Chapter 9
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Development Center, Nevada
June 6, 2005, 1600 Pacific Standard Time
The team assembled outside the building entrance enjoying the late afternoon desert sunshine. Alan exited the building, and spoke to the group.
“If you walk this way, we can commence the demonstration.”
The team followed Alan to an open grassy area with a couple of picnic tables.
“I want you to look up there.”
He pointed into the sky at a group of buzzards circling high in the air, riding a desert thermal some distance away. All eyes looked skyward, only to turn back to Alan when he whistled loudly through his fingers, and waved his right arm in an exaggerated beckoning motion.
Charles knew what was coming, and smiled at the Englishman’s eccentric sense of humor. Fiona looked more than a little embarrassed. The Americans looked bemused.
Alan again pointed skyward, and said, “Now watch this.”
One of the buzzards detached itself from the group of birds, and commenced a lazy glide in their direction. When it was overhead, it began to circle downwards clearly intending to land near them.
The Special Forces soldier said loudly enough for the others to hear, “Sheeet! The Brits have a trained buzzard. Man, now I have seen everything.”
The bird glided downwards in decreasing circles. When it was a little more than twenty meters away and five meters above the ground, someone exclaimed, “It's a machine.”
The mechanical bird flew directly in front of Alan. It arrested its forward flight in a surprisingly realistic way, by flaring its wings, and hit the ground with a just audible thud. Its wingspan was less than two meters, and its body about two-thirds of a meter long.
The group crowded around the aerial vehicle, and up close, it didn't look especially birdlike. It had skids instead of legs and a pair of lenses protruded from its belly. Its least birdlike characteristic were the two fans on each side of its body.
Alan said, “Ladies and gentlemen, the purpose of this demonstration was to prove to you, when we see something that acts and flies like a bird we mentally process it as a bird. It has to get very close before that perception is overturned, and we see it for what it is, a mechanical device. Now you know it's a mechanical device, you will see it as such, but I have just demonstrated that cognition drives perception.”
Alan stepped forward, picked up the aerial vehicle and said, “Let’s go inside and continue the meeting.”
The group reassembled in the same conference room as the morning. Alan carried the aerial vehicle into the room, and placed it in the center of the table. People inspected it, and several felt its wings and experimentally flexed them. Up close, it resembled a bat more than a bird. Albeit, a bat with dark brown feathers painted on its wings and four horizontal fans, two on each side of its body.
Alan stood at the front of the room, and started the meeting. “How these vehicles fly is not my area. My colleague, Dr. Fiona Lachlan, can tell you all about, what she affectionately calls, her birds. But let me give you the history of these devices.
“About a year ago, a paper published by Fiona came to the British Ministry of Defense’s attention. The paper was on the viability of an aerial vehicle that combined the flight characteristics of birds with vertical or short takeoff and landing using directed thrust. The paper would have been merely interesting, except she claimed to have built one.
“We contacted her, and she agreed to a demonstration. When we arrived for the demonstration, a man in his sixties was there. Fiona introduced him as Donald Lachlan, her father. You wouldn’t recognize the name, but Donald is well known in the UK defense industry as one of the engineers behind the Harrier Jump Jet. He's retired now, but he had a reputation as a maverick, criticizing the shortsightedness of our aerospace industry.
“Fiona and her father had been working for several years on aerial vehicles that combined the flight characteristics of birds with the vertical takeoff and landing properties of VTOL planes, and had built a number of working prototypes.
“Some background is appropriate at this point. Fiona can explain it in far more detail than I can, but my layman’s explanation is probably a useful introduction.
“I am sure some of you, like me, have read that according to the laws of physics, a bumblebee can’t fly. Now a bumblebee manifestly can fly, but it flies in a completely different way to the planes we are used to designing and building.
“Birds fly in a similar manner to the planes we build, but when we produce aerial vehicles of the size of a medium-sized bird, they are too unstable to be useful. Therefore, according to what we know of aerodynamics, birds should be too unstable to fly. Now birds in flight are manifestly very stable, and the reason is their flight surfaces are adaptive unlike the rigid flight surfaces of airplanes.”
Charles asked, “Why are small aerial vehicles unstable?”
Alan said, “Fiona, perhaps you would like to answer that question.”
The tall woman started speaking hesitantly, but quickly gained confidence. “As you reduce the size of conventional aerial vehicles, you start to run into fundamental problems caused by the laws of physics. The smaller the thing that flies, the more dense air becomes, relative to the mass of what is flying. For an insect, air is like water is to us, heavy with a lot of resistance they can push against. However, air is not like water in a swimming pool. It is more like water in a fast flowing mountain river, with many chaotic currents they must constantly react to. A bird with a wingspan less than two meters is getting down to the size where these effects cause stability problems.”
“Interesting! Thanks, Fiona.”
Alan continued with his prepared presentation. “The reason conventional aircraft with a wingspan of less than two meters are unstable in even moderately turbulent air is because they are made from rigid materials, whereas birds are made from flexible materials that deform and react to air turbulence.
“One solution to the problem of small stable aerial vehicles, and a lot of people are working on this approach, is to develop vehicles that fly like a bird or an insect by flapping their wings. These kinds of vehicles are called ornithopters, and people have built them and they do fly. Unfortunately, wing flapping, as a means of propulsion, is not very efficient in birds, and is even less efficient in man-made aerial vehicles of any useful size.
“Most people agree ornithopters are the answer to micro-UAVs the size of large insects. One day, we will have cameras, computers and electronics weighing a few grams and the power sources to drive them, but that day is still several years away. Electronics are getting smaller all the time, but currently, a useful package of cameras, electronics, and power source weighs at least a kilo.
“In summary, the problem we face today is getting an aerial vehicle that is small, stable, energy efficient, and capable of carrying a useful payload.
“The solution the Lachlans came up with, and perhaps the only solution, is an aerial vehicle that combines the efficiency of thrust-based propulsion combined with the stability that results from the flight characteristics of gliding birds.
“As Fiona explained to us, while wing flapping is a not very efficient means of getting into the air, once large gliding birds are in the air, they are most efficient flying devices ever created. The problem in building birdlike aerial vehicles is how to get them into the air in the first place.
“The way I describe the problem, the solution sounds obvious, but I assure you, it wasn’t obvious before Fiona and her father came along.
“After the demonstration, we took their aerial vehicle to a wind tunnel to see if it was as stable in turbulent air as they claimed. It performed better than we had hoped, and at that point, we realized we were onto something significant.
“I don't want to give you the impression what the Lachlans had built was a complete solution because it wasn't. A lot of R&D work was needed, but it did offer a way of solving the problem of an aerodynamically stable vehicle, with a wingspan of less than two meters, capable of carrying a useful payload.
“Donald Lachlan also claimed vertical landing and takeoff were achievable. Now this was from an engineer who helped design the world's first manned VTOL aircraft, so we took the claim seriously.
“We asked Fiona and her father to design a new version of their aerial vehicle with the characteristics we wanted. The main design issue we encountered was vertical takeoff requires substantially more power than vertical landing, and that meant more weight and less time in the air. Essentially, we had to choose between vertical takeoff and long duration flight.
“To cut a long story short, we chose long duration flight, and built a birdlike UAV capable of carrying a one to two kilo load and staying airborne for eight hours, but without vertical takeoff. At the time we were thinking of a conventional remote-operator controlled UAV, a remotely piloted vehicle as we call them in the UK, and not an autonomous vehicle.
“Several people pointed out the covert implications of aerial vehicles that look and fly like birds, and we decided that making them look birdlike was a specific design objective.”
Charles asked, “What is the significance of unaided vertical landing?”
“The alternatives to vertical landing are either a landing strip or some kind of arrestor mechanism. With aerial vehicles of this size, a landing strip must be a smooth surface. Even a very small pothole is going to cause problems.
“The commonest arrestor mechanisms are a net, or a parachute. Both tend to damage the vehicle, and if the vehicle misses the arrestor there is a good chance it will crash.
“Using a landing strip or an arrestor mechanism will obviously restrict the places where you can launch and subsequently recover the aerial vehicle. So, being able to land vertically under its own power is a valuable characteristic in an unmanned or autonomous aerial vehicle.
“To answer the 'unaided' part of the question. There are ways you can aid a vehicle to produce vertical takeoff, but vertical landing must be an unaided characteristic of the vehicle itself. Does that answer your question Charles?”
“Yes it does. Thanks.”
Alan continued, “We used four small, energy-efficient, ducted fans for lift and propulsion. Two of the fans are used exclusively for vertical lift. The other two rotate to provide both vertical lift and horizontal propulsion.
“I have a short promotional video on the aerial vehicle.”
Alan tapped some keys on his laptop, and an animated, stylized version of the aerial vehicle in front of them, flew across an image projected on the wall behind him. A British voice provided a commentary.
'The AVX is a breakthrough unmanned aerial vehicle, powered by four five-centimeter diameter, ducted-fans.'
The image zoomed-in to give a closeup overhead view of the aerial vehicle with the fans highlighted.
'The forward pair of fans is in a fixed horizontal position giving vertical lift for takeoff and landing. The rearward pair rotate from the vertical to the horizontal to give vertical thrust, horizontal thrust, or vectored thrust.'
The animation showed the aerial vehicle taking off and once airborne, the forward fans stopped spinning. The vehicle's rearward fans moved from an angle to the vertical and then back to an angle, as it accelerated after takeoff and then slowed.
'During takeoff the forward fans give lift and the rearward fans provide both lift and forward thrust. In level flight, the AVX turns off its forward fans, and rotates the rearward fans to the vertical, giving just forward thrust. The AVX then flies in a similar manner to a conventional aerial vehicle.'
The vehicle flew over a recognizably European, mixed urban and rural landscape.
'The AVX is uniquely able to land vertically. Its rearward fans first rotate past the horizontal to give sufficient rearwards thrust to slow the vehicle's forward momentum, and then to the horizontal to give vertical lift. At the same time, the forward pair of fans is turned on, and the vehicle lands vertically under its own power and control.'
The aerial vehicle on the screen slowed its forward flight, swooped down, and then landed gently on the ground.
'The AVX is capable of short takeoff using either a flat runway or a ski-jump ramp.'
The animated image showed the vehicle taking off from a short ramp that ended at a steep angle, and then rapidly gaining height.
'The AVX is capable of stable flight in unstable air, due to its unique flexible and adaptive aerodynamic surfaces.'
The animation showed the AVX alongside a similarly sized airplane and helicopter. A stylized gust of wind blew the airplane and helicopter out of the picture, but the AVX continued its level flight as its wings adjusted to the wind pressures.
'The AVX's electric engines are powered by DC produced by a petrol engine. It can achieve flight durations of six hours, carrying a 1.8 kilogram payload, at a maximum speed of thirty-five kilometers an hour.'
The AVX flew into the distance while music played and credits rolled.
Charles asked, “What does AVX stand for?”
“Nothing. We invented it for this promotional video. We wanted to call it SWAV, Supple-Winged Aerial Vehicle, but a lawyer told us we can't use an acronym as a marketing name because you can't trademark an acronym. So, you have to give it a name that sounds like it is an acronym, but in fact isn't. Aren't lawyers wonderful people?”
Charles had heard, you can't trademark an acronym, and made a mental note to talk to DARPA's lawyers about it.
“After a year of development and several prototypes, we had a vehicle very similar to the one you see in front of you, capable of carrying a two-kilo payload, and staying in the air for up to ten hours.
“We experimented with various power plants. Initially, we used a petrol engine to produce the electric power, but soon realized, so much was changing in the world of small power sources that the best solution was to make the power source pluggable. This would allow us to experiment with different power sources, like rechargeable batteries, a fuel cell, or even solar.”
“Why replace the petrol engine?”
Sergeant Jackson answered the question. “Soldiers and flammable liquids aren't a good combination.”
Charles noted the element of sarcasm in Jackson's response, and was about to try drawing him into a discussion when Alan continued.
“Yes, that’s true. The military will go to considerable lengths to avoid using petrol or other flammable materials in equipment used in combat situations, although, there were other considerations. Batteries are a more convenient and reliable power source for small devices. This is why rechargeable or replaceable batteries power your cell phone and laptop computer.
“We also realized, batteries that you plug in to recharge are a better option for unmanned refueling. Unfortunately, batteries don’t produce enough power, for their weight, to keep the vehicle flying for much more than an hour.”
Alan returned to his prepared presentation. “The US and UK governments exchange information on these kinds of military development projects, and The US decided our project, that incidentally we called Big Bird . . .”
The Americans laughed at the name.
Alan smiled, having got the reaction he expected. “. . . was a good fit into a refocused Porcupine project. As a result, the UK government sent us over here with plans and prototypes of both the petrol engine driven and battery-powered versions. I'd like you to save any technical questions for Fiona, who can answer them much more authoritatively than I can. I'll now hand you back to Charles who will brief you on the current requirements for MAADS.”
“Thanks, Alan.”
Chapter 10
June 6, 2005, 1600 Pacific Standard Time
The team assembled outside the building entrance enjoying the late afternoon desert sunshine. Alan exited the building, and spoke to the group.
“If you walk this way, we can commence the demonstration.”
The team followed Alan to an open grassy area with a couple of picnic tables.
“I want you to look up there.”
He pointed into the sky at a group of buzzards circling high in the air, riding a desert thermal some distance away. All eyes looked skyward, only to turn back to Alan when he whistled loudly through his fingers, and waved his right arm in an exaggerated beckoning motion.
Charles knew what was coming, and smiled at the Englishman’s eccentric sense of humor. Fiona looked more than a little embarrassed. The Americans looked bemused.
Alan again pointed skyward, and said, “Now watch this.”
One of the buzzards detached itself from the group of birds, and commenced a lazy glide in their direction. When it was overhead, it began to circle downwards clearly intending to land near them.
The Special Forces soldier said loudly enough for the others to hear, “Sheeet! The Brits have a trained buzzard. Man, now I have seen everything.”
The bird glided downwards in decreasing circles. When it was a little more than twenty meters away and five meters above the ground, someone exclaimed, “It's a machine.”
The mechanical bird flew directly in front of Alan. It arrested its forward flight in a surprisingly realistic way, by flaring its wings, and hit the ground with a just audible thud. Its wingspan was less than two meters, and its body about two-thirds of a meter long.
The group crowded around the aerial vehicle, and up close, it didn't look especially birdlike. It had skids instead of legs and a pair of lenses protruded from its belly. Its least birdlike characteristic were the two fans on each side of its body.
Alan said, “Ladies and gentlemen, the purpose of this demonstration was to prove to you, when we see something that acts and flies like a bird we mentally process it as a bird. It has to get very close before that perception is overturned, and we see it for what it is, a mechanical device. Now you know it's a mechanical device, you will see it as such, but I have just demonstrated that cognition drives perception.”
Alan stepped forward, picked up the aerial vehicle and said, “Let’s go inside and continue the meeting.”
The group reassembled in the same conference room as the morning. Alan carried the aerial vehicle into the room, and placed it in the center of the table. People inspected it, and several felt its wings and experimentally flexed them. Up close, it resembled a bat more than a bird. Albeit, a bat with dark brown feathers painted on its wings and four horizontal fans, two on each side of its body.
Alan stood at the front of the room, and started the meeting. “How these vehicles fly is not my area. My colleague, Dr. Fiona Lachlan, can tell you all about, what she affectionately calls, her birds. But let me give you the history of these devices.
“About a year ago, a paper published by Fiona came to the British Ministry of Defense’s attention. The paper was on the viability of an aerial vehicle that combined the flight characteristics of birds with vertical or short takeoff and landing using directed thrust. The paper would have been merely interesting, except she claimed to have built one.
“We contacted her, and she agreed to a demonstration. When we arrived for the demonstration, a man in his sixties was there. Fiona introduced him as Donald Lachlan, her father. You wouldn’t recognize the name, but Donald is well known in the UK defense industry as one of the engineers behind the Harrier Jump Jet. He's retired now, but he had a reputation as a maverick, criticizing the shortsightedness of our aerospace industry.
“Fiona and her father had been working for several years on aerial vehicles that combined the flight characteristics of birds with the vertical takeoff and landing properties of VTOL planes, and had built a number of working prototypes.
“Some background is appropriate at this point. Fiona can explain it in far more detail than I can, but my layman’s explanation is probably a useful introduction.
“I am sure some of you, like me, have read that according to the laws of physics, a bumblebee can’t fly. Now a bumblebee manifestly can fly, but it flies in a completely different way to the planes we are used to designing and building.
“Birds fly in a similar manner to the planes we build, but when we produce aerial vehicles of the size of a medium-sized bird, they are too unstable to be useful. Therefore, according to what we know of aerodynamics, birds should be too unstable to fly. Now birds in flight are manifestly very stable, and the reason is their flight surfaces are adaptive unlike the rigid flight surfaces of airplanes.”
Charles asked, “Why are small aerial vehicles unstable?”
Alan said, “Fiona, perhaps you would like to answer that question.”
The tall woman started speaking hesitantly, but quickly gained confidence. “As you reduce the size of conventional aerial vehicles, you start to run into fundamental problems caused by the laws of physics. The smaller the thing that flies, the more dense air becomes, relative to the mass of what is flying. For an insect, air is like water is to us, heavy with a lot of resistance they can push against. However, air is not like water in a swimming pool. It is more like water in a fast flowing mountain river, with many chaotic currents they must constantly react to. A bird with a wingspan less than two meters is getting down to the size where these effects cause stability problems.”
“Interesting! Thanks, Fiona.”
Alan continued with his prepared presentation. “The reason conventional aircraft with a wingspan of less than two meters are unstable in even moderately turbulent air is because they are made from rigid materials, whereas birds are made from flexible materials that deform and react to air turbulence.
“One solution to the problem of small stable aerial vehicles, and a lot of people are working on this approach, is to develop vehicles that fly like a bird or an insect by flapping their wings. These kinds of vehicles are called ornithopters, and people have built them and they do fly. Unfortunately, wing flapping, as a means of propulsion, is not very efficient in birds, and is even less efficient in man-made aerial vehicles of any useful size.
“Most people agree ornithopters are the answer to micro-UAVs the size of large insects. One day, we will have cameras, computers and electronics weighing a few grams and the power sources to drive them, but that day is still several years away. Electronics are getting smaller all the time, but currently, a useful package of cameras, electronics, and power source weighs at least a kilo.
“In summary, the problem we face today is getting an aerial vehicle that is small, stable, energy efficient, and capable of carrying a useful payload.
“The solution the Lachlans came up with, and perhaps the only solution, is an aerial vehicle that combines the efficiency of thrust-based propulsion combined with the stability that results from the flight characteristics of gliding birds.
“As Fiona explained to us, while wing flapping is a not very efficient means of getting into the air, once large gliding birds are in the air, they are most efficient flying devices ever created. The problem in building birdlike aerial vehicles is how to get them into the air in the first place.
“The way I describe the problem, the solution sounds obvious, but I assure you, it wasn’t obvious before Fiona and her father came along.
“After the demonstration, we took their aerial vehicle to a wind tunnel to see if it was as stable in turbulent air as they claimed. It performed better than we had hoped, and at that point, we realized we were onto something significant.
“I don't want to give you the impression what the Lachlans had built was a complete solution because it wasn't. A lot of R&D work was needed, but it did offer a way of solving the problem of an aerodynamically stable vehicle, with a wingspan of less than two meters, capable of carrying a useful payload.
“Donald Lachlan also claimed vertical landing and takeoff were achievable. Now this was from an engineer who helped design the world's first manned VTOL aircraft, so we took the claim seriously.
“We asked Fiona and her father to design a new version of their aerial vehicle with the characteristics we wanted. The main design issue we encountered was vertical takeoff requires substantially more power than vertical landing, and that meant more weight and less time in the air. Essentially, we had to choose between vertical takeoff and long duration flight.
“To cut a long story short, we chose long duration flight, and built a birdlike UAV capable of carrying a one to two kilo load and staying airborne for eight hours, but without vertical takeoff. At the time we were thinking of a conventional remote-operator controlled UAV, a remotely piloted vehicle as we call them in the UK, and not an autonomous vehicle.
“Several people pointed out the covert implications of aerial vehicles that look and fly like birds, and we decided that making them look birdlike was a specific design objective.”
Charles asked, “What is the significance of unaided vertical landing?”
“The alternatives to vertical landing are either a landing strip or some kind of arrestor mechanism. With aerial vehicles of this size, a landing strip must be a smooth surface. Even a very small pothole is going to cause problems.
“The commonest arrestor mechanisms are a net, or a parachute. Both tend to damage the vehicle, and if the vehicle misses the arrestor there is a good chance it will crash.
“Using a landing strip or an arrestor mechanism will obviously restrict the places where you can launch and subsequently recover the aerial vehicle. So, being able to land vertically under its own power is a valuable characteristic in an unmanned or autonomous aerial vehicle.
“To answer the 'unaided' part of the question. There are ways you can aid a vehicle to produce vertical takeoff, but vertical landing must be an unaided characteristic of the vehicle itself. Does that answer your question Charles?”
“Yes it does. Thanks.”
Alan continued, “We used four small, energy-efficient, ducted fans for lift and propulsion. Two of the fans are used exclusively for vertical lift. The other two rotate to provide both vertical lift and horizontal propulsion.
“I have a short promotional video on the aerial vehicle.”
Alan tapped some keys on his laptop, and an animated, stylized version of the aerial vehicle in front of them, flew across an image projected on the wall behind him. A British voice provided a commentary.
'The AVX is a breakthrough unmanned aerial vehicle, powered by four five-centimeter diameter, ducted-fans.'
The image zoomed-in to give a closeup overhead view of the aerial vehicle with the fans highlighted.
'The forward pair of fans is in a fixed horizontal position giving vertical lift for takeoff and landing. The rearward pair rotate from the vertical to the horizontal to give vertical thrust, horizontal thrust, or vectored thrust.'
The animation showed the aerial vehicle taking off and once airborne, the forward fans stopped spinning. The vehicle's rearward fans moved from an angle to the vertical and then back to an angle, as it accelerated after takeoff and then slowed.
'During takeoff the forward fans give lift and the rearward fans provide both lift and forward thrust. In level flight, the AVX turns off its forward fans, and rotates the rearward fans to the vertical, giving just forward thrust. The AVX then flies in a similar manner to a conventional aerial vehicle.'
The vehicle flew over a recognizably European, mixed urban and rural landscape.
'The AVX is uniquely able to land vertically. Its rearward fans first rotate past the horizontal to give sufficient rearwards thrust to slow the vehicle's forward momentum, and then to the horizontal to give vertical lift. At the same time, the forward pair of fans is turned on, and the vehicle lands vertically under its own power and control.'
The aerial vehicle on the screen slowed its forward flight, swooped down, and then landed gently on the ground.
'The AVX is capable of short takeoff using either a flat runway or a ski-jump ramp.'
The animated image showed the vehicle taking off from a short ramp that ended at a steep angle, and then rapidly gaining height.
'The AVX is capable of stable flight in unstable air, due to its unique flexible and adaptive aerodynamic surfaces.'
The animation showed the AVX alongside a similarly sized airplane and helicopter. A stylized gust of wind blew the airplane and helicopter out of the picture, but the AVX continued its level flight as its wings adjusted to the wind pressures.
'The AVX's electric engines are powered by DC produced by a petrol engine. It can achieve flight durations of six hours, carrying a 1.8 kilogram payload, at a maximum speed of thirty-five kilometers an hour.'
The AVX flew into the distance while music played and credits rolled.
Charles asked, “What does AVX stand for?”
“Nothing. We invented it for this promotional video. We wanted to call it SWAV, Supple-Winged Aerial Vehicle, but a lawyer told us we can't use an acronym as a marketing name because you can't trademark an acronym. So, you have to give it a name that sounds like it is an acronym, but in fact isn't. Aren't lawyers wonderful people?”
Charles had heard, you can't trademark an acronym, and made a mental note to talk to DARPA's lawyers about it.
“After a year of development and several prototypes, we had a vehicle very similar to the one you see in front of you, capable of carrying a two-kilo payload, and staying in the air for up to ten hours.
“We experimented with various power plants. Initially, we used a petrol engine to produce the electric power, but soon realized, so much was changing in the world of small power sources that the best solution was to make the power source pluggable. This would allow us to experiment with different power sources, like rechargeable batteries, a fuel cell, or even solar.”
“Why replace the petrol engine?”
Sergeant Jackson answered the question. “Soldiers and flammable liquids aren't a good combination.”
Charles noted the element of sarcasm in Jackson's response, and was about to try drawing him into a discussion when Alan continued.
“Yes, that’s true. The military will go to considerable lengths to avoid using petrol or other flammable materials in equipment used in combat situations, although, there were other considerations. Batteries are a more convenient and reliable power source for small devices. This is why rechargeable or replaceable batteries power your cell phone and laptop computer.
“We also realized, batteries that you plug in to recharge are a better option for unmanned refueling. Unfortunately, batteries don’t produce enough power, for their weight, to keep the vehicle flying for much more than an hour.”
Alan returned to his prepared presentation. “The US and UK governments exchange information on these kinds of military development projects, and The US decided our project, that incidentally we called Big Bird . . .”
The Americans laughed at the name.
Alan smiled, having got the reaction he expected. “. . . was a good fit into a refocused Porcupine project. As a result, the UK government sent us over here with plans and prototypes of both the petrol engine driven and battery-powered versions. I'd like you to save any technical questions for Fiona, who can answer them much more authoritatively than I can. I'll now hand you back to Charles who will brief you on the current requirements for MAADS.”
“Thanks, Alan.”
Chapter 10
1 Comments:
Could have done without a lot of the commas there.
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