Supplying widely dispersed ground units in Afghanistan remains a challenge in search of a solution. Helicopters, the preferred means of transportation on that austere battlespace, are in short supply; moving troops has priority over beans and bullets. The Army has used air drops, but certain items are better not dropped from a plane.
Out in Utah’s remote, high desert plateau, the Marines have been testing a couple of rotary wing aircraft for unmanned aerial resupply. Boeing’s Phantom Works built A160T Hummingbird autonomously carried 1,250-pound sling loads over two 150 nautical mile roundtrip flights. The Lockheed Martin-Kaman team’s K-MAX unmanned helicopter flew a similar mission profile.
We shot some video of mock ups of both aircraft, and interviews with company reps, at the Navy League Sea-Air-Space Expo outside Washington, D.C.
– Greg Grant
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
This is actually really good. If built properly it should be about 22 man hours to build 22 manhours to tend to huge machinery taking appart and 10 manhours to work for rawmaterials. (macdonalds workers don`t count on avarage manhour calculation)
This means that solider able to work about 45 years in their life is allready far more worth than one of these. We want to save lives and figth war more efficiently by sending 200 or 300 of these into frontline next time so that we dont take negative on man hours.
Of course field maintainance and fuel are lot more man hours but its allready far less compared to war manhours and achievements needed to keep home base running at these todays moders warfare costs.
I like where THIS goes.. :) :)
Why not expand this how radical, how novel