[url]http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/weather-drones-that-fly-directly-into-storms-becoming-reality-1.1307104#ixzz2V0xGCSbM[/url]
[quote=CTV]At the time it premiered, the film "Twister" put forth a fantastical science fiction idea: Release probes into a storm in order to figure out which tornadoes could develop into killers.
It's no longer fiction. Oklahoma State University researchers are designing and building sleek, Kevlar-reinforced unmanned aircraft -- or drones -- to fly directly into the worst storms and send back real-time data to first responders and forecasters.
"We have all the elements in place that make this the right place for this study to occur," said Stephen McKeever, Oklahoma's secretary of science and technology. "We have the world's best natural laboratory."[/quote]
wait until the military outfits them to launch missiles at terrorists...
...in Kansas.
That's really neat, name them Todos instead of Drones.
Cool, if they name them they should name one after Matt Hughes, he was on the Discovery Channel's Storm Chasers show and died in 2011 by hanging suicide :(
[i][b]Will[/b][/i], more like
I am excited for emerging ideas and all of the potential applications of drones. Drones are definitely on the way to becoming commonplace in many aspects of society.
This is great for science, public safety and all but it really takes all the action and adventure out of storm chasing.
[QUOTE]The drones could be operating in roughly five years, designers estimate.
[/QUOTE]
Soon
It might start with tornadoes, but how long before drones start following any cold front or low pressure system suspected of being dangerous weather?
[QUOTE=joes33431;40871108]wait until the military outfits them to launch missiles at terrorists...
...in Kansas.[/QUOTE]
What the tornadoes?
On paper and in recent years the idea behind Dorothy actually makes sense to operate. In the past 15 years microcontrollers, dataloggers and short range radio transmitters got really cheap. Make several hundred small sensors to log information on the fly and use a web network topography (xbee?) to transmit the data back to the main logging unit which would also operate as the storage container.
What would that look like?
[img]http://i469.photobucket.com/albums/rr51/MagicNumberSix/Vaca2012/zIMG_1128DorothyII.jpg[/img]
Yep. Our good old single use Dorothy.
Mind you, the key word is "single use". Researchers will have to understand that in order to get the best data they're going to have to invest in something that they will not be able to use twice.
The idea behind drones seems a bit absurd. When you aren't fighting the wind you're fighting just about anything that the twister didn't pick up.
[QUOTE=markg06;40873490]What the tornadoes?[/QUOTE]
We use the Obama weather-machine to shoot tornadoes at the terrorists, and these drones shoot missiles at them.
It's brilliant!
Romney 2016.
Doesn't the NOAA already do this with hurricanes/cyclones?
[QUOTE=Bradyns;40879183]Doesn't the NOAA already do this with hurricanes/cyclones?[/QUOTE]
Remotely controlled drones =/= airplanes controlled on the spot
