As any RC pilot will tell you, it’s painful to lose a machine. Little Bird has completely vanished on several different occasions under circumstances in which I had no reasonable expectation of ever seeing it again. It has only been through the most wildly improbable series of coincidences, or perhaps the kindly intervention of St. Anthony, that I can still count it among my worldly possessions.
So, my heart goes out to the good folks at DARPA, who earlier today lost contact with the unmanned Falcon Hypersonic Test Vehicle 2 somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. Since it was traveling at Mach 20 over the largest body of water on Earth, I’m guessing that finding it will take more than tramping through the underbrush listening for the LiPo buzzer. Godspeed, Falcon!
Finally, I can’t help but think there is a lesson here for the rest of us. If this can happen to DARPA, who invented the Internet (with a little help from Al Gore), then the rest of us probably shouldn’t feel too bad when we crack up. Semper cadentes!
- Lucidity
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