Drone Hacked over Austin

Originally posted by DocHolidaze
reply to post by Laxpla

 

Because they jammed the signal 5 feet away does not constitute it being hacked.

if u can jam from 5 feet away with enough power u can jam from further away. so no not hacked, but it can be renderd useless.

[southern accent] Well count that as a victory for freedom 'Murcia [/southern accent]
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reply to post by Zaphod58

Well, I trust your background and what you've said about it vs, your posting and facts you cite so I am curious about something and you sound like as good a person to ask to get a straight answer outside of those actually working in these programs as any.

First, I want to note that again the details don't encourage me. Military standards and specs, however sloppy it may get at times by the guys actually doing the checklists every day for the 100th time ...still run on standards and specs. I mean that's the whole point. it's idiot proof to be at a basic level. I question how many other safeties were in place or not in place on that thing for that flight. It's a question impossible for us to answer except to again note, that intact aircraft shouldn't have been all nice and pretty for Iran to be showing the world Press Corp.

^^ Which leads to the question... Assuming for a moment that it's a crap shoot for what security was and was not functional in the software they captured along with the air frame itself....how much damage could it really have done??

I mean, as I have heard on more than one show about the 'Flyng Wing' design, it's a design that shouldn't be able to fly at all. It's only by the very high speed control of computers that the actual design can remain stable enough to be viable, correct? So even that "basic" level of flight control on that drone, in how we think of it, is probably pretty advanced for them to get like a Christmas gift from on-high. Errr... I think how drones are being used needs reconsidered all the way around. It's getting downright slapstick for the errors at times and it's not real funny for outcomes, I'm thinking.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


A flying wing design can be made to be quite stable. The instability problem isn't quite as bad as it's made out to be. Jack Nothrop flew his N-1M constantly, and it was apparently a dream to fly. It was quite stable. The stability problem came with the YB-49 on bomb runs. The early aircraft needed to have vertical control surfaces, where the newer ones have computers to enhance the stability.

I think a lot of the problem comes from the fact that designs are made inherently unstable for various reasons. In a fighter if you make it unstable, you get a more maneuverable aircraft. The F-16 is still able to hold its own, against aircraft like the Typhoon, but if it lost the control computers it would fall out of the sky faster than that lead brick with a rocket engine pushing it down.

As for them decoding it, there's not really a lot that could be gotten from what I understand. There is an auto erase feature that should have erased most if not all of the data on board, and the flight control system is pretty standard for just about any aircraft.