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Metalworking (rec.crafts.metalworking) Discuss various aspects of working with metal, such as machining, welding, metal joining, screwing, casting, hardening/tempering, blacksmithing/forging, spinning and hammer work, sheet metal work. |
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The Snark - the meanest VTOL UAV on the planet
The Snark - the meanest VTOL UAV on the planet October 29, 2005 Meet the Snark – an Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle of immense capability that demonstrates just how far the breed has come in such a short period of time. Constructed mainly of Carbon Fibre and Kevlar, the Snark is light and fast (280 km/h), quiet (special rotor blades make it extremely quiet ), virtually invisible to radar or infrared detetection (it recycles its exhaust gases and emits little heat) and can carry a payload of 680kg, offering the ability to pack both massive firepower (enough to sink a ship) and surveillance equipment (such as high res infrared cameras with a magnification of 7500). But wait, there’s more, and this is the clincher. The Snark is the first UAV that runs on diesel fuel, which means it can be easily integrated into any military force – current UAVs require their own special fuel supply to be transported with them whereas the entire US Army plans to run on a single one fuel - diesel. Last and probably most importantly, the Snark can stay airborne for 24 hours at a time, offering an unprecedented loiter time for a machine of this capability. “The Mk I was giving us eight hours of range,”said Rogers. “The only problem was that it ran on AVGAS and the military want everything to run on a single fuel. So we made the decision to go with a heavy fuel engine and that has turned out to give us a big advantage over the competition as we’re unique in that we’re the only people with a VTOL UAV with a diesel engine. “There’s a small fixed wing aircraft called the Diamond which is actually powered by a small Mercedes Benz car engine but apart from that, we’re the only ones with a diesel and we have created a purpose built engine for the task – using engines built for automotive use often leads to problems because they’re not designed to run flat-out all the time. “The engine is designed and built by Delta Hawk in the United States and we’re doing a lot of development work and we’ve taken the engine from 160 horsepower to 245 bhp and we’re aiming to get it to a reliable 300 bhp in the near future.” “As far as the Snark’s range, the Mk II extended flight duration to 11 hours and we’ve currently extended that with the Mk III to 24.5 hours. But we’re not far from some significant further developments and we think we can probably get the range up to 30 hours with the payload extended to 2000lb. In order to extend the range and payload to that extent, TGR Helicorp has significantly reengineered every aspect of the Snark. “We’ve reversed the rotation of the engine, developed and built a new long-life gearbox and we’re attempting to significantly improve on the specifications I’ve already given you,” says Rogers. The secret to the next step will be in the remote electronic diesel injection system,” says Rogers. “Normal electronic injection runs at 12,000psi, and we’re in the process of developing an injection system with 33,000psi, which will vaporise the droplets, improve the combustion and offer a range of performance optimisation via the onboard computers that is not available anywhere else right now.” “It’s already a rocket, but we’re expecting much more,”he grins. “It’s a full-size helicopter which is 28 feet long,14 feet high and six feet wide”, says Trevor, “so we have a lot of potential yet.” “The aircraft’s current empty weight is 1060 lb (480kg) and the gross weight is 2500 lb (1133 kg) and our payload is 1500lb (680 kg) which blows anything comparable in the UAV area completely out the door. If we can achieve a reliable 2000lb (907 kg) payload, it will become just that much more capable. “We have fitted 24 missiles, eight defence missiles that we build ourselves and it can fit two Sidewinders too. We’ve even hung a Maverick under it too. It has the potential to be seriously nasty. “Each snark will sell for US$5 million and will come complete with its own base station making it a very cost-effective one-man operation, autonomous flight aircraft. “The only aircraft that might vaguely be considered as competition to the snark is the Drummond Fire Scout which is really a 331 Schweizer with 130 lb payload and 65 knots and two hours of range. The specs vary depending on who you talk to, but they’re not really in the ballpark compared to the Snark, and we’ve still got a lot of development potential available to us.” “The Snark Mk III will fly just before Christmas – after that, we’ll be developing two distinct versions – one for the Army (the Land Snark), and one for the Navy (the Sea Snark), and a civilian version of the Snark is under development and will be unveiled in 2006. Interested parties can contact Trevor via email. "Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules. Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner |
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The Snark - the meanest VTOL UAV on the planet
Interesting...
I wonder how this could be used against a determined (even suicidal) enemy who has superior manufacturing capacities to make cheaper... lets say tanks for instance. Or perhaps even jets. Where they make 100 tanks to our one...at the same cost as one of ours. Admitadly not as good, but more of them. I say we'd be under equipped with very expensive and complex technology and no way to produce it in sufficient numbers to defeat the overwhelming numbers. I know of one country right now with the manufacturing capacity and manpower to make this a possible scenario. -Mike |
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The Snark - the meanest VTOL UAV on the planet
"mlcorson" wrote in message
ups.com... | Interesting... | I wonder how this could be used against a determined (even suicidal) | enemy who has superior manufacturing capacities to make cheaper... lets | say tanks for instance. Or perhaps even jets. Where they make 100 tanks | to our one...at the same cost as one of ours. Admitadly not as good, | but more of them. I say we'd be under equipped with very expensive and | complex technology and no way to produce it in sufficient numbers to | defeat the overwhelming numbers. I know of one country right now with | the manufacturing capacity and manpower to make this a possible | scenario. | -Mike The former USSR tried this approach. Took awhile before they realized they couldn't keep it up. Of course it helped the rest of the world understand to learn what a shooting gallery Iraq became using Russian hardware in beginning of the first gulf war. I can't vouch for this information, but I was told that the Soviet quality was so bad that their turbine engines, used in tanks and aircraft and such, was such junk that when they went south they just sent them all to a boneyard where you could see useless junk engines stacked as far as the eye could see. The Americans preferred to keep their repair parts supply smaller (and logistics simpler, in the process, I suppose) by making their engines higher quality and repairable. So, that is just one of many arguments about quality over quantity. If you're speaking of the Chinese, they don't need hardware. They have enough troops alone, armed or not. I also read somewhere that they could march a column of troops a hundred men wide into any country they want for as long as they felt like it. Toddlers in the back of the line would be adults by the time they got to the front. |
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The Snark - the meanest VTOL UAV on the planet
Study the battles of Smolensk and Pork Chop Hill.
jw |
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