The Army seems to want to get all they can out of their Black Hawk
helicopters, and at almost $6 million a pop, wouldn’t you? They developed
and recently tested a new tube launched drone for reconnaissance.
The drone is fired from the moving Black Hawk, opens its wings and gets
moving as quickly as possible. As you might imagine, it’s imperative the
drone starts flying by its lonesome so the helicopter can’t catch up to it
and the unthinkable happens… the two collide. Which as we said, is a $6
million+ accident and puts our American soldiers at risk.
Once the drone gets moving, it can either be controlled by a person OR
follow a predetermined flight plan on its own. The idea is to take the risk of losing human life out of the equation and instead let the drone take one for the team. Tube launched drones have been a thing for a while now.
They were popularized by the movie Angel Has Fallen with Morgan Freeman and Gerard Butler. We won’t ruin it if you haven’t seen it. But
take our advice, the movie might as well end after the drone scene.
The Army have even started a drone school to start training new recruits
from the get-go on how to fly these bad boys! That’s the initiative we like
to see!