There it was, 7,000 feet up in the sky, snapping photographs of the Iraqi landscape when it looked like it should have been slaking the illicit thirst of underage soldiers. But now the Army reports that the program that gave us a drone known as the ‘Flying Beer Keg’ is all tapped out. No need to cry though as the Miami-Dade police department has purchased a T-Hawk drone from the military contractor, Honeywell, and is now awaiting FAA approval to operate it in domestic airspaces. The police department plans to use the drone with their SWAT teams and search and rescue missions. The gasoline engine powered RQ-16 is reported to weigh 20 pounds, have an endurance of around 40 minutes, 10,500-foot (3,200 m) ceiling and an operating radius of about 6 nautical miles. Forward speeds up to 70 knots (130 km/h) have been achieved, but the G-MAV is operationally restricted to 50 knots (93 km/h) by software. VTOL operation is subject to a maximum wind speed of 15 knots (28 km/h). Sensors include one forward and one downward looking daylight or IR cameras. The military states that the G- MAV is ‘backpack deployable’, meaning it can be launched pretty much anywhere with a minimum of people to operate it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell_RQ-16_T-Hawk
Dig