| ChickenHead UAV ver. 2.0 a.k.a. the Global ChickenHead |
|||||||||
| As an academic exercise in low-cost military alternatives for our increasingly cash-strapped and mission-burdened armed forces, here is my contribution to winning the war on terror. | |||||||||
![]() |
|||||||||
| Yes, a battery powered helicopter... With an IR pinhole camera and a quarter-sized transmitter, you can view the city day or night... fast enough to follow a car and quiet enough to peep into top-floor hotel rooms. It can even see through some IR transparent material (remember the origional Sony Niteshot?) A solid state gyroscope ensures a stable video platform. Cheap, legal and easy... duel use technology at its finest. (It can't carry a Hellfire but it might lift a bottle rocket.) |
|||||||||
| This is just a toy with about 10 minutes of fly time (once it is loaded with camera and transmitter). It does, however, show some interesting possibilities which are best not to be invrestigated without a government grant. Get a larger helicopter with a camera and you can deliver a couple poinds of C4 right through an open (or closed) window on the top floor of a secure area in the middle of nowhere while the guards (and the guys with Stingers) stand around with wide eyes and stupid looks. We could "get" Castro or Kim Jong-il for real this time... and it wouldn't be as suspicious as a Tomahawk. Throw the non-essential parts of a semi-auto sniper rifle away. Replace what you can with ceramic and plastic. Load it into the helicopter and put the Beltway Sniper to shame. Of course it would be gouache to snipe unsuspecting people pumping gas or waiting for a bus... but, suppose you hovered a thousand feet over a peace rally. Hilarity could ensue! Snipe a politician and blame terrorists. Snipe an anti-American diplomat and blame right-wing extremists. Snipe a conservative radio host and blame left-wing radicals. Keep the terror alert on Orange so tax dollars don't feel wasted on yet another government bureaucracy. Enact new gun control legislation as a bonus! With no witnesses and no explanation, the possibilities are endless. Take an RC airplane and replace the radio receiver with a BASIC stamp (micro controller) and a GPS chip. It could make a nice poor-man's cruise missile to deliver a couple poinds of C4 to a target area (+/- 10m?). It's not very precise but should be perfect for 4th quarter Superbowl or Hajj in Mecca (depending on your politics). How about tossing that obsolete heavy artillery. Fly battery-powered planebombs over the hills and into enemy lines. GPS guided, laser guided, video guided... whatever the mission requires. Load up a truck with a couple hundred pounds of explosives, a box of electronic modules, a bin of motors with props and portable equipment to instantly cast hundreds of Styrofoam airplane bodies to fit any mission. Assemble as needed, turn 'em on and toss them in the enemy's general direction. Add one of those whistling things you had on your bike as a kid to further terrorize the enemy! ...and this is just the TIP of what could be done with cheap off-the-shelf components. I'll just sit back and wait for my big, fat government check to show up... along with written permission to work on these projects. Oh, yeah... don't let the government in on how easy all this mayham is. When they are done with a bunch of new knee-jerk "anti-terror" laws on anything that "might" be a "terrorist tool", TV remotes will be be a registered item due to fears they will be converted into deathrays... so don't even hint at what the guts of your microwave oven can do if pointed at the neighbor's house. |
|||||||||