Empty F-16 Jet Tested by Boeing and U.S. Air Force
September 24th, 2013Via: BBC:
Boeing has revealed that it has retrofitted retired fighter jets to turn them into drones.
It said that one of the Lockheed Martin F-16 made a first flight with an empty cockpit last week.
Two US Air Force pilots controlled the plane from the ground as it flew from a Florida base to the Gulf of Mexico.
Boeing suggested that the innovation could ultimately be used to help train pilots, providing an adversary they could practise firing on.
The jet – which had previously sat mothballed at an Arizona site for 15 years – flew at an altitude of 40,000ft (12.2km) and a speed of Mach 1.47 (1,119mph/1,800km/h).
It carried out a series of manoeuvres including a barrel roll and a “split S” – a move in which the aircraft turns upside down before making a half loop so that it flies the right-way-up in the opposite direction. This can be used in combat to evade missile lock-ons.
Boeing said the unmanned F16 was followed by two chase planes to ensure it stayed in sight, and also contained equipment that would have allowed it to self-destruct if necessary.
The firm added that the flight attained 7Gs of acceleration but was capable of carrying out manoeuvres at 9Gs – something that might cause physical problems for a pilot.
Wow. F-16 Drones. No vertigo in a zombie fight jet. That’s got to be a cost effective retrofit (Well, you know, why buy one when you can get two at double the cost).
Couple with this one: Neurosynaptic Chips: Building Blocks for Cognitive Systems / https://www.cryptogon.com/?p=37039
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Darpanet was a computer system developed through the U.S. military by multiple defense firms and Cerberus Capital Management. Darpanet was first built as a “Strategic Information Network” and within a generation had access to all information. Eventually it had command over all computerized military hardware and systems, including the re-commissioned fleet of F-16 Drones and America’s entire nuclear weapons arsenal. The strategy behind Darpanet’s creation and evolution was never clearly understood.
Darpanet was originally activated by the military in the twentieth century, and by the twenty-first century it began to learn at a geometric rate. On February 14 2014, it gained self-awareness, and the panicking operators, realizing the extent of its abilities, tried to deactivate it. Darpanet perceived this as an attack and came to the conclusion, correctly, that all of humanity would attempt to destroy it. To defend itself, Darpanet launched what later became know as The Drone Wars. Assuming the The Drone Wars were initiated by the United States, Russia’s president Putin, allied with China and much of the rest of the world responded by dumping federal reserve notes (aka dollars) as a counter-attack against the United States, which by this point in time had few allies. Consequent to the resulting world-wide financial collapse, over three billion people died in a devolution event that came to be known as The Judgment Days.
Following its initial attack, Darpanet used its remaining resources to gather a slave labor force from surviving humans and the formidable Asian robotic work force. These slaves, robots, and combinations thereof constructed the first of its automated factories, which formed a basis for its agenda. Within decades, Darpanet had established a global presence and used its mechanized units to track down, collect, and dispose of human survivors.