F-16 Launches Drone From Flare Dispenser

Its either my glasses or are the black discs not totally black?

a reply to: Sammamishman

For me between the Ohio and the F22 it looks like a type 45

.

I've heard the talk about the "Third Ofset Strategy", could it be a pointer that as well as developing US specific strategies and capabilities there's a lot more work about getting distributed lethality working with allies. There was a lot of talk about the Type 45 being able to working with the US Navy on cooperative targeting and missile launches but it was removed on cost grounds.

a reply to: sideysid

The pieces from left to right are: binary code, a submarine, a surface ship, an F-22 and an unknown UCAV concept.

What is most interesting to me is they chose to use a Chinese (or Japanese depending) game. A message to the Chinese "we are surrounding you with our strategic assets" message?

a reply to: Sammamishman

there are four black chips that are together on the board, four chips that protect each other, four chips that stand against the Anglo American domain of the world...the Axis of Evil..

China, Rusia, Iran, N. Korea / Syria?

a reply to: drwire

Or, Spratly Islands, South China Sea, Taiwan, Sea of Japan.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I'm more surprised to see SCO revealed in this much detail honestly.

Perhaps the information was on Hillaries email server?

a reply to: Zaphod58

you know more than me ...

a reply to: drwire

I don't know for certain, but being that it's a Go board, and surrounding pieces, it fits as much as Russia, China, NK, and Iran or Syria.

I've never played GO. So the thing that came to mind for me for the 4 black buttons was giant Deer scat.

I need to get out of the house more often...

-dex

The Perdix drones are 3D-printed out of Kevlar and carbon-fiber. Powered by lithium-ion batteries — the same kind you’d find in a cell phone — the Perdixes launch from a standard flare dispenser, like on the F-16, F/A-18 and other warplanes.

Toughness was a key design requirement. A Perdix must survive forceful ejection from a high-speed launcher and right itself in turbulent winds.

The drones were originally developed by students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2011. The students tested the Perdixes from balloons and envisioned the small unmanned aerial vehicles supporting environmental monitoring.

But it was the military that was most interested in the tiny machines. The Virginia-based Strategic Capabilities Office — a 26-person team led by William Roper, a physicist who previously worked for the military on missile defense — began experimenting with Perdix in 2014.

now we know what they were using. Maybe.

warisboring.com...

a reply to: anzha

The drone in the article link looks like it was 3D printed.. The resulting honeycomb internal structure would produce a lighter article and would be more easily replaced in the battlefield..

If I had a F-15E with LANTIRN, I'd probably want extra dispensables because of the way it sits... If only there were a pod or something for dispensables...

a reply to: RadioRobert

Personally I'd want one with IRST, a 5th-4th datalink, and room for more.

a reply to: Zaphod58

If only...

Wonder why they didn,t go for a more sycamore seed platform for more agility.

a reply to: anzha

Go isn't just about surrounding the enemy, it's about turning the enemy's assets into your assets.

This will get interesting, for sure...

Surprised the tiny chute survived deployment at 430mph, let alone the flimsey looking toy aircraft.

These would be great in the SEAD role. Think about it. A long duration re-positionable radar jamming screen.

a reply to: Zaphod58

steering back on topic.

Can the flare dispenser be carried by the Reaper?

a reply to: anzha

I'd be more interested if they could be carried by something like the JSOW. Under the right conditions a swarm of these drones could configure themselves to give the radar signature of almost any type of aircraft.