Aerial devices have, in the past, been constrained by the requirement to have a pilot. This mandated a minimum size and placed constraints on the application of airbourne technology. The advent of increasingly sophisticated Unmanned Aerial Vehicle technology is removing these constraints. Take a look at an example of your pilot of the future.

At 28 grams and measuring 4cm x 10cm this autopilot is capable of navigating a plane from take off to landing. This capacity means that planes can be developed for applications that were previously impractical.

Take, for instance, intracity courier activities. The Inventus, pictured below has a payload capacity of 2.7 kg and a range of 145kms it is capable of delivering papers and small packages rapidly across town. It has a wingspan of 1.8m (6 feet) and can take off and land on a building roof. It can also be used for such arial surveillance activities as inspecting railway track, traffic congestion, pipelines, search and rescue support, firefighting etc.

And if you think that is cool have a look at this little baby. The Black Widow is the size of your palm and is so small it is undetectable by most radar. It is believed to be currently in use American intelligence agencies for collecting of intelligence on troop movements and enemy installations in theatres of war and in detection of drug smuggling activities. It can fly for 30 minutes and delivers streaming colour video to a monitor located on the ground. I am thinking the ones the army uses aren't painted yellow.

To read more about your future pilot click here.
To read more on Inventus click here.
Read more about Black Widow and other cool UAVs from Aerovironment click here.

or better still, if they have an advert at the top of the page, click on it, that way I get paid for this, otherwise free, plug. Go on. It is not that much of an effort to scroll back to the top of the page.