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Troops In Afghanistan Supplied By Robot Helicopter
Hugh Pickens writes writes "Pakistan is still blockading NATO war supplies passing through the port of Karachi in response to last month's killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers by an alliance air strike. But inside Afghanistan, supply lines are about to get a lot safer for NATO's logisticians as an unmanned helicopter just delivered a sling-load of beans, bullets, and band-aids to Marines at an undisclosed base in Afghanistan marking the first time a drone has been used to resupply a unit at war. The 2.5-ton, GPS-guided K-MAX can heft 3.5 tons of cargo about 250 miles up and over the rugged and mountainous terrain of Afghanistan across which NATO troops are scattered and can fly around the clock. 'Most of the [K-MAX] missions will be conducted at night and at higher altitudes,' says Marine Capt. Caleb Joiner, a K-MAX operator. 'This will allow us to keep out of small-arms range.' K-MAX will soon be joined in Afghanistan by Lockheed's robo jeep that can carry a half a ton of supplies for up to 125 miles after being delivered to the field in a CH-47 or CH-53 helo."
Meanwhile, my kid's school can't afford to hire enough teacher for every class.
Is the fact that it is flying out of small-arms fire somehow unusual? Why wouldn't our resupply helicopters already fly high?
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Great, soon we'll be accidentally feeding Iran.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I wonder why the design is so conventional looking? They must have modified an existing light helicopter for remote control. Either that or the standard cockpit style helicopter design is already the most efficient aerodynamically. I was expecting to see what amounted to an engine and gas tank that can fly.
Better known as 318230.
The creepy robotic mule had the day off.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
Never seen a K-Max have you: http://www.kamanaero.com/helicopters/kmax.html
It is a very narrow single seat helicopter. It can carry heavy loads due to it using two main rotors as opposed to the usual main rotor/tail rotor combination. The ones in the story just happened to be modified to run unmanned.
seems to have misplaced his
[Meanwhile, my kid's school can't afford to hire enough teacher for every class.] But they do have more employees than students.
(State of Washington)
Its been so much better since D.C. took control.
No brain, no pain.
A few things to note...
These remote-piloted helicopters and "flying jeeps" are being deployed in testing because they are thought to be safer methods of resupply than an 11-B driving a truck. This indicates that in Afghanistan, after almost ten years of occupation (longer than the Soviets stayed) most of the country is considered too dangerous for the occupiers to move freely in.
The second point is that these neat toys don't provide mass logistics supply to the forces in Afghanistan from friendly countries, the convoys of fuel tankers, food and ammunition, the thousands of tonnes of supplies needed each day to keep a modern military force operational. The US yahoos who blew up a bunch of Pakistani troops has cost the NATO forces that safe border convoy route and no technological tricks will restore that conduit. Abject apologies and reparations might help but this is the US who don't apologize for slaughtering other people's troops even by accident.
Third point, following on from the second is keeping these remotely-piloted aircraft flying is expensive in fuel terms. A truck will burn ten or fifteen gallons of gas or fuel oil to get ten tonnes of supplies a hundred miles. A helicopter burns a lot more fuel to cover the same distance with a much smaller load, and the fuel convoys across the Pakistani border have been shut down after the "accident". The only way to get that fuel into Afghanistan now is to fly it into airbases and that's both a logistical nightmare and also dollar-expensive.
The SR-71 Blackbird used stars for navigational reference, as it was in service before GPS was available. Cruise missiles have used landmarks for low-altitude "scudrunning" since their inception.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_navigation
As early as the mid-1960s, advanced electronic and computer systems had evolved enabling navigators to obtain automated celestial sight fixes. These systems were used aboard both ships as well as US Air Force aircraft, and were highly accurate, able to lock onto up to 11 stars (even in daytime) and resolve the craft's position to less than 300 feet (91 m). The SR-71 high-speed reconnaissance aircraft was one example of an aircraft that used automated celestial navigation. These rare systems were expensive, however, and the few that remain in use today are regarded as backups to more reliable satellite positioning systems.
Celestial navigation continues to be used by private yachtsmen, and particularly by long-distance cruising yachts around the world. For small cruising boat crews, celestial navigation is generally considered an essential skill when venturing beyond visual range of land. Although GPS (Global Positioning System) technology is reliable, offshore yachtsmen use celestial navigation as either a primary navigational tool or as a backup.
Strategic ballistic nuclear missiles use celestial navigation to check and correct their course (initially set using internal gyroscopes) while outside the Earth's atmosphere. The immunity to jamming signals is the main driver behind this apparently archaic technique.
Emphasis mine.
Forgive the reply to myself. Here is one of the original astrocompass systems used in the B-52 for celestial navigation.
Automatic Astro Compass Type MD-1
http://www.prc68.com/I/MD1.shtml
If you want to go see one for yourself, they're on display: "There are B-52s on static display, that should have MD-1 systems at: Travis, Castle, March and Edwards fields in CA."
I should point out that, while these used to be expensive mechanical systems, most of this can be done with software and properly calibrated and redundant CCD sensors.
That's about 3 hours of flight time. So people avoid the chopper for 3 hours and then come back after it runs our of fuel and goes away.
You need boots on the ground to hold something.
For cargo though I'd have thought something like this would be better:
http://www.hybridairvehicles.com/
Deleted
You probably have no money for a new teacher's salary because administrators wanted to redecorate one of their offices.
Hm, no, more likely the money is sinking into some private company owned by a friend of a legislator.
If we have a robo-chopper big enough to carry all that.....why not just put guns on the robo-chopper and send it in?
Send it in to do what, exactly?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Not if everyone has robots! Then we can have robots fight robots. Maybe in the future, global conflicts will be resolved via LAN party in a mutually agreed-upon FPS!