Comments on: Air Force’s Secret Drone Program Revealed

By: DITBOY

DITBOY — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 23:05:36 +0000

While it would be nice to have long-range, highly sensative UAVs that were small, the technology isn’t there yet.
UAVs have to be large enough to carry their sensor payload and an energy supply. Their size, then, is based on being large enough to create enough lift to carry the payload and fuel for a long endourance mission.
Radar and electro-optical cameras with sufficient power or clarity aren’t small enough for a small UAV yet.
Energy sources would either be batteries (heavy) or aviation fuel (also heavy in sufficient quantity for a long mission). Even if solar power was used to power the craft, a sufficient number of “solar panels” would still make for a larger aircraft.
So, micro, stealth, long-range UAVs sound perfect, be we ain’t there yet.
Just two cents.…

By: spincycle

spincycle — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 19:33:35 +0000

Hexjumper:
Mirrors reflect specific wavelentgths of EMR (i.e., visual light). They don’t help at all in the radar spectrum.
boeing777:
Yes, it does. It looks like it was designed using sound scietific principles, measured on Earth, by humans, using theories developed by humans after the traditional evidence-hypothesis-test-revise-repeat technique that is at the core of the scientific process.

By: boeing777-200LR

boeing777-200LR — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 02:32:17 +0000

its a little off topic, but i have a few questions–
1. does the B2 bomber look at all, made by humans? because i have scoured the internet and have found some dickhead conspiracists saying that aliens helped develope the B2. im not saying it is but if you look at it, it does look a little science fiction(the B2)
2. why the hell havent the US started creating a full on UCAV fighter (like the one off the movie STEALTH) that can do anything the F35 can do.
3. following up HEXJUMPER, i cant see why they create the UAVs, and the UCAVs as big as a damn 737! wouldnt it be stealth-ier to make them small and sleek, not big and bulgy!

By: HEXJUMPER

HEXJUMPER — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 18:06:05 +0000

how to go stealthy misleading the observers ?
just make your top-secret a/c looking like an
ordinary / known aircraft !!
–giant B-2 Vs normal B-2
–giant F-117 Vs normal F-117
also…
why should U.A.V.‘s always be big craft ?
the smaller the U.A.V.‘s the more difficult it is to detect.
and…
what about an aircraft with the entire skin of
MIRRORtiles !
it would be practicaly invisible since only the reflections of passing scenery in all directions
would show on the aircraft. (clouds,ground…)
for sur…
whe have seen nothing yet )

By: Darren

Darren — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 23:36:54 +0000

Sounds interesting, and a UAV of this nature would certainly be exceedingly useful. South Africa’s Denel has been working on something similar, called Seraph, for a number of years, but a lack of funding appears to have stalled development of late.

By: DS

DS — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 16:07:26 +0000

pictures pictures PICTURES. we want some PICTUERES OF THIS THING!

By: Grant

Grant — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 01:24:59 +0000

Let’s not switch it to full auto until we’re sure it can’t think for itself, OK? (With apologies to James Cameron)

By: Charles

Charles — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 01:00:55 +0000

Digging into the Skunk Works book again (ugh, at the risk of sounding dull) indicates that they’d tested shooting drones into China for the purpose of monitoring their nuclear program. Of course, the drone was supposed to be picked up before it dropped into the ocean and this rarely worked out, thus the project got canned. There was also use of the SR as a mothership to launch drones, with the loss of one SR during testing (leading to the project being canned).
Lots of stuff that we’d tried before and are looking at again, armed with better tech than the last time around.