US Air Force drone crashes

[Judi Lynn]

Source: DNA India

US Air Force drone crashes
Saturday, February 8, 2014 - 10:51 IST | Agency: IANS

US Air Force said a drone crashed Friday at a national park in New Mexico during a training mission.

The unmanned QF-4 Drone crashed at White Sands National Monument near Holloman Air Force Base in west New Mexico, Xinhua quoted officials as saying. The monument had been closed in advance to the test mission and would remain closed until further notice, according to the report..

The cause of the crash was not immediately known, and base officials were investigating. The base, home of the 49th Wing of the US Air Combat Command, provides combat-ready airmen, F-22 Raptors, and trains MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper pilots and sensor operators.

It is also home to the world's longest, at 50,188 feet, and fastest, approaching 10,000 feet per second (3,050 m/s, Mach 9), test track.


Read more: http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report-us-air-force-drone-crashes-1960169

[cvoogt]

1. give it a purple heart

or a tomb of the unknown drone. we hardly knew ye.

[clymestraB]

2. crash

Too bad to hear that. It only shows that the air force is getting weak.

[caraher]

3. Planes crash, and this is an old one

A QF-4 is basically a '50s-designed, Vietnam-era fighter converted for training (regularly expended as targets for missile firing practice). Losing this one to an unknown cause doesn't say much about the state of today's Air Force.

[MADem]

4. Crashed before someone could shoot it down....? Oh, well! nt

[neverforget]

7. ok, whatever you say.

[bobthedrummer]

5. White Sands, New Mexico at one time was home to some PAPERCLIP Germans.

That said, we all need to laugh once in a while during these polar vortex days. I saw the thread title and remembered a movie I enjoyed as a child.
Earth vs. The Flying Saucers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_vs._the_Flying_Saucers
Kick

[bobthedrummer]

9. The German connections there persisted "New Mexico Town Grapples With Friendly German Invasion"

(by Barry Shlachter 9-3-97 Seattle Times article)
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19970903&slug=2558198

[blkmusclmachine]

6. Meh, what's a couple million dollars of taxpayers' money up in smoke? They can just "take" it out

of retirees' Social Security!

[JusticeForAll]

8. Thank you for this article

Interesting that we have to learn about this from an India-based news source!

I had no idea how common drone crashes were....I did a Google search and tons of results came up....including this one:

http://dronewars.net/drone-crash-database/