All good perspective, Martin. The Israeli plane was (is? Are they still used?) excellent. It cost thousands, not millions, it was tiny, and it was reliable. That's engineering at work. The porkbarrel that the military/industrial complex lives it at the expense of, say, NASA and anything else that smacks of education makes it damed hard for them to design to tight specs.
-J On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, Martin Usher wrote: >I found a lot of the program annoying. We might be just amateurs / hobbyists >/ whatever but we can build, trim and fly planes a lot better and for a lot >less money than that crowd. The clips of the failed test flights showed us >that these pros don't bother to balance and trim their creations before >launching them. > >>and trains kids to do it right out of high school (Glenn Dean) >We train kids that are still in high school to fly remote controlled planes. >Some of them get really good at it. > >There's a 'model' helecopter system that's used to provide close-in chase >footage for movies. Its highly maneuverable and its got a stablized camera >system. It was developed by a couple of people on what I suspect by military >standards was a miniscule budget. This is the type of effort we should >expect. The original Israeli device was neat as well -- a solution that was >cheap, robust and effective. > >Sorry to be contrairian, but I see lots of people hurting for money these >days -- state budgets blown, unemeployed and so on -- while the military is >consuming resources like its fighting a major war. Priorities have got >completely screwed up (IMHO, note). > >Martin Usher > >RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and >"unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and >unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. > RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off.
