My grad school advisor was constantly working on
a project that involved one of these remote
controled airplanes, but took digital photos instead
of sending it back in realtime. He could then put
the photos through a computer program (I'm fuzzy
as to which one) that would correct it for angle
and create a good quality orthophoto. It was very
useful for areal maps.

He's constantly worked with other people who did
this sort of thing, but I don't know that he ever
got his off the ground (so to speak). On top of
that, I'm not sure what good it would serve Midwest
archaeology, except for the occasional mound site
or when the plow zone has been stripped.

It'd be great in the Great Basin or in the
southwest US, though.

Anyway. It's neat to see something like that
employed.

While drones (UAV's) have been getting more attention since Afghanistan, they've been around for a really long time. The U.S. Army has been using them for mapping since at least the 60's, though the UAV's back then were probably five times the size of the Dragon Eye. They used conventional cameras timed by a mechanical device to take pics of the land below; they were flown in grid patterns and by the time you were done, you had a pretty decent photo map of a large area. But even with the bigger ones, they required tons of acquired skill to fly without crashing them. Don't know if those older ones were ever used in combat. Dragon Eye looks pretty cool, but one has to admit the probability of that little sucker crashing is pretty high. Best of luck, Deguzman.

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"That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code, does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code." --Major Napier, Stephenson's THE DIAMOND AGE

They flew one of the big ones (Global Hawk, I think) from the US to Australia a couple of years ago, which was a pretty impressive effort.

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Originally posted by Gromit:
They flew one of the big ones (Global Hawk, I think) from the US to Australia a couple of years ago, which was a pretty impressive effort.

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That was Global Hawk, which is impressive, but it's still essentially a small plane rather than the kind of tiny micro-UAV that Dragon Eye is. The more like a full-size plane it is, the easier it is to fly.

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"That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code, does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code." --Major Napier, Stephenson's THE DIAMOND AGE

Where are the radio controlled tanks or four wheel weapons platforms? i could see a bunch of guys with lap tops and a fridge full of beer in a mobile home sorta thing sitting a couple thousand miles away playing real life doom.

This all reminds me of the 1992 movie "Toys" starring Robin Williams, Joan Cusack and LLCool J

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Originally posted by Rich:
Where are the radio controlled tanks or four wheel weapons platforms? i could see a bunch of guys with lap tops and a fridge full of beer in a mobile home sorta thing sitting a couple thousand miles away playing real life doom.

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There were experiments done with tanks where all the crew members were in the chassis section--in other words, an empty, remote-control turret. Gave it a lower profile and protected the crew more. Experiments didn't even work out that well with THAT, let alone with no people even in the tank. I'm sure we'll see it someday, but not anytime soon. They still like to have human eyeballs in tanks.

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"That we occasionally violate our own stated moral code, does not imply that we are insincere in espousing that code." --Major Napier, Stephenson's THE DIAMOND AGE