Nicholas:

Hmm, I could build a 13W LED light for less than $90 – with 26 0.5W LEDs plus some circuitry for the power supply. It’d be kind of large though, and have a (bright) focused beam. this thing is 4W but only costs about US$22 and runs off 12V. Requires no external cooling…

Dfens:

UAVs are built to sloppy construction standards because they are unmanned. It makes them cheap, but also unreliable. Their operator interfaces are crappy too. I read about one Predator that fell out of the sky because the operator station went to hell. The guy flying the thing switched to a new station but didn’t set all the switches to the same settings he had in the station that crapped out so the Predator just ignored all of his commands. It eventually augured into the ground somewhere. Another thing I’ve realized having been doing flight test for the last few years is that manned airplanes would crash a lot more often than they do without a crew to do in-air maintenance or problem mitigation. There are a lot of problems that can be fixed by a resourceful crew that would down an unmanned airplane. Crews are not real good at vigilance, but with today’s aircraft the computer watches the gauges and alerts the crew to what’s wrong. The crew uses the innate creativity of their human minds to fix what ails the plane. It’s a good system when it’s designed correctly. There’s nothing wrong with UAVs, but the military needs to be aware of their limitations. I pitched an idea for a cargo airplane we were developing a while back. The idea was that the airplane would have a single place cockpit with the mission specialist (generally a loadmaster) station in tandem with the pilot’s. The novel aspect of this was that the copilot was to be on the ground in a UAV operator station. Further, the person in the UAV station would be responsible to back up several piloted aircraft. This way the guy on the ground could spell the pilot if he needed a break or if he just needed a hand. This would also mean that the airplane could be solely piloted as a UAV from the ground. This was an idea I originally had for commercial aircraft. My concept there was that if the airplane were hijacked the pilot would be able to hit a button and control would be irreversibly transferred to the ground. It didn’t gain much traction when I proposed it back in ‘97 for the High Speed Civil Transport program, but it got a better reception for this program because of the popularity of UAVs. The only thing is, even though it was my suggestion, I’m still not real hot on the idea of a huge cargo airplane being remotely piloted. They can leave one hell of a large crater if they go out of control.

Dfens:

Now for something completely different: An Engineer’s Guide to Cats

Dfens:

Speaking of manned and unmanned vehicles, here’s another cross over being proposed: The U.S. Air Force is considering fielding a variant of its next-generation bomber that could collect intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) undetected behind enemy lines. Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne says the service is on ‘a quest to have long-range reconnaissance.’ He says that an unmanned version of the bomber, which is expected to be fielded in 2018, would be a strong candidate for this mission. Penetrating ISR has been lacking since the retirement of the SR-71 Blackbird in the 1990s. The high flying U-2 and Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle can collect a variety of intelligence, but their vulnerability to detection forces them to operate at standoff ranges. The U-2 carries more sophisticated sensors but is limited to about 12 hours of flight time due to the limitations of an onboard pilot. The Global Hawk, which has flown missions lasting longer than a day, has not yet proven its ability to collect signals intelligence. The bomber platform is expected to be subsonic, highly stealthy and carry between 28,000-40,000 pounds of payload. An ISR version could operate undetected in airspace defended by the most advanced double-digit surface-to-air-missile systems. Service officials still expect to keep a pilot in the bomber cockpit for those variants certified to deliver nuclear weapons. – AvWk Hopefully it’s not a subscription only article. Anyway, I think this further supports my position that this bomber should be capable of Mach 3 speeds.

Dfens:

More of what outsourcing is doing for you:

DOBBS: The CEO of Baxter today told Congress that doses of heparin imported from communist China may have been contaminated intentionally. Eighty-one people died in this country after taking doses of the tainted blood thinner. Members of Congress today blasted the FDA and Baxter for failing to protect American consumers. Louise Schiavone has our report. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SCHIAVONE (voice-over): The makers of the blood thinner heparin now have an explanation, someone, somewhere contaminated their product. ROBERT PARKINSON, JR., CEO, BAXTER INTERNATIONAL: We’re alarmed that one of our products was used in what appears to have been a deliberate scheme to adulterate a life saving medication. SCHIAVONE: Who, they don’t know except it wasn’t them. This from Scientific Protein Laboratories, which built the Changzhou China plant that makes heparin’s active ingredient. DAVID STRUNCE, SCIENTIFIC PROTEIN LABORATORIES: The recent worldwide contamination appears to be the result of a deliberate act upstream in the supply change. The contamination was not SPL or Changzhou SPL specific. SCHIAVONE: But there’s been no ruling on whether the contamination was deliberate or accidental. And the Food and Drug Administration inspector who visited the Chinese factory could not understand how parent company Scientific Protein Laboratories could have inspected the plant and its processing tanks and given the all clear. REGINA BROWN, FDA FIELD INVESTIGATOR: I scratched stuff off the inside of the tank and this was a tank that was marked clean. A second tank I turned over and liquid fell out of the handle. SCHIAVONE: But the FDA was on the hot seat too with lawmakers incredulous at the agency’s overall approach to Chinese imports. REP. JAY INSLEE (D), WASHINGTON: Can you imagine what we would do if al Qaeda had put some foreign substance in heparin? Can you imagine what the threat level would go to? SCHIAVONE: Meanwhile, the real life consequences of the bureaucracy’s breakdown were heartbreakingly apparent. LEROY HUBLEY, LOST WIFE AND SON: My wife Bonnie died in December from receiving heparin that was later recalled by Baxter. My son Randy died a month later under the same circumstances. COLLEEN HUBLEY, LOST HUSBAND: As a nurse, I thought that I would be there to save my husband from any errors. But I guess I was naive. I never thought the life saving medication we were relying on might be contaminated. SCHIAVONE: Committee Chairman John Dingle declared it was impossible for citizens to trust their food, drugs or medical devices. (END VIDEOTAPE) SCHIAVONE: There’s an import alert out now for all heparin products from the Changzhou plant. But the FDA concedes that at the nation’s 321 ports, inspectors are posted at only 90 — Lou. DOBBS: Unbelievable. It seems like a clear case of in this case of an absolute failure on the part of this president and this administration to manage this government. What in the world is Congress saying about the administration of both the Food and Drug Administration and the responsibility of this White House? SCHIAVONE: Well, basically the FDA seems to be asleep at the switch. They told Congress they need more than a quarter of a billion dollars to do the kind of inspections they need to do both domestically and abroad and you know what the administration asked for an additional nine million for the 2009 budget. So a huge disparity in what’s needed and what they’re asking for. DOBBS: It’s incredible this administration’s irresponsibility in protecting American consumers on a host of fronts. It’s just unthinkable, it’s unconscionable. – Lou Dobbs, CNN

Dfens:

Let’s try that link again: The Chronicle of Higher Education.