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Hot take but I think we should've bought the YA-7F with the afterburning motor and given it to the Guard. Maybe made a 2-Seat model for FAC-A. Would've still been cheaper than a Viper and came at a perfect time for COIN.

They don't need an image recognition system... Story time - My first tour in the five-sided wind tunnel was 2005-2006. I was at Quantico for school before that so had three years in the Northern Va area. I was always into RC airplanes and flew at a nice grass strip on the west side of town off Route 50. I was out there was weekday afternoon and there was only one other person out there with me. When I pulled up I noticed he was sitting in a chair and wearing some kind of goggles. Next to him was an antenna system mounted on a tripod. I watch him fly for a bit and noticed he was not looking at his airplane. When he landed I walked over and we had a chat, he was testing a home built system that pushed video from a camera in the plane to his goggles. We talked for a while and told me he posted a few videos of his set up and some of the flying on Youtube. He then gave me his channel on a card. A few days later I looked at his channel and while watching a video noticed and airliner go through his frame...a cold chill ran down my spine when I saw the airliner. The field was a few miles from Dulles and almost all of his videos caught an airliner in the frame making an approach to the airport. I immediately put that together with another project I was working in a small strategy cell I was assigned to in the Pentagon. In short, a just the previous two years prior a group of hobbyists flew an RC airplane autonomously across the Atlantic Ocean. I pitched the project to my boss and got some seed money. Long story short I proved an amateur could build an autonomous airplane that could lift a 20 warehead/payload, fly with a GPS auto pilot and hit a target at range or via FPV for under $1000.00. This was 2005...I wrote it up and tried to run it through the system only to be laughed at and ignored.

There's some, but not a whole lot, of energy/maneuverability stabilized above ref, below landing weight, on a 3 degree path. Not near as much (read: damn near none) during second segment climb. That's what I'm worried about. At least at my home drome I'm crossing the fence typically above 2.5k' and accelerating past 220kts.

Really? Seems like a different platform for a different set of requirements. Surprised they are not looking at a CASA 235 or other like aircraft unless they want a lotta range for PACOM.

Just posting to show the speeds these are achieving Father n son team built drone reaching 400+ mph https://www.businessinsider.com/drone-warfare-interceptor-guinness-world-record-bells-fastest-quadcopter-ukraine-2026-1

Yup or builds one or many with a camera, small image recognition system and goes into the engines on final just after the FAF. Other than massive land setbacks to geographically isolate the airport plus several layers of different anti drone systems, how else could you defend against this?

Found this on FB speaking of Crusader, an AI produced F-8 with side intakes Guns / Sidewinders in the wrong spots

First flights scheduled later this year, if it demonstrates consistent vertical takeoff and landing, it’s a big deal. Awww c’mon, I see a bit of F-8 with the chin intake

Or decides to make one the size of a Shahed track the ILS/FAF on a low IFR day. Maybe it gets picked up on radar in time.

All of the encounters mentioned above are "mostly" accidents. Imagine when someone TRIES to hit an airliner...

As if the Checkmate wasn't ugly enough...

Serious question, what kind of crazy FAA cert do you need to be able to shoot cannons? Did they have to lobby Congress or something? Awesome vid!

If you're not doing anything wrong..... Although the latest trend is for the cop to claim they smelled the weeed.

Cool looking airplane. Cool history too

Dibs? Truly awesome work! What a way to fly a warbird.

That is freakin awesome

Nice! 7.2K views · 1.2K reactions Happy 4th of July weekend. Going into our 250th year as a country, we’re proud to share a behind the scenes of our aerial film cre.mp4

FIFY

The Army is negligent with nearly all things UAS; they go full retard as a matter of doctrine.

Homie about to be force shaped.

Wait, you can be arrested for giving a speech on the steps of Congress, but breaking and entering gets you a Trump pardon? I'm not defending dude's actions in uniform.

What are everyone's thought on the X-Bat? https://shield.ai/x-bat/