Posted on 03/05/2012 6:47:06 PM PST by smokingfrog
Last September, members of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office in Texas drove out to a training facility run by Vanguard Defense Industries. The air must have been full of excitement. The sheriff’s office was just a month away from getting its very own drone from Vanguard: a $300,000 Shadowhawk helicopter, paid for by a grant from the Department of Homeland Security.
Members of the sheriff’s office were there to see Vanguard fly some of its drones and to take promotional photos with a model of their-soon-to-be-acquired Shadowhawk. The S.W.A.T. team even brought their BearCat, a scary-looking tank increasingly popular with local police departments.
Unfortunately, the excited air was too much for one of the prototype drones that Vanguard flew that Friday afternoon. A drone Vanguard had developed for military use appeared to be having a problem, so its on-the-ground pilot forced it to make an emergency landing. As reported by Stephen Dean at the Houston Examiner, it crash landed into the S.W.A.T. team’s BearCat tank.
Luckily, those things are heavily armored. Vanguard CEO Michael Buscher says it broke a spotlight on the vehicle, and that his company’s insurance paid for the damage. Though there were many cameras there, no photos or video from the incident have been publicly released.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
WTH? Why does some podunk town need a $300,000 toy?
Doncha’ just hate it when that happens?
“...a $300,000 Shadowhawk helicopter, paid for by a grant from the Department of Homeland Security.”
Never forget that the DHS is arming our local police with military weapons for a very specific reason.
Lots of meth labs up there.
To catch the meth cookers, I guess.
here’s the article from the Houston Chronicle http://blog.chron.com/newswatch/2012/03/police-drone-test-flight-crashes-near-houston/
keystone kopz
This is what your War on Drugs has brought us.
Cops in a little town in NH called Keene are excited to get their new ‘tank’ armored vehicle.
Idiots.
My bet, they need to beef up the radio control they're using, as it most likely is susceptible to less than nominal RF levels at times - quite possibly generated by the craft itself - a problem I found and had to remedy.
These things are one public injury/death away from being permanently banned. This, of course, is inevitable.
Swat team’s tanks and drones?
Hard to believe this crap is even considered legitimate for civilian law enforcement.
Been going on since the creation of SWAT.
State Dept Publication 5277, Freedom From War document. This is why. It’s also why Obama is dropping our nukes to 300 from 1500.
Really not much of a problem anymore with newer RC control systems. Either Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum or Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum 2.4 GHz systems are extremely resistant to interference. I imagine that military-grade control is another magnitude more bulletproof yet. Digital servos also are more resistant to model-generated interference.
The question isn’t why, it’s why not. It’s not like they’re having to pay for it, the drone’s free as far as they’re concerned.
I see no evidence at all of local police departments militarizing.
WTH? Why does some podunk town need a $300,000 toy?
I've been hit so many times in the past, lost so many aircraft that I gave it ALL UP - until I could be assured that no one could possibly interfere with my aircraft.
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