore on various wikis. GlobalSecurity has a chart showing the coverage area.
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
First things first - the video do show a handwritten date; 8/10/11, and that's the US way of writing a date, many other places in the world would write a date differently; 2011-08-10, 10/8-11 or so. It's just a rough indication, but a clue.
And the basic design tells me that it's likely to be some cheap surveillance drone lightly masked to look like a bird of prey to fool the casual observer. Won't take much effort to design and develop something like that compared to the more heavy stuff that the US military is using.
And it has probably been flying under the radar (pun intended) because it hasn't been sexy enough.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Is it just me or does it look like it doesn't cost a million bucks? Which would be a nice change for substantial UAVs. I suspect its an early generation cheap surveillance drone. Fully mission capable as it is; its not like slapping a camera on a remote control plane is really that hard in this day and age.
I want a pair of them shoes!
The GP was speaking hypothetically you poor soul.
It's my son's science project. We couldn't get it past TSA, so decided to send it to the fair on it's own.
Table-ized A.I.
War isn't a hobby of the US?
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
I don't quite get it even with the inscription. Is it a directional explosive?
M18A1 Claymore directional antipersonnel mine, remote detonated, used mainly in ambushes, fires steel balls out to about 100 meters within a 60 arc in front of the device.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
If you don't know which way to stand when you're holding a giant sword, you're in serious trouble when the battle happens.
First things first - the video do show a handwritten date; 8/10/11, and that's the US way of writing a date, many other places in the world would write a date differently; 2011-08-10, 10/8-11 or so. It's just a rough indication, but a clue.
Yeah, that could never be imitated by a foreign intelligence agency so the USA gets the blame when one crashes...
No sig today...
Why is everyone assuming it's an American date? Surely the more likely option is that it's FROM THE FUTURE.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
I'm sure I saw something similar to this when I visited Microsoft...
That is known as an RVAE. The new drone that replaced soldiers doing ISTAR.
All cows eat grass!
Exactly... and it's not a mistake you're likely able to learn from.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
The "if other countries do it, it's ok for us to do it too" argument? Really?
That's the civilian way of writing dates.
Military style is YYYYMMDD.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
It's clearly a swallow, probably meant for the transport of coconuts.
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
Well if it was military, the date on an "inspection" sticker would more likely be in military Julian date first digit would be the year, 1 one since it's 2011 and the number of days in the year and the 10 of Aug would be the 222th day of 2011 so 10 Aug 2011 would be written as 1222. Most components are periodically inspected so if something needs re-inspection every 0 or 180 days, using day number dates make the arithmetic trivial. 8/10/11 is definitely civilian style dating. Of course writing 1222 would have been to obtuse to mean
Muslims and Arab Muslims in particular, and Al Queda especially like to use dates to send hidden messages. We've pretty much got the head chopped off the Al Queda snake maybe be we're delivering that message.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
That's a filthy foreign style. McCarthy will be out soon to get you goddamn pinko "military industrial complex" preverts and stop you fiddling with our precious bodily fluids.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Took about 45 seconds to find on Google. Most of the time was spent opening the beer can.
You should learn to shotgun your beers, unless of course it was a Gunnies and if that's the case you should have spent two minutes pouring it.
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate
You should learn to shotgun your beers, unless of course it was a Gunnies and if that's the case you should have spent two minutes pouring it.
Shit. I spelt Guinness wrong...here come the drunk spelling nazis.
Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate
Looks like the Romulan warbird from Balance of Terror. Am I that old?
Why do all these photographs reek of Pakistani propaganda to me? I feel like I'm looking at photos of UFO wreckage from Roswell.
After the mission to kill Bin Laden in Pakistan, the Pakistani government don't like us very much, and I get the impression this could just be some ploy to provoke anti-American sentiment.
To me, it looks more like a R/C plane with some unrelated bits and pieces that might not even fit into the craft. But, I'm certainly no authority on R/C planes or military surveillance craft.
Noticing the woosh but I have to point this out.
I'm pretty sure most foreign nations use DD/MM/YYYY for date formats. Because of that, my 20 year old Australian friend was able to drink in a bunch of bars in the US when he came for a visit.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
It's molded into the plastic. There is a reason I said "picture" a plain one because US mines have lettering.
Have some internal pics:
http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t70805.html
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
If you are rotating batteries, you might even want to write down the date you last charged it. Some batteries self-discharge pretty fast, so a technician might find that information real handy.
TTBOMK, only the Japanese use YYYY/MM/DD,, presumably because someone sat down and chose it in about 1860, rather than it developing by some randomly-seeded crystallisation as in most other cultures.
(As someone who walks past the "Scottish Samurai's" family home when I go into the office, I'm regularly reminded that the late 19th century Japanese society was taking a deliberate look at what parts of global culture it was going choose, now that their original choice of isolation had been taken away.)
[Sigh] hunts for a list , neglecting choice of separator ("it's a separator ; it's already performed it's function")... 20 big-endian countries listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country ; 109 little-endian; 6 middle-endian and several in official transition.
However, since large amounts of media and culture are broadcast by some of the rump of middle-endian countries, then the recognition that what seems to be a date format might be ambiguous is a lot more widespread than the dominance of little-endian countries would suggest form that summary.
Anyway, I'll use ISO 8601 as default - and say so - until the client informs me what their standard is. And since so few clients consist of only one nationality, it's rarely an issue that's not recognised as an issue.
Hang on ...
How does that become an issue? For the year number to have been ambiguous about his age ... by two or more years ... sorry, don't understand how that could happen. Julian/ Gregorian Calendar question? No, that would only give about 13 days error, not a couple of years. [PUZZLED]
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"