Prototype Police-chase Drone for the Highways

Check out out this concept vehicle designed to help reduce the inherent dangers for police in a high speed chase. Of course, it doesn't reduce the dangers to the public in any way. In fact, the police are more likely to engage in reckless pursuits of suspects putting the public at even greater risk, but hey, at least the police will be safe.

You can check out the original article and design images at this link:

http://www.ecofriend.com/entry/scarab-an-all-electric-self-driven-police-chase-assistant/

DHS Grants RC 'Copter to Police Armed with Tazer, Shotgun, Grenades

MK-I

Basic UAS unit with CCD TV optics, standard semi-autonomous flight avionics package and turbine or piston power plant.

MK-II

Upgraded UAS with day CCD TV camera as well as FLIR optics package, fully autonomous avionics package and turbine or piston power-plant.

MK-III

UAS with day CCD, FLIR and thermal cameras, fully autonomous avionics and weaponized with either 40mm, 37mm grenade launcher or 12 gauge shotgun with laser designator (military/LE use only.)

MK-IV

Unavailable to non-military users.

Payload Characteristics

Optics:
Sony FCB EX-980 CCDTV, 20X Zoom FLIR Photon 320, Tau UTAM-32 Thermal Camera
Avionics:
Semi/Full autonomous system radio link, Auto Take-off/Land, Pilot Assist Module, 30 hz Laser Altimeter, DGPS system with 2cm accuracy option.
Weapons:
U.S. Military and Law Enforcement consumers have less-lethal/lethal options including single or mulitple shot 37 mm/40mm grenade launcher, 12g shotgun

Airframe Characteristics

Dry Weight: 35lbs (16 kg)
Overall Length: 96 in (243.9 cm)
Height: 29.8 in (75.7 cm)
Width: 17 in (43.2 cm)
Rotor Span: 76.5 in (194.3 cm)
Usable Load: 22 lbs (10 kg)
Cruising Speed: 35 mph (56.3 kph)
Max Speed: 70 mph (112.6 kph)
Max Range: 35 miles (56 km)
Fuel Endurance: Turbine 45 min/Piston 3.5 hrs.



Article:

Tased From Above! New Robot Copter To Begin Patrolling Our Skies

Supplemental:

Tech in development for UAV's...

FGM-148 Javelin

Javelin is a fire-and-forget missile with lock-on before launch and automatic self-guidance. The system takes a top-attack flight profile against armored vehicles (attacking the top armor which is generally thinner) but can also take a direct-attack mode for use against buildings or fortifications. This missile also has the ability to engage helicopters in the direct attack mode.[3] It can reach a peak altitude of 150 m (500 ft) in top-attack mode and 60 m in direct-fire mode and is equipped with an imaging infrared seeker. The tandem warhead is fitted with two shaped charges: a precursor warhead to detonate any explosive reactive armor and a primary warhead to penetrate base armor. The Javelin was used in the 2003 Invasion of Iraq,[3] with devastating effects on Iraqi Lion of Babylon tanks and Type 69 tanks.


The missile is ejected from the launcher so that it reaches a safe distance from the operator before the main rocket motors ignite; a "soft launch arrangement".[4] This makes it harder to identify the launcher; however, back-blast from the launch tube still poses a hazard to nearby personnel. Thanks to this "fire and forget" system, the firing team may move on as soon as the missile has been launched.[2]

The missile system is carried most often by a two man team consisting of a gunner and an ammo bearer, although it can be fired with just one person if necessary. While the gunner aims and fires the missile, the ammo bearer, scans for prospective targets, watches for threats such as enemy vehicles and troops, and ensures personnel and obstacles are clear of the missile's back blast.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGM-148_Javelin

Expose on USAF Christian-themed manual leads to cancellation of Nuc Missile Officer ethics course

Air Force Pulls Christian-Themed Ethics Training for Nuclear Missile Officers After Publication of Truthout Report

by: Jason Leopold, Truthout | Report

The Air Force, in response to an exclusive report published by Truthout earlier this week, has withdrawn materials used in a training session that relied upon passages from the New and Old Testament and a quote from an ex-Nazi SS officer to teach missile officers about the morals and ethics of launching nuclear weapons.

The Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare training "has been taken out of the curriculum and is being reviewed," said David Smith, chief of public affairs of Air Education and Training Command at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas. "The commander reviewed it and decided we needed to have a good hard look at it and make sure it reflected views of modern society."

Smith said the ethics training has been in place for "20-plus years" and the decision to remove it was made on Wednesday after Truthout's report was published. He added that it will now be "given thorough scrutiny" and "folks will be appointed to look at what we have and determine its utility and if they think its useful to continue having an ethics course they will develop a new course."

The course was led by Air Force chaplains and took place during a missile officer's first week in training at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Officers who train to be missileers were required to attend the ethics course, which included a PowerPoint presentation on St. Augustine's "Christian Just War Theory" as well as numerous examples of characters from the New and Old Testament the training materials asserted engaged in warfighting in a "righteous way."

St. Augustine's "Qualifications for Just War," according to the way the Air Force characterized it in slides used in the ethics training, are: "to avenge or to avert evil; to protect the innocent and restore moral social order (just cause)" and "to restore moral order; not expand power, not for pride or revenge (just intent)."

One of the PowerPoint slides also contained a passage from the Book of Revelation that claims Jesus Christ, as the "mighty warrior," believed some wars to be just.

At the conclusion of the ethics training session, missile officers were asked to sign a legal document stating they will not hesitate to launch the nuclear-armed Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) "if lawfully ordered to do so by the President of the United States or his lawful successor."

The documents' blatant use of religious imagery and its numerous references to the New and Old Testament would appear to constitute a violation of the First Amendment establishing a wall of separation between church and state.

The 43-page PowerPoint was included with more than 500 pages of other documents pertaining to a missile officer's first week in training that was released by the Air Force under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and provided to Truthout by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), a civil rights organization.

Another PowerPoint slide quoted Wernher Von Braun, a former member of the Nazi Party and SS officer who is regarded as the father of the US space program. Von Braun was not cited in the PowerPoint as a scientific expert, rather, he was specifically being referenced as a moral authority, which is remarkable considering that the Nazi scientist used Jews imprisoned in concentration camps, captured French anti-Nazi partisans, civilians, and others to help build the V-2, a weapon responsible for the death of thousands of British civilians.

MRFF President Mikey Weinstein said more than 30 missile officers contacted his organization over the past week to complain about the Christian imagery and biblical passages in the ethics training. He said the decision by the Air Force to pull the ethics course material is a "great victory for the constitution." [Full disclosure: Weinstein is a member of Truthout's Board of Advisers.]

"We are not going to commend the Air Force for doing something they should have done a quarter-century ago," Weinstein said. "It's an outrage and a deliberate attempt to torture and distort our constitution when the US Air Force mandatorily teaches its nuclear missile launch officers that fundamentalist Christian theology is inextricably intertwined with the 'correct' decision to launch nukes."

http://www.truth-out.org/air-force-pulls-christian-themed-ethics-training-missile-officers/1311972789

Air Force Cites New Testament, Ex-Nazi, to Train Officers on Ethics of Launching Nuclear Weapons

Future Weapons/Tech

Caught these two articles from Cracked magazine about some badass weapons/tech of the future, actually in development today. Put your tinfoil hats on people...


5 Projects You Won't Believe the US Government Is Working On

6 New Weapons That Are Making War Look Like a Cartoon

Heavy Ordinance Detonation in Iraq

In the first video you will see the detonation of what is equivalent to 30 tons of TNT quickly followed by a 429-ton detonation, from a range of several miles away.

For some perspective there, the larger blast is less than half of the explosive force of a one-kiloton nuclear detonation. A one-kiloton device is believed to be the world's smallest nuclear bomb today, the so-called "suitcase nuke" in the armory of Russian commandos. For more perspective, consider that the bombs dropped on Japan at the end of WWII were 15 and 21-kiloton blasts, or about 30 and 42 times the size of the blast you will see here in the second detonation. For even greater perspective, the world's largest nuclear bomb, also a Russian device, created a blast more than 100,000 times as large as the one you are about to see.

After you have seen these vids, be sure to check out the "Nuke Your City" page, and see how different nuclear bombs might affect your hometown.





In the following videos you will see the Camp Falcon ammo dump detonate ordinance uncontrollably after an attack by insurgents. Some people believed that a tactical nuclear device had been detonated, but it was clearly conventional ordinance for a number of reasons, including the fact that the blasts we see are less than a kiloton.

First, a long-range shot broadcast by al_Jazeera, followed up by some inline links of footage filmed by US personnel...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR0EZyaHrBw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF0tAOkrxY4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIO3xk5-tXM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-QLTp1DruI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XisEJXL3YbM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1ZvWJXoWXM

Atomic Artillery Cannon (in HD)