Sharon not .... Eyeless in Gaza
If you live in Gaza you might want to take a close look at this picture. This strange looking plane a Machatz 1 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), although you might not see it very easily overhead, as it can fly at 30,000 feet for over 40 hours, performance way in excess of any other such airborne system. Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) has received a supply contract from the Israeli Air Force for over US$50Mn for an unknown quantity of this latest spy in the sky.
Machatz 1, can carry multiple sensors such as maritime patrol radar, a synthetic aperture radar (SAR), COMINT and ELINT systems, etc. The system has automatic launch and recovery and all-weather capabilities.
It is said that the Chinese would be very interested to purchase such leading edge surveillance technology – which would not of course please Uncle Sam.
Last week Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) and Elbit Systems announced a joint US$150 Mn 3 year contract, for the Turkish Armed Forces UAV systems.
IAI also demonstrated the Bird-Eye 400 Mini-UAV, at the 2005 Paris Air Show with a take off weight of 4.1 Kg a range of 15 Km at 500/1000 above ground, and flight duration of 80 minutes, using silent electric propulsion .To be operated in a tactical reconnaissance mode for two soldiers with a wingspan of 2 metres and 2.6 metres in length is equipped with two cameras.
Thinking out loud, Gaza could prove to be an ideal testing ground and "live" demonstration area for likely customers – but of course Palestine is a sovereign territory and so they wouldn’t overfly would they ?
To be a pedant the 3rd hand quotation comes originally from Milton's "Samson Agonistes"
Eyeless in Gaza, at the Mill with Slaves,
Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke ...
Aldous Huxley took up the title "Eyeless in Gaza" for his 30's novel, using the allegory of the deranged and blinded Samson bringing the Temple down, which was of course situated in Gaza.
2 comments:
They already tested it in Ivory Coast.
A team of Israeli technicians flew one for the rabidly anti-French goverment thre. The drone was used to record the GPS positions of various installations, including a field hospital, belonging to a UN-deployed French peacekeeping force in the north of the country.
The Ivory Coast president had hired Ukrainian mercenary pilots who put the coordinates into smart bombs which they were carrying in their hunter aircraft. The targets were destroyed. 28 Frenchmen and 2 Americans at the field hospital were killed. This was in 2004.
A friends son who is (now ex) FFL and may be currently found in the Baghdad Hilton has firends who were killed in that attack. I didn't know how they were fingered.
You will see I was already at work looking at some other UAV notes.
Global Hawk looks as though it is ready to get used seriously as it now can carry a serious payload. At US$ 70 Mn a kick it makes for a serious toy, especially when you can overfly Afghanistan from Beale CA!
A friend of a friend worked for BAE and his hobbt was making model helicopters, his nickname was Crash because every Monday he would turn up at work and be interrogated about the weekend's flying to tell them that Mark XXXVIII had ... er ... crashed.
He remarked they had all the glide characteristics of a house brick.
Post a Comment