Skip to main content

Israel unveils tiny drone planes

BBC NEWS: "The Israeli military is equipping its forces with a new range of spy drones small enough to fit in a soldier's backpack, the army said on Thursday.



The small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and micro UAVs were unveiled at a conference on low intensity conflict.
The Israeli air force has often used larger unmanned spy planes to target Palestinian militants in air strikes.
The new baby drones would give army forces in the field near instant access to aerial intelligence.
The planes have already been supplied to some ground units.
'We use them to take aerial photographs of the (Palestinian) territories,' a military official told Associated Press news agency.

On display at the Tel Aviv conference were the Birdy and the Spy There mini-drones and two micro-drones, the Mosquito and the Mosquito 1.5.
The models were developed by Israel Aircraft Industries' (IAI) engineering division.
Birdy can be carried and launched by a single soldier, who guides the drone by clicking on coordinates on a laptop computer. It has a five-kilometre range (three miles), IAI said.

Weight of mini-drones
BIRDY - 1.3 kilograms (3 pounds)
Mosquito 1 - 250 grams (9 ounces)
Mosquito 1.5 - 500 grams (18 ounces)

The slightly larger Spy There is operated by a two man crew and has twice the range, IAI said.
All the drones can fly for an hour while transmitting pictures back to their operators.
The Mosquito 1 and Mosquito 1.5 micro-drones have a wingspan of 33 centimetres (13 inches).
Their small size allows them to fly through windows and to provide images to military units behind it, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

The Mosquito has already completed several successful 40-minute trial flights, IAI said.
The army currently rents the drones from IAI but has issued a contact offer to supply them with the small UAVs, the official told AP news agency."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Josh Nimoy @ ITP - BallDroppings

Josh Nimoy @ ITP - BallDroppings : "BallDroppings is an addicting and noisy play-toy. It can also be seen as an emergence game. My brother Marc takes this software seriously as an audio-visual performance instrument. Balls fall from the top of the screen and bounce off the lines you are drawing with the mouse. The balls make a percussive and melodic sound, whose pitch depends on how fast the ball is moving when it hits the line."

Artist turns animals into everyday objects

Ananova - A Chilean artist is making a name for herself with an exhibition in which stuffed animals are transformed into household objects. Artworks on display include a chick turned into a lamp, and 'sheep bag' - a lamb carcass fitted with handles. Artist Caterina Purdy says her exhibition at the Experimental Arts Centre in Santiago is intended to be humorous but also makes a serious point. She told Las Ultimas Noticias online: 'It is possible to see my work as something scary, but I find it beautiful. 'There is also irony and humour in my objects as well as a criticism of the way animals are treated by society.'"

W Ketchup™

W Ketchup™ : "You don’t support Democrats. Why should your ketchup? W Ketchup™ is made in America, from ingredients grown in the USA. In side-by-side taste tests of five leading brands, we found that W Ketchup is second to none. You'll never go back to Heinz again! W Ketchup is America’s Ketchup™"