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Thanks to David Place for forwarding....
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Thought you would enjoy these small UAS pics I got from AFSOC. The CSC photos are of an Osprey attacking a WASP and yes the WASP did recover from the "bird strike". The second was from Puma over the skies of Afghanistan - nice formation.
Thanks to David Place for forwarding this to me...
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Stalled U.S. Budget A 'Hidden Tax,' Pentagon's Carter Says
(BLOOMBERG NEWS 30 MAR 11) ... Michelle Jamrisko
The failure by Congress to pass a budget is a "hidden tax" costing the Pentagon millions of dollars, the Defense Department's top procurement official said. "It adds a dollop of cost overhead to everything we do," which hasn't been calculated, though it "certainly measures in the millions of dollars," Ashton Carter, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, told an industry conference yesterday in Miami. Congress must pass a budget or another continuing resolution by April 8 to avoid a government shutdown.
"It's inefficient and uneconomical to proceed in this kind of herky-jerky fashion," Carter said. "Each and every manager in the department is struggling with this reality, having to upset your carefully calibrated plans." Once a budget is approved, the Pentagon must focus on trimming costs in the $200 billion it spends on services, Carter said in the speech to the National Defense Industrial Association conference.
"What the public fixes on and what members of Congress fix on are big acquisition programs," he said at the annual meeting of hundreds of defense industry and government representatives. "It's really only one-seventh of the dough."
Of the $700 billion in the Defense Department's budget, about $400 billion is spent on private vendors for products and services, Carter said. Government and industry should also focus more on sustainment costs of programs, which make up as much as 70 percent of total program costs, instead of the initial phases of development and procurement that get more attention, he said.
Defense contractors shouldn't be concerned that department savings will mean a loss in profit, Carter said. "We are looking to eliminate unproductive costs," he said. "We aren't looking to save money by cutting profit."
A Pentagon effort to slash $100 billion in contracting costs will in part target food, translation and maintenance services, Carter said in testimony before the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Washington yesterday.
Carter said in November he was initiating a "Better Buying Power" project, which seeks more value from the $400 billion the Defense Department spends annually on contracting. The recommendations include an increased use of fixed-price contracts and better market research. A related memo found that the Pentagon's contracting capability for services is "much less mature" than its ability to buy weapons.
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I read an interesting article today titled Persistent Surveillance on a non-satellite budget is goal of U.S. military airship development at the Military & Aerospace Electronics site. One of the experts quoted in the article is Tony White, owner of GalaxyBlimps, LLC in Dallas, TX. I decided to give Tony a call and am glad that I did. He's frankly one of the most knowledgable people I've ever had the priveledge to speak to about Lighter Than Air as well as Unmanned Systems. It was also a gratifying experience to hear his thoughts on Sofcoast's ASAP XP Mako product. Tony doesn't just "get" it - he's a leading mind in this emerging space and thinks Lighter Than Air is the future for many reasons.
I agree. Thanks again Tony.
Cheers,
John
John Surmont
Founder/CEO
Sofcoast, Inc.
Here's an excellent NPR piece on Drones, National Airspace Access and a very large industry in it's infancy.
One of the most important comments made were the comment by Chris Anderson of DIY Drones that "we're at about the 1977 point in the birth of the unmanned systems industry compared to the birth of the computer industry"
Cheers!
John Surmont
Founding CEO
Sofcoast
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NPR Transcript Below:
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Heard on All Things Considered
March 14, 2011 - MICHELE NORRIS, host:
We're going to hear now about a new kind of drone. I'm talking about the unmanned remote-controlled aircraft the U.S. military has been using for years to conduct surveillance and launch attacks on isolated targets. Well, small homemade versions of these flying robots have become widely popular, first with hobbyists and now with entrepreneurs.
NPR's Carrie Kahn reports that the tiny civilian aircraft may have lots of potential, but the government isn't quite sure how to deal with them.
CARRIE KAHN: In a field west of Los Angeles, John Steiner(ph) throws a handheld drone into the air.
(Soundbite of field)
Mr. JOHN STEINER: OK. So, here we go. Clear prop.
Unidentified Man: It's clear.
KAHN: Within seconds, the four-pound plane rises so high, it's almost out of sight.
(Soundbite of drone)
Mr. STEINER: You can barely hear it when it's flying overhead.
KAHN: And that's the point. Equipped with a camera, the drone made by AeroVironment is used by the military. Small enough to fit in a soldier's backpack, it's easily assembled and launched to scout out potential enemies. The company makes three different sizes, all lightweight, even a radio reporter can launch one.
You got to have a good arm on you.
(Soundbite of drone)
KAHN: Oh, that was a wimpy throw.
(Soundbite of laughter)
KAHN: But not too wimpy. The drone flew and sent back pictures, including live video of the surrounding areas.
Steve Gitlin of AeroVironment thinks about the commercial applications for these small flying machines. Instead of launching expensive helicopters, for example, law enforcement can throw up a drone. Monitoring miles of oil pipelines would be easier with the auto-piloted aircraft. And they could be used in counting wildlife or even tracking movie stars.
Mr. STEVE GITLIN (AeroVironment): Paparazzi have been contacting us for years with an interest in using our systems for those kinds of missions. We can probably sell it to them. But that doesn't mean the FAA is going to let them use it.
KAHN: In fact, the Federal Aviation Administration does not allow small aircraft like these to be used commercially. The FAA declined repeated requests for an interview. But in an email, the agency said it's working on new rules governing use of some small unmanned aircraft.
Chris Anderson runs a website called DIY Drones. It's a clearinghouse for drone hobbyists around the world. He says like the Internet, drones got their start with the military. In the past few years, the technology has rapidly expanded and become widely available on the Internet. Anderson says it's time to let hobbyists and entrepreneurs discover the next great thing to be done with the flying robots.
Mr. CHRIS ANDERSON (DIY Drones): Entrepreneurs and little guys and amateurs figure out cool things, which then get scaled up into huge industries. And I think it's important in our regulatory process that we don't stifle the little guys.
KAHN: Rory Paul is one of those little guys.
(Soundbite of motor)
Mr. RORY PAUL: OK. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to start up the motor.
(Soundbite of motor)
KAHN: He's going to do a prop check of his drone, which is sitting on his dining room table in his home outside Los Angeles. It's equipped with a digital and infrared camera. Paul hopes to sell it to large-scale farmers so they can survey their crops and boost yields. Paul built his drone back in 2005 and has been waiting ever since for the FAA's okay.
Mr. PAUL: I got into this hoping that we would have policy in place that we could operate commercial business providing a service to farmers and it hasn't happened.
KAHN: Paul says he'll wait and hope that the FAA will be fair to small operators who want to exploit the technology for good. But what about those up to no good? That's what worries Jay Stanley of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy and Technology Program.
Mr. JAY STANLEY (Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Program): The prospect of sort of small flying autonomous cameras everywhere in the skies raises the prospect of, you know, pervasive aerial surveillance in a way that we've never really seen before.
KAHN: Chris Anderson of DIY Drones says anything can be exploited for bad, but worries that such fears will limit drone technology, which he says is just in its infancy.
Mr. ANDERSON: To use the computer analogy, we're in about 1977.
KAHN: And he says the possibilities of what drones can do have yet to be discovered.
Carrie Kahn, NPR News.
(Soundbite of music)
Al Pacino's Inch By Inch speech from Any Given Sunday
'nuff said
I don't know what to say really.
Three minutes
to the biggest battle of our professional lives
all comes down to today.
Either
we heal
as a team
or we are going to crumble.
Inch by inch
play by play
till we're finished.
We are in hell right now, gentlemen
believe me
and
we can stay here
and get the shit kicked out of us
or
we can fight our way
back into the light.
We can climb out of hell.
One inch, at a time.
Now I can't do it for you.
I'm too old.
I look around and I see these young faces
and I think
I mean
I made every wrong choice a middle age man could make.
I uh....
I pissed away all my money
believe it or not.
I chased off
anyone who has ever loved me.
And lately,
I can't even stand the face I see in the mirror.
You know when you get old in life
things get taken from you.
That's, that's part of life.
But,
you only learn that when you start losing stuff.
You find out that life is just a game of inches.
So is football.
Because in either game
life or football
the margin for error is so small.
I mean
one half step too late or to early
you don't quite make it.
One half second too slow or too fast
and you don't quite catch it.
The inches we need are everywhere around us.
They are in ever break of the game
every minute, every second.
On this team, we fight for that inch
On this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us
to pieces for that inch.
We CLAW with our finger nails for that inch.
Cause we know
when we add up all those inches
that's going to make the fucking difference
between WINNING and LOSING
between LIVING and DYING.
I'll tell you this
in any fight
it is the guy who is willing to die
who is going to win that inch.
And I know
if I am going to have any life anymore
it is because, I am still willing to fight, and die for that inch
because that is what LIVING is.
The six inches in front of your face.
Now I can't make you do it.
You gotta look at the guy next to you.
Look into his eyes.
Now I think you are going to see a guy who will go that inch with you.
You are going to see a guy
who will sacrifice himself for this team
because he knows when it comes down to it,
you are gonna do the same thing for him.
That's a team, gentlemen
and either we heal now, as a team,
or we will die as individuals.
That's football guys.
That's all it is.
Now, whattaya gonna do?
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