My main point was that the last fighter pilot had been born, and I believe I indicated that puts manned flight on a 50-year clock.50 years, not today. Combat systems will likely be the last to be replaced, as much because of social issues as technological ones.50 years ago we hadn't yet stepped foot on the moon, 50 years from now we'll have private colonies on mars, or at least significantexploration because the ability has left the hands of governments and is in the hands of private enterprise. There are now literally hundredsof companies racing for space in the same way NASA did in the 60's. Hundreds. Many feeding off of each other and collaboratingin real-time, and design computers can iterate in weeks what used to take years with slide rulers.Couple that with VR, which is just dipping its toe in the world, finally, in a meaningful way. Sure Candy Crush in 360 surround is what most consumers will use it for, but the real "magic" is industrial design, where today you can walk into virtual spaces you designed and see flaws immediately. Soon you'll be able to feel those objects and flaws, too.VR coupled with autonomous craft will allow people to "travel" via ground and air vehicle in ways that require physical presence today.Yeah, latency, blah, blah. It's an issue today if you want to send a UAV to another continent and have it make life or death decisions.Far less so for teams of SAR people working in the AOR with small FPV drones. Instead of thinking Predator, think the spiders in Minority Report.One person cold cover acres at a time from his car, which drives itself down a road adjacent to a search area (etc., etc.)ELT? With the money and the autoiztion I could build a drone that could home on an ELT today. Me. And I still usually leave globsof solder on the bench when I fix a broken wire. All of the parts already exist today. CAP's issues, on the other hand, are a lot more immediate, thus my 10 year assertion, primarily because it's already in trouble membership and viability-wise, and doesn't have the flexibility to start losing what members and mission it has to autonomous anything.And again, the technology already exists today. Autonomous software in cars will feed autonomous software in everything else, including aircraft(not to mention toasters, pencils, and alarm clocks.Cars are physically capable of driving themselves. Aircraft are physically capable of flying themselves (including commercially), the rest is just details, will , and money.
Quote from: Spam on October 02, 2016, 09:46:51 PMRecall how excited CAP was about Hyperspectral Imaging, and our wonderful new Gippsland aircraft? Yeah... lets do that again.Not even a remotely apt comparison - ARCHER was literally experimental even after adoption, questionable as to whether even a fully-functional system was appropriate for CAP SAR, and then CAP did everything it could to insure it failedbecause of an overly complex system of training and approval needed to even get near the thing, let alone actually use it.I'm sure they exist, but I'm not personally aware of a single actual "find" with it, and many times that wasn't because of the tech, but because getting it to a mission made self-dentistry look like a good idea.Quote from: Spam on October 02, 2016, 09:46:51 PMThere are starting to be anecdotal stories of drone use in SAR popping up after various natural disasters - most of the time off-the-shelf stuff that that was already in hand or someone grabbed from the local big-box. I could go right now, stand on the edge of a flooded residential area, and scan it quickly with an FPV drone and never get my feet wet. Today, with something that coast a couple hundred bucks.FWIW drones have been reconning wild fires during high fire danger periods for about a decade. I saw some video footage from Matthew (Hurricane, that is!) where an off the shelf drone was used to recon flooded areas. The AI is still primitive, however it's coming along nicely. VERY soon there won't be any reason to remember the 238 distinct buttons to push in sequence to do all of the nav and aviation SA functions in our (ha! ha!) "technically advanced" aircraft. Nice analogy, by the way. "Self dentistry", indeed!
Recall how excited CAP was about Hyperspectral Imaging, and our wonderful new Gippsland aircraft? Yeah... lets do that again.
There are starting to be anecdotal stories of drone use in SAR popping up after various natural disasters - most of the time off-the-shelf stuff that that was already in hand or someone grabbed from the local big-box. I could go right now, stand on the edge of a flooded residential area, and scan it quickly with an FPV drone and never get my feet wet. Today, with something that coast a couple hundred bucks.
FYI, national directive just came out in the Aux to discontinue any use of drones that anyone has been doing and to not start anything else. However, they did ask for Auxies knowledgeable about drones to join a working group to look at the issue.
"Inventive" doesn't scale. It's easy to sit and talk about making pictures "snap" and doing all sorts of NEAT! NEW! stuff on your own time, but when a national, government connected organization with an actual mission mandate needs to do something, it has to be scalable, affordable, and hardened.
Quote from: Eclipse on October 18, 2016, 12:59:57 AM"Inventive" doesn't scale. It's easy to sit and talk about making pictures "snap" and doing all sorts of NEAT! NEW! stuff on your own time, but when a national, government connected organization with an actual mission mandate needs to do something, it has to be scalable, affordable, and hardened. All of that and... skills must be readily available to operate the nifty tech to produce consistent results to a known standard.
Don't worry, DoD won't come looking for that bonus later.... oh, waitSent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
In the case of the California Guard bonus situation, it appears to be mismanagement and outright fraud on the part of a few recruiters trying to make targets.
Quote from: Eclipse on October 27, 2016, 09:11:04 PMIn the case of the California Guard bonus situation, it appears to be mismanagement and outright fraud on the part of a few recruiters trying to make targets.FTFY - Please don't slime everyone with your overly broad statements.