7/9/2003: GoldenEye, a remarkable aircraft

As seen here:

Apparently DARPA asked custom aircraft company Aurora for an unmanned aerial vehicle that was quiet, small, could fly for several hours on autopilot, and could deliver two cylinders the size of Coke cans to a distant location. This will be tested soon: it's called "GoldenEye".

It takes off vertically, uses computers to right itself, then flies at 160 knots for up to 4 hours. It navigates to any location by itself. From 150 meters it's as quiet as a conversation.

What DARPA has in mind to do with it is left as an exercise to the vivid imagination.

(via Rantburg)

DARPA won't do anything with it. All they do is solicit technology demos. And pay handsomely for it, I might add. Then it's up to the military to find uses for this technology and solicit bids on the development of weapons or tools using this technology. Usually in combination with other new ideas. I notice on the DARPA website they're soliciting a lot of software/hardware solutions to harsh evironment survival. Can you say, battlefield.

But I want one.

But eventually these things reach down to us, the little people, when they get consumerized.

"Hi, China Inn, may I help you?"

"I'd like a number 7, and an egg roll."

"OK, what is your location?"

"45 West Pine."

"No, latitude longitude."

"What?"

"Never mind, your phone sent it. Your order will be in the back yard in 90 seconds."

UT, your example is disturbingly reminiscent of ninjaburger!

"GoldenEye will pay for itself after a few loads of smuggled Coke. Heroin is also quite lucrative."

-- from future adverts, if available to the public

I don't think the Gumint is going to relinquish airspace than easily.
Unmanned drones flying willy nilly over houses? Mothers Against Unmanned Drones will have something to say like a million MAUD March on Washington. Plus we have a homeland security issue with every Tom, Dick and Osama flying things about. Not for a very loooooog time.

They can have my GoldenEye when they pry the controller out of my cold dead hands. The great thing about the example is that you can order that food from Chinatown NYC... even if you're in West Virginia... and get the order in less than four hours. (Or, I suppose, it's free. Which would be a great deal since the cost of the order would be into the tens of thousands of dollars.)

This would be a great courier. It could send secret communications, love trinkets, lost keys, and biological weapons.

I know a guy who has a somewhat twisted sense of humor (yeah, I know that doesn't narrow it down much, most of the guys I know have somewhat bent humor glands) wants to paint up an RC aircraft with *insert city of choice* Police Dept logos, install a camera in it, and fly the thing around some unsavory neighborhood, just to see how long it takes before someone tries to shoot it out of the sky ... AND to see if any furor is generated as a consequence of the apparent use of "spy planes" to observe crack deals.

Oh, and about the Chinese delivery thing ... does anyone know the secret? Even if you live 1/2 hour away from the restaurant, how the hell does the food stay unable to touch the foil container piping hot when it makes it to your door?

The design reminds me of some little fireworks that are often sold around the 4th or at New Years.

I imagine the fins make it spin like a bullet going down a riffled barrel of a gun.

I think it is obvious that they just want to be able to deliver a couple of cold ones to the general. Might have been a little too obvious if they said it had to be able to deliver a brace of long necks.

Hrm... you could carry a lot in two coke-can sized packages... smoke bombs, nerve gas, condoms, grenades, 2-3 tight rolls of duct tape, biochem mixtures, party favors, tootsie rolls, two different flavors of ice cream...

waitaminnit... I'm thinking of birthday parties...

My guess for fun: a sensor/mic/camera that sends its signal to satellites, can color-change to fit in with surroundings, and can slowly "walk" to get into an ideal location or to hide or both.

It's flying in this configuration, with a rotary wing for take off and landing that becomes a stationary wing for high speed flight.

This is the same machine? Naaaaahhh....

Not the same, another iteration. This one has the rotary wing added for controlled take offs so the Chinese food doesn't spill.

Where did this stupid photo come from, it’s a prank. That stupid looking thing couldn’t fly two feet… ask me how I know?

Why don't you enlighten us, rather than taunting us? That's kind of how this whole message board thing works. Occasional wise ass comments do work well (it's a life skill many of us have mastered), but if you make a provocative statement, you should be prepared to back it up. Not every post needs to be brilliant, or contain APA formatted references, but at least say what you were intending to say.

APA formatted references.. what a great idea!

The aircraft in question is missing basic configuration components. You are looking an engine cowl with some little wings attached. In technical terms it would be called “Short coupled”. Its aerodynamic components lack leverage. In layman’s terms… its wider then it is long, which is not something an aero engineer would consider because of instability considerations. It also lacks axis controls on the edges of the aerodynamic components… which would be required for low speed control and vertical takeoff and landing.

Jimf747, Is that you Radar? It just so happens that aircraft that you say can't be true, is being flown by Boeing and the DOD as we speak. So not only are you a condecending asshole, you have nothing to be condecending about because you're wrong again.

Quote:

Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce Jimf747, Is that you Radar? It just so happens that aircraft that you say can't be true, is being flown by Boeing and the DOD as we speak. So not only are you a condecending asshole, you have nothing to be condecending about because you're wrong again.

A rotary wing which becomes a fixed wing? There's some serious problems with that idea (all the angular momentum of the wing has to go somewhere when you stop it), but I doubt DoD is going to release details on how they solved them.

As for the original pictured -- sure, it's not stable. An aircraft doesn't have to be stable to fly.

Bruce, what's the source of the rotary wing aircraft you posted? I've looked at Aurora's site, and it shows them hover testing a prototype that looks a lot like the one that started this thread, minus the horizontal flight control surfaces.

"Boeingnews Now" site on Boeings internal web. Basically it said Rick Baily, vice president and deputy of Integrated Defense Advanced Systems, or IDeAs, commended the team shortly after the Phantom Work's Canard Rotor/Wing concept completed its first flight Wednesday at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. Under joint development by Boeing and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, of the DoD, the CRW incorporates a rotor designed not only to spin for vertical takeoffs
and landings but to convert into a lift-providing fixed-wing configuration for high speed cruise.

Of course Jimf747 says it can't so they'll just have to scrap the whole project, destroy the data and deny it happened.:p

On the same track, but the family tree is branching.

So it's something for peering in second-storey sorority windows then?

Not for the military. Those teeny tiny flying robots haven't made it out of the lab because the controls are too complicated, the operation in real weather too unreliable to make them useful.
But that said.....they're coming, THEY'RE COMING....

I always hoped that in The Future my pizza would be delivered Hiro Protagonist style, not some funny looking jet. You can get a lot of HE in two coke cans.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Undertoad But eventually these things reach down to us, the little people, when they get consumerized. "Hi, China Inn, may I help you?" "I'd like a number 7, and an egg roll." "OK, what is your location?" "45 West Pine." "No, latitude longitude." "What?" "Never mind, your phone sent it. Your order will be in the back yard in 90 seconds."

Question 1) can it deliver if you move to another location?
Question 2) can it deliver to a running vehicule?

That would add a whole new dimension to the concept of drive-in... and quite a few holes in a lot of windshields, no doubt.

That's a good question. In this country most tacos are eaten in moving vehicles.

D-

You'll put your eye out.

Since Tacocopter never really took off, ha-ha,

This is here part deux

Attachment 43761

That's probably where they got the idea.

And the funding.