bsteckler

Maiden was postponed for a very out of the norm reason. We fly at an old abandoned WWII way station that was used by the WAC's as a refuleing and refreshment stop while ferrying warplanes from the factories to the coast for shipment to Europe. Just an old 3/4 mile square slab of weedy concrete surrounded by corn and bean fields that has been abandoned save for us and a few ultralight jockeys. Perfect for us. Anyway, I pulled into the parking area and noticed a number of unfamiliar cars and trucks. Thought that I'd missed news about a fly-in or something. However, out on the pad was an SUV, and under our shelter sat some guys with more computer equipment than Microsoft. I asked one of the guys what was going on and he points to the SUV and tells me that it is an autonomous robitically controlled vehicle that was going through its final shakedown prior to a contigency arriving this Thursday from DARPA, the Department of Denfense's R&D arm. DARPA will be there in a couple of days to look at millitary applications for this technology. I decided that it would probably not be too wise to risk their gazillion dollar driverless SUV by flying my $150.00 bundle of balsa...thought that it would not be too welcomed.

Although none of these guys said it, it was pretty cool to witness a technology that couuld conceivably be used sacrificially to save our troops from those IED's and other threats. More than happy to give up a day of flying.