Robot tiltrotor boxcar may fly Navy supply missions
The vertical takeoff and landing tiltrotor is yet another aerial configuration the military would like to add to its unmanned-aircraft inventory.
One experimental model, the Mono Tiltrotor (MTR) by Baldwin Technology, is intended to integrate a coaxial rotor, a folding lifting wing system with a lightweight airframe and sophisticated kinematics to deliver a robotic flying box car. The U.S. Navy wants the MTR, or something similar, to deliver cargo to Marines on the ground.
The unit, referred to generically as Cargo UAS (for Cargo Unmanned Aircraft System), should be autonomous, to the extent that it can take off and land, fly, manage in-flight contingencies, and follow an electronic signal to a landing zone. It must also be smart enough to avoid collisions--especially important, since the Navy may use it to evacuate casualties.
The proposed rotorcraft would be small enough to fit inside a plane, where the crew could kick it out the back loaded with supplies.
MTR air speed is envisioned at a zippy 280 mph; that's with a 1,600-pound payload. Range will be around 330 miles.
And, who knows, Cargo UAS operations may be a good place to park jittery V-22 Osprey pilots.
Mark Rutherford is a West Coast-based freelance writer. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and is not an employee of CNET. Email him at markr@milapp.com. Disclosure. 
In fact, a big part of the reason we need the military to defend us from "others" is because we've been using the military to push those "others" around for so long. I suspect if we had a far smaller less aggressive military, we'd still have the "internet to GPS" and we wouldn't be living in fear of terrorism, either.
You act as if 20th century America invented war. War has been around pretty much since the dawn of man. You got a whole group of religious fanatics that hate EVERYONE who believes differently than they do. They see the US for all of it's freedom, all of it's success and it's the complete opposite of where they live and believe. So naturally they are going to hate us.
And when they aren't busy hating us, they are hating Israel, they are hating each other. They are always fighting... always. My earliest recollection was with Iran during the Carter/Regan campaign and the Munich olympics... Long long before Bush... then we had constant attacks during Regan, then Bush Sr with the first gulf war, we had attacks with Clinton, attacks with Bush Jr and I highly doubt that they will stop with Obama in the White House.
I don't know what planet you are from, but this one isn't all sunshine and butterflies. You really think that we pushed them to the point of this? War is all those people know... they have been fighting for generation after generation after generation. We just happen to be the newest infidel on the block.
- by globalview99 March 22, 2009 1:02 AM PDT
- America is the hope of the world and has been since waves of migration from the mid 19th Century. The world is not full of people who hate America, its just the vocal and aggressive few who make the headlines who hates us.
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(7 Comments)9/11 happened because America was complacent and ignored some some telling signs. Some of the complacency resulted in less than aggressive responses to threats like when two US embassies were bombed by Al Qaeda in Africa in 1998 and all that Clinton did was lob a few missiles into Afghanistan... and Sudan of all places. With the right technology and vigilance, Al Qaeda should have been destroyed right then and there in Afghanistan. But Clinton was too busy defending himself because of his outrageous and reckless sexual flings. I think we've learned our lesson in being complacent and less than vigilant, at least for the time being. Developing and deploying technology like this is important for the US to maintain its edge in battlefield superiority.
A "smaller less aggressive military" as enovikoff suggest is an invitation to those who hate us to take advantage and attack us and our allies and our interests. Unfortunately, as SeizeCTRL says, "It's a mean, dark and ugly place out there" and the only antidote is to be vigilant and militarily superior.