Apr 21
Drones are getting pretty advanced, and they’re continuing to prove their usefulness. They can do anything from dodge bullets to land on aircraft carriers
Dec 24
Removing wounded soldiers from the battlefield has always been a dangerous proposition, not just for the wounded but for the Medevac team as well. So instead of sending more soldiers into harm’s way, one Israeli aeronautic company wants to whisk the wounded away aboard a UAV.
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Aug 19
On August 14th, the amazing, hovering F-35B made its first, vertical, at-sea night landing on the USS WASP. We’ve seen it hover
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Mar 27
Operational F-35B fighter jet’s first vertical landing was years, billions in the making (video)
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Lockheed Martin’s F-35 program has been a political whipping boy seemingly forever, but a production VTOL ‘B’-variant of the pricey supersonic jet finally did what it was made for: a vertical landing. That happened nearly three years to the day after the estimated $304 million (each!) jet’s first mid-air hover test, at which point the Pentagon pegged the cost at $83 million. Inflation aside, the US Marine’s variant seemed to make a fine, if solid three point landing and Lockheed Martin says it’s made considerable strides in the flight testing program over the last couple of years, despite all the overruns and delays. Hopefully that means the US Marines, Britain’s Royal Air Force et. al. will be able to deploy that capability on their F-35B’s soon — ie, before they’re already obsolete. Check the video after the break.
Update: As commenter daveschroeder pointed out, this is the first vertical landing of a production version of the F-35B. Test copies of the fighter (with test pilots aboard) have been performing the feat since late 2011, so we’ve tweaked the article to make that point clear.
Filed under: Misc
Via: Megazone (Google+)
Source: Lockheed Martin (YouTube)
Jun 26
US Army breaking up with A160 Hummingbird drone-copter, says it’s too high maintenance
Posted in: Today's Chili
It’s not me, it’s you. The US Army’s dalliance with Boeing’s A160 Hummingbird drone got one step closer to Splitsville after the military branch issued a stop-work order for the project. Initially scheduled to see action in Afghanistan starting this July, the chopper-drone turned plenty of heads thanks to a DARPA-developed Argus-IS imaging system with a 1.8-gigapixel camera capable of spying on ground targets from 20,000 feet. The honeymoon period between the Army and the A160 is apparently over, however, thanks to a host of issues. These included wiring problems as well as excessive vibration that caused an A160 to crash earlier this year due to a transmission mount failure. The problems not only increased risk and caused delays, but also led program costs to helicopter out of control — a big no-no given Uncle Sam’s recent belt-tightening. In the meantime, the Army is reportedly checking out the K-MAX, though it’s important to note that this unmanned chopper specializes in cargo and doesn’t have the A160’s eyes.
US Army breaking up with A160 Hummingbird drone-copter, says it’s too high maintenance originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jun 2012 07:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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