Slashdot Mirror
Military Drone Lost Over Lake Ontario
First time accepted submitter slipped_bit writes "An MQ-9 Reaper drone has gone down over Lake Ontario during a practice mission. The flight, being operated by the New York Air National Guard's 174th Attack Wing in Syracuse, NY, was going well for about three hours before contact with the aircraft was lost. A search was started but had to be postponed due to weather."
Blame Canada!
How come Slashdot never gets Slashdotted?
In other news, Iran took credit for the downing of this drone as well, saying they have already begun disassembling it and that 'Murica should be very afraid. Pictures have already appeared on the internet of Iranians holding cans of Ginger Ale and eating pancakes, showing their cunning ability to blend in with the indigenous population in order to get close enough to strike at the very heart of the imperialist dogs!
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
practice/fail/practice/fail...the scientific method in action.
But why does a state national guard have an attack wing?
Anybody want a peanut?
Call James Bond as an Evil Cat-Patting Genius has taken control of it. We must recover it before they get our launch codes!
Oh, so this isn't the plot for a movie?
(With apologies to Johnny Five...)
Newsflash on CBC.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
Or were they only valid in Colorado? http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/09/06/deer_trail_co_sees_applications_for_nonexistent_drone_hunting_license.html
I get my freshwater from there.
Considering how close that is to a nuclear power station I think you might have bigger things to worry about than a military drone that went down in the lake.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Loses Reapers.
The drone was attached to the New York Air National Guard’s 174th Fighter Wing – the first fighter squadron to be converted from piloted F-16s to an all-drone force.
Wait, what? An F-16 capable of carrying near 18,000 lbs of weapons and flying at mach 2+ is replaced by a drone flying at 240Mph carrying 3800lbs? Well, I'll be danged if someone in the DOD should not be fired for that decision. I could see it if they replace a squadron of A-10s with hundreds of these for close air support, but F-16s?
There have been numerous previous crashes of Reaper drones. Drones are expected to see much wider civilian use in the United States when the first federal permits are issued, which is expected in 2015, and regulators are keenly examining such crashes as they develop safety guidelines. The international market for drones is also expanding.
Okay, so they don't have a good safety record and we accept that since it's Defense. I'm good with this, but then they state...
“I have quite a bit of confidence in the safety of the airplane,” he said. “If you compare it to other platforms or aircraft that are flown by the Air Force You’ll see that it’s a much safer platform.”
So they have a higher crash record than any manned platform, no feedback for what is going wrong, yet somehow they are a "safer platform"? I guess that depends on what you are keeping safe. Pilots, okay. Tax money? Nope. Our borders? Nope, not that either.
As long as they hype the drones, people ignore why we have those for "Defending our borders". The ANG role is the last line of defense against an invading air-force. Reapers and Predators can't shoot down a MIG or SU of any type. Seems like a huge conflict of interest to man the ANG with these.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Flying in low over the lake, the last image captured was a tentacle reaching up .....
Have gnu, will travel.
Having lived in Syracuse I'd say forget searching any time other than July and August.
Damn worst weather in the US.
Never mind the other one across the lake just east of Toronto that used to be the worlds largest nuclear powered generating station. But that one is a CANDU reactor, far less likely to melt down. BTW, the largest nuclear generating station in the world also uses CANDU reactors and is located a little northwest of Toronto.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
Ontario, it is known
Never gives up a drone
When the winds of November come early
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Exactly my thought. If an F-22 went down over Lake Ontario on a training mission, we would have a dead pilot, and lost $150 million aircraft, which can't be replaced. The F-22 loss might have been noted on CNN, but certainly wouldn't have been /. worthy. So, here we lost a $12.5 million aircraft, which can be replaced, and nobody dies. Somehow, I doubt that the submitter and the /. editors are pro-drone, but I see this story and think that, to the extent that I actually give a shit, it makes an excellent argument for drones.
Yes, it does. The 174th has been deployed in the Persian Gulf and Iraq, among other places.
...the hover time locked to a bedroom window with all the cameras running at max bandwidth is LIMITED.
Jeez, you just can't get good drone drivers these days.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Not to freak you out but.... 1. Fish defecation. 2. Aquatic bird defecation. 3. Guys on boats in the middle, nobody is looking. 4. Bilge. 5. Poorly maintained outboard motors. 6. Probably some truly horrendous stuff that didn't come to mind in the minute I took to type this while thinking about it.
On your side, as they say, "The solution to pollution is dilution".
If you like, you may think of your tap water as homeopathic drone.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Yes, but what if they put some really icky radar swallowing paint on their drone? Since all the military tech is top secret I cannot know the dreck that it may contain. I prefer the familiar horrors.
And that's a good reason why they don't actually do such things often these days.
1961 was in the middle of the Cold War. The armed B-52 was not in the air for practice - it was on an actual mission, waiting for the Soviets to strike first before it'd fly off to strike Soviet targets. Since there are no enemies today that have the Soviet's first-strike capability that we feared so much, there's no real need to keep live weapons in the air.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.