Video from remote control helicopter shows the extent of flooding in Frankwell, #Shrewsbury. http://t.co/R8UUl6HtSx pic.twitter.com/FcqHL3qfYV — Shropshire Star (@ShropshireStar) February 10, 2014 OK, so the weird weather and infrastructure crisis exacerbated by the Galbraithian combination of private affluence and public squalor is being monitored by the local newspaper using a web platform for 140-character snarkfarts…
Read More ProliferationFrom Crooked Timber: Speaking of hypocrisy, what of the revelations (big surprise) that CIA had been briefing Pakistan govt on the drone strikes, while the latter was simultaneously denouncing them? From the blog, December 2012, I point out that the CIA and the Pakistanis were evidently cooperating in so far as they coordinated their use…
Read More No surprise bloggingIs there a drone bubble? It’s not clear whether this is more like the .com bubble, when a lot of useful stuff was built but a couple of years too early, or more like the housing bubble, when a lot of stuff was built in the wrong places to the wrong standards at the wrong…
Read More RQ-170 upshot, part 2: the bubbleThe fact that a majority of this year’s graduates from USAF basic pilot training are assigned to drone squadrons has got quite a bit of play in the blogosphere. Here, via Jamie Kenny, John Robb (who may still be burying money for fear of Obama or may not) argues that the reason they still do…
Read More The RQ-170 hack and the drone bubbleI’ve long been sceptical of the UAV future. Basically, back in 2005, I reckoned that as the things get more complicated their advantages over manned aircraft disappear; the biggest advantage is that they are meant to be expendable, and things that are expendable get expended. Therefore the loss rate is much higher, both from enemy…
Read More UAV cost scissors watchInteresting article in Aviation Leak & Space Technology about the Chinese air defence system, built of standard telecoms/IT stuff. Encrypted IP over many different bearers, landline fibre rather than microwave, that sort of thing. Two things come to mind: 1) Americans; can you just accept that Huawei exists and its engineers are competent? OK? You…
Read More PDA. UAV. Cup of tea?This PPRuNE thread reminds me of something from the archives. During a meeting we had not long ago, the increasing sophistication and cost of the Unpersonned Aircraft was raised – because by becoming too sophisticated and HVAA in nature, they were in some danger of becoming too valuable to risk in certain scenarios. Rather defeating…
Read More Some are expendable; others are just expensiveRussians demonstrate swarming UAVs down in sunny Aberporth. Which reminds me – I once met a man who lived near there and claimed to have seen numerous UFOs. Yup, just across the bay from the RAE/DERA/WhateverIt’sCalledNow missile range. Still, Flight doesn’t give much detail, but here’s the maker’s webpage. Damn, a swarm of those would…
Read More Flock: the social UAVSome time ago, I got involved in a debate about the cost of unmanned aerial vehicles, UAVs. I argued that the idea that they would supplant piloted aircraft was overambitious, and that, crucially, the high accident rate they experienced would make them rather more expensive than anyone thought. After all, if their biggest advantage was…
Read More The cost of UAVs