It's not a matter of paying for contracts that are active; it's a matter of all the contracts they WANT to get into with money they don't have. The default behavior is to overspend; they've built the system around it and it needs to stop soon. Don't want to default on contracts? Again, priorities. There's plenty of waste that's been pointed out already by GAO, CBO and others and nothing's being done about that, because it's better to keep people uselessly employed, and they see all gov't funded activities as "stimulus". Problem is everything is a priority for people who have none. That's why they haven't passed a budget as required.
Not raising the debt ceiling means that the government would have to do something many of us do all the time; live within its means. On a monthly basis we bring in 10 times more revenue than necessary to service the debt. Another 10% of the monthly revenue would service pensions and other such obligations. There's plenty of money for the basics including granny's Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. But there won't be enough money for all the less-than-essential bureaucracy, subsidies to political allies, government-backed loans for this or that, the gaggle of entitlements, ad nauseum. That's why we saw the political equivalent of the tantrum when an addict sees all the people in the room and knows he's in for an intervention.
Only if the President instructs the Treasury Department NOT to service the debt do we ACTUALLY go into default. At which point he runs afoul of this 14th Amendment, at which point he could very well be impeached. Again, we only go into default if the President wants to.
Yes, the Clinton surplus was fictitious. The DotCom boom brought in a surplus in Social Security revenue and instead of putting that in the SS trust fund as legally required, they went and "borrowed" it for the usual overspending that has now become baseline. If you or I took money from a trust and used it for another purpose not stated in the trust we'd be in jail.
Fundamentalists have no tolerance for anybody that thinks differently (including members of the same religion) and are easily incited to kill, maim and slaughter everybody perceived by them to be "different". That is the problem with religion: Depending on infection degree (meme infection), intellectual capabilities, empathy and common decency get suspended and replaced by easy recipes that often involve strong forms of aggression.
And no, I am not intellectually lazy, rather you did not understand what I wrote.
I understood what you said as an incredibly narrow characterization of behavior and disposition of people of faith, focused on the limited dimension of aggression in conflict, as if that were the most dominant human social experience. For those of us who live generally full lives with different kinds of interactions, it is not. I've set foot in North, Central, and South America, Asia, Africa, Australia and Europe and have looked different types of people in the face, acknowledge our differences and still share something in common. I have not gone into war zones or areas dominated by people intent on killing strangers and I have been just fine, enjoyed the people, the culture, the history, the food, etc.
It's pretty arrogant and not very "tolerant" to look down on people of faith as if they're programmed as outdated robots with a few lines of code -{if(other_person != fellow_believer) action = kill;}- whereas you are a more sophisticated model.
By this measure of "easily enticed" and considering the amount of people who practice a religion, we would be extinct already. Religious people coexist everywhere in different manners without violence and would rather continue to do so until their respective end. For non-muslim religions, the eschatological agent is the one that will rid the world of the non-believers. The faithful take no part in that, would prefer not to. The problem with religion is that it is practiced by imperfect people, all with their own varying degrees of intellectual capabilities, empathy and "common decency" (whatever that means).
Today, there are just some that use "peace" as camouflage, but all religion can safely be assumed to be dangerous if the sufferer is deeply infected ("fundamentalist" or "fanatic").
Your use of the "fundamentalist" label makes your post intellectually lazy drivel filled with the same intolerance you pretend to be against. The word "fundamentalist" generally means a religion has a set of unalterable principles which are not subject to deviation or debate and which serve as a foundation for the practice of that faith and the conduct of adherents. By that measure, the vast majority of Christians, Budhists, Hindus, or "fundamentalist" Atheists for that matter, are not going around killing non-believers as a matter of policy.
The eschatologies of these major religions are similar, with some sort of Messianic figure resolving the conflict of mankind, but only in the Muslim eschatology are the adherents charged with being directly responsible for causing the chaotic conditions that will usher the Messiah (12th Imam) to bring the resolution of the age and man's ultimate fate.
"This world will not come to an end until one person from my progeny does not rule over the Arabs, and his name will be the same as my name." [http://www.islam.tc/prophecies/imam.html]
"Founded in 1953 and used by the Shah of Iran to try to eradicate followers of the Bahai faith, the Hojjatieh Society is governed by the conviction that the 12th Imam's return will be hastened by the creation of chaos on earth." -- http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_10945.shtml
The other religions see these conditions happen as humanity degenerates by its own nature. "The difference goes to the heart of Islam, its holy texts in which the obligation of eschatological war is intimately bound up with the Truth of Islam and its need to dominate the world. The victory of Dawa (Islam ruling the world) will precede the eschatological end-times which will finally put an end to the misery of history by consigning all non-Muslims to Hell and realizing eternal Paradise pleromatically. And the process of Dawa becoming victorious cannot be divorced from the necessity to fight all those who will resist that Dawa: hence the necessary corollary of military Jihad."
Private insurance still lets you choose. You can change and shop around, which my company does every few years. When we get to single payer, are you going to fire the government, your sole source of health coverage when you're unsatisfied with your coverage or service? The hundreds of thousands of service denials from Medicare and the VA should wise you up, but I can understand if that never happens.
Or maybe ask the increasing number of brits who are pulling their own teeth if their single-payer system is working for them.
Because the private sector has a proven track record of delivering (for the majority of Americans) shittier healthcare and a higher cost.
Oh, and what "decision" are you talking about? The death panels?
The private sector still lets you choose. You can change and shop around, which my company does every few years. When we get to single payer, are you going to fire the government, your sole source of health coverage when you're unsatisfied with your coverage or service? The hundreds of thousands of service denials from Medicare and the VA should wise you up, but I can understand if that never happens.
The typical approach is "we need more time/money". And Nancy Pelooney says that the cupboards are dry and there are no more cuts to make. Because obviously the government does not wast money.
Riiiiiiiiight...
I'd venture to say 95% of politicians have lost complete respect for taxpayers' money.
paranoid conspiracy theorists which, according to MSNBC, makes you all racists, bigots, homophobes, terrorist, teabagging, hate-mongering, hating haters who hate.
Witnessed this myself at the birth ward when my wife gave birth last month. Took a photo of a health monitor BSOD while giggling in the hallway, but haven't posted it anywhere. Isn't there a website where you can post BSOD's in funny places?
Visual recognition would be a fun approach to research. The trick with visual is to not only have presence detection for a potential collision subject, but also get data as to position and rates of motion so you have an idea not only of where it, but where it will be by the time you get closer to it. That's why a transponder approach is more practical in my opinion.
It's just not mature yet for a broad solution. Some have achieved for a single platform, in a specific scenario, but it's really the first iteration before a solution can be applied in an environment like the national airspace. This is being worked on in both strategic level systems like the GlobalHawk and tactical levels like the Shadow and FireScout, and solutions range from ADS-B transponders, to active LIDAR.
FTA:
Given the results of Research and Development efforts over the past few years, it is now possible to equip [a drone] with technology that will address some of the major requirements currently driving the FAA authorization process.
The transponder route seems to be the lowest-hanging fruit at the time.The FAA will have to make ADS-B mandatory across the board so nobody in a Cessna ends up with one of those annoying quad copters through their windshields. At that point one of these might be a good starting point for every Joe Amateur Drone Dude wanting to fly with the big dogs:
Just like everything these days; plenty of possibilities and approaches, not enough research dollars to get them to market. Plus all the design by committee dynamics that makes any solution take 10 times longer than anyone imagines.
If you *really* want something to forget, the Virtual Boy and Power Glove are much better candidates.
The Power Glove is unforgettable. My steady stream of curse words (like when it didn't punch when/how I wanted in Punch Out) is still resonating all over the universe like the Big Bang.
So some "well-intended" politicians decide to legislate on the basis of "it sounds like a good idea and it's going to save us" and it turns out it was ill-informed, ill-conceived and the full ramifications were not considered.
We just nationalized our health-care industry (and a significant portion of our national economy by extension) on this same basis and we cheered it as a moral duty and an advancement of our society.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAt54NKsRRk
Think of all the children you will feed with that $161 million, shut up and pay the tax like a good blue state, or we'll go all over the media and call you bigots and racists.
I'm not saying it's likely at all, but how can one be sure that someone else didn't override his signal and took over control of the craft? Just a thought.
It's quite possible with the old analog FM transmitters if you knew which channel they were in, and even then the two transmitters would be "fighting" for control and positive override control would be very difficult. The way he was used to flying so close to himself (according to one of the stories) it only takes a brief "radio hit" while the chopper was close enough to him to lose momentary control and cause this impact. Someone could possibly take advantage of one of these moments and just mess with the signal a little bit, if they wanted to do it deliberately.
In the case of an FM radio system it's more possible it may have happened by accident if someone on the same FM channel started their transmitter and gave his receiver even a quick radio hit. At a field with loose radio impound rules it's possible another user on his FM channel could have accidentally switched their transmitter on without checking to see if that channel was in use. In my rookie days I would have done something like that.
With the newer digital 2.4GHz spread-spectrum stuff it's highly unlikely to happen by accident and would be a lot more work to achieve deliberately.
Either way I would not take the chance to fly so close to me. I have a healthy respect of rotating machinery and so should everyone.
Re:And when are the Hellfire missles coming?
on
FAA OKs US UAVs
·
· Score: 2
To start with, PUMA's and ScanEagles weigh much less than a single Hellfire missile, so cool the hyperbole. They have cameras that still can't see you in your Mom's basement eating Doritos in your underwear. And while we're name-calling other people "gun nuts" you're probably a Halo Hero who likely couldn't shoot anything to save your life, much less hurt a flying fixed-wing vehicle with a shotgun.
Regarding local law enforcement exclusively I was at a UAS event a few months ago where the Executive Director of the Airborne Law Enforcement Association spoke unequivocally that the agreement in the law enforcement community is that arming UAS in domestic soil is a "BAD IDEA". At this same event, many discussed other issues regarding positive civilian uses of Unmanned systems.
On the other hand, considering the Federal Government's track record over the last decade, I wouldn't trust them not to cross the boundary with armed UAS, but they will do it bit by bit so as to not cause a stir until they've come up with a good way to sell it to the public. Customs and Border Patrol are already using Predators and Reapers at the border, so it may only be an "Executive Order" away.
It sounds conspiratorial, but stories like this make it easier to believe that it's less about the stated goal and more about looking to push the boundaries of authoritarianism. By using a third party they look to blur the lines of legality and constitutionality and giving them a possible out or scapegoat. Not cool...
Seems like a pretty straightforward ill-timed autolaunch. Sometimes some flight modes are locked out at the bird or at the ground station software for a particular time or reason, but I can't see not being able to stop an autolaunch at all. Maybe the ground software makes you jump through a few hoops, to keep you from casually/accidentally stopping an autolaunch and it was just enough time for the bird to try to tackle its big brother on the taxiway.
I've only worked on catapult launched systems, and there's no stopping a launch on those. They're actually launched with a big red button by the crew operating the catapult outside after the operator puts them on AutoLaunch mode, so crews don't usually have to dodge errant aircraft.
I'm not familiar with the X-47 specifically, but nowadays, if you have a solid GPS solution with RTK (Real-time Kinematics) you can get your altitude within centimeters and even velocity vectors, which are necessary for automated landings. In other systems we've used other radar-based landing systems like Sierra Nevada Corporation's UCARS/TALS. These systems track the AV from the ground/deck with a radar beacon that is only active during recovery operations. In systems I've worked with they actually send control commands to the aircraft, but it could also be used to relay displacement from Touchdown Point to the bird and let it fly the approach itself. A deck-based system could also be fitted with inertial sensors to compensate for pitch/heave and give the bird good positions/rates for its approach.
It would not surprise me if they were using redundant systems to get these first tests. It would also not surprise me if they have already landed successfully in the simulators with all sorts of deck dynamics to tighten up the algorithms.
Control systems nowadays (for systems of this complexity and magnitude) have multiple sensors per channel for redundancy. The control solutions are computed several times with all sensors, and the solutions that accumulate too much numerical errors (residuals) are rejected, and the gains and loops are adjusted if it is determined that a sensor or control channel is "failed". One implementation I'm familiar with is called "Residual Monitoring". Such a solution would have flagged this mis-installed sensor and "banned" it from subsequent nav solutions.
Most of the sensors I've used in the U.S. market have direction indicators. A possible I could see would be that a technician installing the sensor was trying to access an inconvenient location to install the sensor and just installed it the way that was most convenient to them at the time. Maybe the connector placement contributed to that.
Except that every attempt at communism has always miserably failed to build this classless, moneyless and stateless utopia because it's not intended for actual humans with feelings, ambitions, goals and freedom. It requires everyone to be "with the program" or they get shot or starved to death. There are only about 100 million corpses all over the world as evidence of this. I think Cambodia has tourists attractions where you can go see piles of bones and the prisons where they kept the dissenters, if you need to see it with your own eyes.
If you believe you can get anywhere near a perfect implementation of communism, then you may also know where I can get the magnetic monopole I need to finish my project.
For a system that's been flying since 2001 with upgrades, it's very troubling to have several doomed flights like this in a very short period of time. Those control divergences so early in the flight suggest either a bad sensor or a mechanical failure in the control links. At first glance it looks like the gains were appropriate to at least correct the initial divergence. If it was mechanical failure it makes me wonder what happened to the days when the Russians overbuilt everything at the expense of sub-optimal performance? Maybe they're just a bit too ambitious with all the advances, upgrades and variations in such a short period of time. Their earlier launch failed to reach orbit because they used outdated fueling data on a new vehicle.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not a matter of paying for contracts that are active; it's a matter of all the contracts they WANT to get into with money they don't have. The default behavior is to overspend; they've built the system around it and it needs to stop soon. Don't want to default on contracts? Again, priorities. There's plenty of waste that's been pointed out already by GAO, CBO and others and nothing's being done about that, because it's better to keep people uselessly employed, and they see all gov't funded activities as "stimulus". Problem is everything is a priority for people who have none. That's why they haven't passed a budget as required.
I wish someone would stop propagating this lie.
Not raising the debt ceiling means that the government would have to do something many of us do all the time; live within its means. On a monthly basis we bring in 10 times more revenue than necessary to service the debt. Another 10% of the monthly revenue would service pensions and other such obligations. There's plenty of money for the basics including granny's Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. But there won't be enough money for all the less-than-essential bureaucracy, subsidies to political allies, government-backed loans for this or that, the gaggle of entitlements, ad nauseum. That's why we saw the political equivalent of the tantrum when an addict sees all the people in the room and knows he's in for an intervention.
Only if the President instructs the Treasury Department NOT to service the debt do we ACTUALLY go into default. At which point he runs afoul of this 14th Amendment, at which point he could very well be impeached. Again, we only go into default if the President wants to.
Yes, the Clinton surplus was fictitious. The DotCom boom brought in a surplus in Social Security revenue and instead of putting that in the SS trust fund as legally required, they went and "borrowed" it for the usual overspending that has now become baseline. If you or I took money from a trust and used it for another purpose not stated in the trust we'd be in jail.
Fundamentalists have no tolerance for anybody that thinks differently (including members of the same religion) and are easily incited to kill, maim and slaughter everybody perceived by them to be "different". That is the problem with religion: Depending on infection degree (meme infection), intellectual capabilities, empathy and common decency get suspended and replaced by easy recipes that often involve strong forms of aggression.
And no, I am not intellectually lazy, rather you did not understand what I wrote.
I understood what you said as an incredibly narrow characterization of behavior and disposition of people of faith, focused on the limited dimension of aggression in conflict, as if that were the most dominant human social experience. For those of us who live generally full lives with different kinds of interactions, it is not. I've set foot in North, Central, and South America, Asia, Africa, Australia and Europe and have looked different types of people in the face, acknowledge our differences and still share something in common. I have not gone into war zones or areas dominated by people intent on killing strangers and I have been just fine, enjoyed the people, the culture, the history, the food, etc.
It's pretty arrogant and not very "tolerant" to look down on people of faith as if they're programmed as outdated robots with a few lines of code -{if(other_person != fellow_believer) action = kill;}- whereas you are a more sophisticated model.
By this measure of "easily enticed" and considering the amount of people who practice a religion, we would be extinct already. Religious people coexist everywhere in different manners without violence and would rather continue to do so until their respective end. For non-muslim religions, the eschatological agent is the one that will rid the world of the non-believers. The faithful take no part in that, would prefer not to. The problem with religion is that it is practiced by imperfect people, all with their own varying degrees of intellectual capabilities, empathy and "common decency" (whatever that means).
Today, there are just some that use "peace" as camouflage, but all religion can safely be assumed to be dangerous if the sufferer is deeply infected ("fundamentalist" or "fanatic").
Your use of the "fundamentalist" label makes your post intellectually lazy drivel filled with the same intolerance you pretend to be against. The word "fundamentalist" generally means a religion has a set of unalterable principles which are not subject to deviation or debate and which serve as a foundation for the practice of that faith and the conduct of adherents. By that measure, the vast majority of Christians, Budhists, Hindus, or "fundamentalist" Atheists for that matter, are not going around killing non-believers as a matter of policy.
The eschatologies of these major religions are similar, with some sort of Messianic figure resolving the conflict of mankind, but only in the Muslim eschatology are the adherents charged with being directly responsible for causing the chaotic conditions that will usher the Messiah (12th Imam) to bring the resolution of the age and man's ultimate fate.
"This world will not come to an end until one person from my progeny does not rule over the Arabs, and his name will be the same as my name." [http://www.islam.tc/prophecies/imam.html]
"Founded in 1953 and used by the Shah of Iran to try to eradicate followers of the Bahai faith, the Hojjatieh Society is governed by the conviction that the 12th Imam's return will be hastened by the creation of chaos on earth." -- http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_10945.shtml
The other religions see these conditions happen as humanity degenerates by its own nature. "The difference goes to the heart of Islam, its holy texts in which the obligation of eschatological war is intimately bound up with the Truth of Islam and its need to dominate the world. The victory of Dawa (Islam ruling the world) will precede the eschatological end-times which will finally put an end to the misery of history by consigning all non-Muslims to Hell and realizing eternal Paradise pleromatically. And the process of Dawa becoming victorious cannot be divorced from the necessity to fight all those who will resist that Dawa: hence the necessary corollary of military Jihad."
Reposted
Private insurance still lets you choose. You can change and shop around, which my company does every few years. When we get to single payer, are you going to fire the government, your sole source of health coverage when you're unsatisfied with your coverage or service? The hundreds of thousands of service denials from Medicare and the VA should wise you up, but I can understand if that never happens.
Or maybe ask the increasing number of brits who are pulling their own teeth if their single-payer system is working for them.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/10/15/england.dentists/index.html
Single payer doesn't eliminate the problem, and it manages to add another deficit-increasing entitlement to the mix.
Because the private sector has a proven track record of delivering (for the majority of Americans) shittier healthcare and a higher cost.
Oh, and what "decision" are you talking about? The death panels?
The private sector still lets you choose. You can change and shop around, which my company does every few years. When we get to single payer, are you going to fire the government, your sole source of health coverage when you're unsatisfied with your coverage or service? The hundreds of thousands of service denials from Medicare and the VA should wise you up, but I can understand if that never happens.
The typical approach is "we need more time/money". And Nancy Pelooney says that the cupboards are dry and there are no more cuts to make. Because obviously the government does not wast money.
Riiiiiiiiight...
I'd venture to say 95% of politicians have lost complete respect for taxpayers' money.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505269_162-57606633/obamacare-website-looks-like-nobody-tested-it-programmer-says/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/some-say-health-care-sites-problems-highlight-flawed-federal-it-policies/2013/10/09/d558da42-30fe-11e3-8627-c5d7de0a046b_story.html?hpid=z3
http://www.elpasotimes.com/politics-national/?third_party=many-tried-to-warn-officials-of-obamacare-website-jam
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/10/09/3-million-obamacare-website-may-face-months-glitches-experts-warn/
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/debbie-wasserman-schultzs-shocking-insufficient-rambling-response-to-msnbc-on-obamacare-enrollees/
paranoid conspiracy theorists which, according to MSNBC, makes you all racists, bigots, homophobes, terrorist, teabagging, hate-mongering, hating haters who hate.
http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/who-has-access-to-your-kids-information-more-people-than-you-think/
http://eagnews.org/medical-laboratory-procedure-results-and-religion-invasive-common-core-data-mining-worries-parents/
http://nces.ed.gov/forum/datamodel/eiebrowser/techview.aspx?instance=studentElementarySecondary
(@$$holes gaming the system to make a few more bucks) != (@$$holes trying to subjugate the entire western world under the banner of Islam)
Jihadists' menu of alternatives for non-believers of Islam:
1) Convert to Islam
2) Pay jizyah ("infidel tax")
3) Separate your head from the rest of your body and put it on camera to remind others why you should opt for 1) or 2).
Witnessed this myself at the birth ward when my wife gave birth last month. Took a photo of a health monitor BSOD while giggling in the hallway, but haven't posted it anywhere. Isn't there a website where you can post BSOD's in funny places?
Would they then be subject to the O-care medical device tax? Let's not forget what it was all about to begin with.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2Kevz_9lsw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLiexzoAq7E
Visual recognition would be a fun approach to research. The trick with visual is to not only have presence detection for a potential collision subject, but also get data as to position and rates of motion so you have an idea not only of where it, but where it will be by the time you get closer to it. That's why a transponder approach is more practical in my opinion.
It's just not mature yet for a broad solution. Some have achieved for a single platform, in a specific scenario, but it's really the first iteration before a solution can be applied in an environment like the national airspace. This is being worked on in both strategic level systems like the GlobalHawk and tactical levels like the Shadow and FireScout, and solutions range from ADS-B transponders, to active LIDAR.
FTA:
Given the results of Research and Development efforts over the past few years, it is now possible to equip [a drone] with technology that will address some of the major requirements currently driving the FAA authorization process.
The transponder route seems to be the lowest-hanging fruit at the time.The FAA will have to make ADS-B mandatory across the board so nobody in a Cessna ends up with one of those annoying quad copters through their windshields. At that point one of these might be a good starting point for every Joe Amateur Drone Dude wanting to fly with the big dogs:
http://www.sagetechcorp.com/unmanned-solutions/unmanned-solutions.cfm
http://www.unmannedsystemstechnology.com/2013/01/uav-sense-and-avoid-capabilities-demonstrated-by-sagetech-and-ing-robotic-aviation/
Just like everything these days; plenty of possibilities and approaches, not enough research dollars to get them to market. Plus all the design by committee dynamics that makes any solution take 10 times longer than anyone imagines.
If you *really* want something to forget, the Virtual Boy and Power Glove are much better candidates.
The Power Glove is unforgettable. My steady stream of curse words (like when it didn't punch when/how I wanted in Punch Out) is still resonating all over the universe like the Big Bang.
Before someone else posts it:
He clearly should have used the UP, UP, DOWN, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, B, A, START to pick up a few more lives.
ba dum, bum
If it had been the President of Konami then maybe that would work. Yamauchi stays put; for now.
So some "well-intended" politicians decide to legislate on the basis of "it sounds like a good idea and it's going to save us" and it turns out it was ill-informed, ill-conceived and the full ramifications were not considered.
We just nationalized our health-care industry (and a significant portion of our national economy by extension) on this same basis and we cheered it as a moral duty and an advancement of our society.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAt54NKsRRk
Think of all the children you will feed with that $161 million, shut up and pay the tax like a good blue state, or we'll go all over the media and call you bigots and racists.
I'm not saying it's likely at all, but how can one be sure that someone else didn't override his signal and took over control of the craft? Just a thought.
It's quite possible with the old analog FM transmitters if you knew which channel they were in, and even then the two transmitters would be "fighting" for control and positive override control would be very difficult. The way he was used to flying so close to himself (according to one of the stories) it only takes a brief "radio hit" while the chopper was close enough to him to lose momentary control and cause this impact. Someone could possibly take advantage of one of these moments and just mess with the signal a little bit, if they wanted to do it deliberately.
In the case of an FM radio system it's more possible it may have happened by accident if someone on the same FM channel started their transmitter and gave his receiver even a quick radio hit. At a field with loose radio impound rules it's possible another user on his FM channel could have accidentally switched their transmitter on without checking to see if that channel was in use. In my rookie days I would have done something like that.
With the newer digital 2.4GHz spread-spectrum stuff it's highly unlikely to happen by accident and would be a lot more work to achieve deliberately.
Either way I would not take the chance to fly so close to me. I have a healthy respect of rotating machinery and so should everyone.
To start with, PUMA's and ScanEagles weigh much less than a single Hellfire missile, so cool the hyperbole. They have cameras that still can't see you in your Mom's basement eating Doritos in your underwear. And while we're name-calling other people "gun nuts" you're probably a Halo Hero who likely couldn't shoot anything to save your life, much less hurt a flying fixed-wing vehicle with a shotgun.
Regarding local law enforcement exclusively I was at a UAS event a few months ago where the Executive Director of the Airborne Law Enforcement Association spoke unequivocally that the agreement in the law enforcement community is that arming UAS in domestic soil is a "BAD IDEA". At this same event, many discussed other issues regarding positive civilian uses of Unmanned systems.
http://www.auvsi.org/1832013/2232013CapChapter
On the other hand, considering the Federal Government's track record over the last decade, I wouldn't trust them not to cross the boundary with armed UAS, but they will do it bit by bit so as to not cause a stir until they've come up with a good way to sell it to the public. Customs and Border Patrol are already using Predators and Reapers at the border, so it may only be an "Executive Order" away.
http://libertycrier.com/customs-and-border-patrol-considered-weaponizing-drones/
And no, you can't shoot those down with your shotgun either.
It sounds conspiratorial, but stories like this make it easier to believe that it's less about the stated goal and more about looking to push the boundaries of authoritarianism. By using a third party they look to blur the lines of legality and constitutionality and giving them a possible out or scapegoat. Not cool...
The only malfunction was in the operator's CPU.
Seems like a pretty straightforward ill-timed autolaunch. Sometimes some flight modes are locked out at the bird or at the ground station software for a particular time or reason, but I can't see not being able to stop an autolaunch at all. Maybe the ground software makes you jump through a few hoops, to keep you from casually/accidentally stopping an autolaunch and it was just enough time for the bird to try to tackle its big brother on the taxiway.
I've only worked on catapult launched systems, and there's no stopping a launch on those. They're actually launched with a big red button by the crew operating the catapult outside after the operator puts them on AutoLaunch mode, so crews don't usually have to dodge errant aircraft.
I'm not familiar with the X-47 specifically, but nowadays, if you have a solid GPS solution with RTK (Real-time Kinematics) you can get your altitude within centimeters and even velocity vectors, which are necessary for automated landings. In other systems we've used other radar-based landing systems like Sierra Nevada Corporation's UCARS/TALS. These systems track the AV from the ground/deck with a radar beacon that is only active during recovery operations. In systems I've worked with they actually send control commands to the aircraft, but it could also be used to relay displacement from Touchdown Point to the bird and let it fly the approach itself. A deck-based system could also be fitted with inertial sensors to compensate for pitch/heave and give the bird good positions/rates for its approach.
It would not surprise me if they were using redundant systems to get these first tests. It would also not surprise me if they have already landed successfully in the simulators with all sorts of deck dynamics to tighten up the algorithms.
Control systems nowadays (for systems of this complexity and magnitude) have multiple sensors per channel for redundancy. The control solutions are computed several times with all sensors, and the solutions that accumulate too much numerical errors (residuals) are rejected, and the gains and loops are adjusted if it is determined that a sensor or control channel is "failed". One implementation I'm familiar with is called "Residual Monitoring". Such a solution would have flagged this mis-installed sensor and "banned" it from subsequent nav solutions.
Most of the sensors I've used in the U.S. market have direction indicators. A possible I could see would be that a technician installing the sensor was trying to access an inconvenient location to install the sensor and just installed it the way that was most convenient to them at the time. Maybe the connector placement contributed to that.
Except that every attempt at communism has always miserably failed to build this classless, moneyless and stateless utopia because it's not intended for actual humans with feelings, ambitions, goals and freedom. It requires everyone to be "with the program" or they get shot or starved to death. There are only about 100 million corpses all over the world as evidence of this. I think Cambodia has tourists attractions where you can go see piles of bones and the prisons where they kept the dissenters, if you need to see it with your own eyes.
If you believe you can get anywhere near a perfect implementation of communism, then you may also know where I can get the magnetic monopole I need to finish my project.
For a system that's been flying since 2001 with upgrades, it's very troubling to have several doomed flights like this in a very short period of time. Those control divergences so early in the flight suggest either a bad sensor or a mechanical failure in the control links. At first glance it looks like the gains were appropriate to at least correct the initial divergence. If it was mechanical failure it makes me wonder what happened to the days when the Russians overbuilt everything at the expense of sub-optimal performance? Maybe they're just a bit too ambitious with all the advances, upgrades and variations in such a short period of time. Their earlier launch failed to reach orbit because they used outdated fueling data on a new vehicle.