Who knew our side has drones?

The Eco-drone Project

Alexander Knight at Poor Man's Media in Toronto builds and operates drones on his own dime to film and monitor pipeline spills.

This baby is operational but for a few extra components. He's looking for public donations to complete it and this is where you come in.

Go!

Besides, wouldn't you like to see Canadian Cynic back online again?


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These aren't the drones you're looking for

The RCAF has determined it doesn't require permission from civilian authorities to fly its drones through domestic airspace, according to a 2011 briefing note obtained by David Pugliese. The US, Europe, and Israel require civilian oversight but Canada does not.  

Having leased some Heron drones for use in Afghanistan from Israel, the world's largest drone manufacturer, the Cons want to purchase 18 UAVs for $1.5-billion plus.

Here's a short vid inside the Heron plant in Israel from two weeks ago .

  

So we already have the tech to build Skynet, we just haven't told it not to bother us with details yet.

An Israeli drone rep in the vid predicts that by the year 2035, drones will comprise 95% of the airborne fighting force, although the narrator explains :

"For all the claims of precision supporters of the use of drones make, a recent study found that strikes carried out by drones are 10 times more deadly to civilians than strikes by manned aircraft."

Well, what's a little collateral damage between military client states, eh?

And what about safety issues when you aren't trying to target anyone? Or as the US Congressional Research Bureau put it in 2010: "UAV accidents are “multiple times higher” than their piloted counterparts." 

The RCAF docs from 2011 do outline a concern with developing the tech not to bash unmanned into civilian things by accident :

"An autonomous ‘sense and avoid’ capability will be pursued to permit ever increasing access to Canadian Airspace"

but an RCAF spokesy advised Pugliese two days ago that :

while aerospace firms are working on a sense and avoid system for UAVs, that is not considered an essential requirement for the Canadian military’s planned purchase of such aircraft.

Three months ago, Israel ditched one of its Heron drones into the Mediterranian due to an engine problem and grounded all the rest pending investigation.

Notable that we don't have enough money to keep the Kitsilano marine rescue station open or fund the ELA or build a school in Attawapiskat or look into missing aboriginal women or house the homeless or make foreign aid independent of corporate interests or begin shifting our petrostate economy into something that permits the continuation of life on earth, but somehow there's always $1.5 billion lying around for the military to buy stuff like unmanned surveillance with the option to make things go boom.

Or, as I like to consider sometimes, if we were starting our society over from scratch, is this how we'd choose to organize it?

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