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It always strikes me how some would-be professional journalists can come up with the most inept information...
Today I feel like I've reached a new level of online idiocy as I browsed in disbelief the Foreign Policy website.
On this site, which is supposed to emanate from a respected "award-winning" team of experts, we learn for instance that "the first Firebee prototype, the XQ-2, was created in 1951 and first took flight four years later." Four years between "creation" (whatever that means for an aircraft) and the first flight?? Guys, this was not a 21st century stealth fighter, it was a post war drone! The XQ-2 was created in AND flew in 1950!
We also read that"The M-21 and D-21 were created as part of a project in operation from 1963 until 1968 and kept secret for more than 40 years." Never mind that the mother ship was actually designated the M-12... that's a frequent mistake done by even authoritative sources in the past. But more than 40 years?? With that time frame, the M-12/D-21 combo would have been made public circa 2003-2008... when in fact the project was already largely known during the 1980s!
Better still, "The Fire Scout, an unmanned helicopter (...) was created by the U.S. military in the early 2000s." A lot of "creation" going on in this article... But the U.S. military simply DOESN'T "create" aircraft. They order, evaluate, procure, deploy, strike off aircraft... they just don't CREATE them!!! The Fire Scout VTUAV was the Schweizer SHU-40B design, which was then purchased by Northrop Grumman and became their Model 379.
There is probably more stupid data there that has escaped me... But anyway, now on to this most epic piece of research crap:
"Adolf Hitler wanted a flying bomb to use against nonmilitary targets, so in 1944 a German engineer, Fieseler Flugzeuhau, designed this 470 mph flying drone. A predecessor to today's cruise missiles, the V-1, which became known as the Vergeltungswaffe, or Revenge Weapon-1, was intended to be used to bomb the British Isles."
If you've never heard of Mr. "Flugzeuhau", have no fear, he just never existed. The V-1 was built by the Fieseler Flugzeugbau, or "aircraft manufacturing company"...
But now look at the photograph they've picked to illustrate that most lethal of German weapons... That's right! The V-1! Poor Gerald Vultee (Gehrard Wahlti ??) would be horrified to hear that his beautiful advanced airliner design of the early 1930s was turned into a missile ordered by Hitler himself!!!
The source page: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/27/The_Evolution_of_Drone_Warfare?page=0,4#3
Today I feel like I've reached a new level of online idiocy as I browsed in disbelief the Foreign Policy website.
On this site, which is supposed to emanate from a respected "award-winning" team of experts, we learn for instance that "the first Firebee prototype, the XQ-2, was created in 1951 and first took flight four years later." Four years between "creation" (whatever that means for an aircraft) and the first flight?? Guys, this was not a 21st century stealth fighter, it was a post war drone! The XQ-2 was created in AND flew in 1950!
We also read that"The M-21 and D-21 were created as part of a project in operation from 1963 until 1968 and kept secret for more than 40 years." Never mind that the mother ship was actually designated the M-12... that's a frequent mistake done by even authoritative sources in the past. But more than 40 years?? With that time frame, the M-12/D-21 combo would have been made public circa 2003-2008... when in fact the project was already largely known during the 1980s!
Better still, "The Fire Scout, an unmanned helicopter (...) was created by the U.S. military in the early 2000s." A lot of "creation" going on in this article... But the U.S. military simply DOESN'T "create" aircraft. They order, evaluate, procure, deploy, strike off aircraft... they just don't CREATE them!!! The Fire Scout VTUAV was the Schweizer SHU-40B design, which was then purchased by Northrop Grumman and became their Model 379.
There is probably more stupid data there that has escaped me... But anyway, now on to this most epic piece of research crap:
"Adolf Hitler wanted a flying bomb to use against nonmilitary targets, so in 1944 a German engineer, Fieseler Flugzeuhau, designed this 470 mph flying drone. A predecessor to today's cruise missiles, the V-1, which became known as the Vergeltungswaffe, or Revenge Weapon-1, was intended to be used to bomb the British Isles."
If you've never heard of Mr. "Flugzeuhau", have no fear, he just never existed. The V-1 was built by the Fieseler Flugzeugbau, or "aircraft manufacturing company"...
But now look at the photograph they've picked to illustrate that most lethal of German weapons... That's right! The V-1! Poor Gerald Vultee (Gehrard Wahlti ??) would be horrified to hear that his beautiful advanced airliner design of the early 1930s was turned into a missile ordered by Hitler himself!!!
The source page: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/27/The_Evolution_of_Drone_Warfare?page=0,4#3
