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Ehhh.... Reminds me of the story about when the Soviets were cloning the B-29 to make the Tu-4. Supposedly Stalin ordered an exact copy of the American bomber, and so the copies were made exact down to the bullet holes.
What was Stalin's reaction?
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Running steel cable or nets, instead of monofilament wire, is pretty much SOP for denying an area from rotorcraft. There's a pretty cool article on Wikipedia about prison escapes by helicopter [1] that explains how this is often implemented in high-security correctional facilities. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_helicopter_prison_esca...
I like it how there are green or red helicopter icons in the table to indicate success or failure.
I recall that in the beginnings of World War I, planes were primarily used as surveillance tools. So the germans and french would send their planes above a battlefield, and the pilots would see each other, sometimes even wave at each as they passed by. A little bit later someone brought a shotgun on one of the planes and the rest is literal history.
I'm very curious as to what the reaction was of the first pilot that was shot at. My guess is he was probably be thinking more "Wow, what an asshole," than he would be thinking that the aggressor's action makes sense in the context of war.
I recall that in the beginnings of World War I, planes were primarily used as surveillance tools. So the germans and french would send their planes above a battlefield, and the pilots would see each other, sometimes even wave at each as they passed by. A little bit later someone brought a shotgun on one of the planes and the rest is literal history.
Just before WWI, Caproni designed an airplane with a machine gun mounted above the propeller [0], but the military wasn't that interested in it. It wasn't until the invention of the interrupter gear (credited in part to Roland Garros and part to Anthony Fokker) that air-to-air combat got to be really deadly, on account of pilots being able to fire accurately at other aircraft.
Something like this seems like it would be more efficient: http://www.cadincadout.com/dronedefender-radio-gun-waves-dow...
I recall that in the beginnings of World War I, planes were primarily used as surveillance tools. So the germans and french would send their planes above a battlefield, and the pilots would see each other, sometimes even wave at each as they passed by. A little bit later someone brought a shotgun on one of the planes and the rest is literal history.
The version of this I heard is that the first air-to-air shots were fired during the Border War (US / Mexico) in around 1911 or 1912. Somebody unloaded his six-shooter and didn't hit a darn thing. Just before WWI, Caproni designed an airplane with a machine gun mounted above the propeller [0], but the military wasn't that interested in it. It wasn't until the invention of the interrupter gear (credited in part to Rol…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm very curious as to what the reaction was of the first pilot that was shot at. My guess is he was probably be thinking more "Wow, what an asshole," than he would be thinking that the aggressor's action makes sense in the context of war.
> "Wow, what an asshole," Which has a long history between the Germans and French...
People will probably start building bigger drones with bigger nets to catch the police drones. It's just a matter of time.