The Future of Drones [FR EXCLUSIVE! SCCOP!]

Various ^ | 8/16/2003 | Southack

[Squantos]

A misspent youth shooting trap and skeet might come in handy ............practiced many years for such by dove hunting whenever possible.

Pull !

Stay Safe !

[Travis McGee]

I don't know, I think at their effective altitudes they are basically invisible.

[ZviTheWise]

Comments:
-- Actually, I think Sperry was working on an unmanned drone bomb before the end of WW1, It was very clever, and worked, but the guidance technology available was just too crude.
-- Yes, smart cheap drones will start popping up in all sorts of countries, frindly and not. It may prove that the best way to bring down a Global Hawk is with a smart model airplane.

[wardaddy]

Very interesting technology....already proven to have some practical uses and bound to keep on evolving.

TM, have a nice trip.

Southack, do you have experience in tower farming? I have very little but it appears less profitable than in the early -mid 90s when the cellular folks were really booming.

[Southack]

"Yes, smart cheap drones will start popping up in all sorts of countries..."

It won't just be in countries, but also with individuals, corporations, and various groups.

Consider that I started off this thread by showing that a civilian just built a cheap drone that has now flown across the entire Atlantic Ocean.

Now imagine the most radical political groups in every country, all using this technology to further their causes in far away places.

For $6 worth of gas...

[Southack]

The closest that I've come to tower farming is watching my CPA sign a $110,000.00 contract this year to lease 100 square feet of his lakehouse property for a single tower in rural America.

I've got a buddy who puts the towers up for a living for AWE, and he tells me that it isn't nearly as lucrative as it once was, for whatever that's worth.

[bets]

Colorado Springs Air Force Academy - all I ever see fly out of there are remote controlled gliders....or are they? Maybe what I've been seeing are drones.

[Travis McGee]

It may prove that the best way to bring down a Global Hawk is with a smart model airplane.

Smart. Very smart. It won't take a supersonic SAM missile, just a somewhat faster drone of your own with a seeker set to the GlobalHawk's freqs.

[Travis McGee]

Hi WD, I'll be off radar until the 24th, and then I'll start mailing out all the books.

BTW, is anybody in TN already doing "Big Box" delivery storage? I saw them in Baltimore called "Door To Door Storage."

[wardaddy]

is that 110K a 99 year lease?

I get calls occasionally but it appears that it might bring in around 2-400 a month and I have to supply the dry room. It's ok, but I remember when guys were getting 1200-1500 a month.

[wardaddy]

Yes ...we have PODS here....mostly used by folks remodeling or adding on.

[Southack]

He got paid $110k up front for a 20 year lease. All that he had to do was to provide the locations for the survey stakes to verify that it was really his property.

The rule of thumb being that whatever they offer you first is vastly below what they will pay in the end, if you are friendly and cooperative with them, anyway (they don't like the trouble-makers).

[gitmo]

use one of these to run drugs. Sounds much easier than having some guy swallow a condom and try to make it through a comercial flight. Just load a couple of pounds of pure heroin on one of these puppies and let her rip.

That's what I was thinking. It's cheaper, safer, and more difficult to intercept. Of course, the next step will be pirates hacking into the signals and diverting the payload to their back yard.

[wardaddy]

oh I'm friendly and cooperative...lol....I have over 1000 tenants at times...imagine the fun I have...lol

one earns their money in self storage.....and car washes too.

that's what I get for being a bottom feeder.

[Darksheare]

Thanks for the ping.
Not much to add, it's pretty much all been gone over.
The potential for this tech to either protect, assist and make life easier or to kill is great.
It can go either way.
You already mentioned that.
A small home built (basically) drone flying the Atlantic and landing within 35 foot of it's target... that's a huge accomplishment.
I didn't catch what the TAM-5's payload capacity was.
Not sure if it was mentioned at all.
I'm sure others have thought of that as well, and are looking into that as we speak.

[Southack]

Actually, you could build the entire frame of the TAM-5 out of plastique.

She flies for 2,000 miles and then BOOM!

[Darksheare]

In effect, it IS the payload..
There's a happy thought!

And with a 35 foot CEP, it's whole frame basically a bomb.. you could do some damage with it.
The future of unmanned drones really is going to be relatively cheap but high tech. Satellite remote linking and control with autonomous backup. I'm betting that the bad guys have more than an eye on this sort of thing.
I hope the right people have their eyes on this and are keeping an eye on the builders. (Them getting kidnapped would be a huge black eye for us.)

[King Prout]

we make the repercussions too costly for even those lunatics to consider.

[gaijin]

marking.

[null and void]

we make the repercussions too costly for even those lunatics to consider.

Gonna take away their virgins? How?