Doesn't look like a malfunction. "UAV"'s are routinely hand launched and glided back to the pilot. In an area full of booby traps, U don't want to be running out of the truck to pick stuff up. Of course, these guys don't deserve any credit anyway.

heroineworshipper

No man. These are those new Iraqi SCUD paper airplanes ... very dangerous in the presence of lemon juice.

nystreetfilms

Damn you, I told you to get the red crystal frequency for your RC controller...now we both have yellow.

Vagabum

@JacquesAss: Tell your brother a random stranger said thanks for serving.

FreeMan

Why would anyone mention Skynet?

Seriously, though, this is why the FAA requires the USAF to put USAF rated officers with commercial pilot ratings behind the screen of any UAV flown through US airspace. There's a (future) predator pilot in my SUPT class at Columbus AFB, and when he's done flying real planes and getting ratings through the Air Force and equivalency certification through the FAA, he'll fly UAVs.

JosWindu

Nice defensive stance though. Im sure cringing up into the pseudo-fetal position will protect you. Why is he in a truck to begin with.

luxera

173 feet = Sea level

Saboteur

Looks to me it lost power or got hit by something and went into "Auto Land" mode, which didn't work so well.

b3n

@Toto: @CajunGuy: Altimeters tend to read values related to sea level, not "ground level", or you'd get very freaky readings when flying over a mountain range...

Drezio

There are plenty of R/C airplane pilots with astonishing skills-maybe the U.S. military could get some of those dudes signed up.

They have, well sort of. I've got a friend who's super talented flying RC Planes who landed himself job (pun intended) as a test/training pilot for a UAV manufacturer.

Hes now been to Iraq, Jordan, Afghanistan...training special-ops guys how to fly these things.

He comes back from a long weekend one time and tells me how he spend his time hanging out the back of an open C130 flying a UAV ultra close to show the special ops guys...what a job : )

pitpawten

This appears definitely to be a rather small UAV, not a Predator (proven out by the meta data). Predators are flown from elaborate indoor workstations.

With regard to tiny UAVs that are flown with a hand held remote control, I've been told by an Army Colonel that $2K was offered to any soldier that could safely fly the bird back to base. They gave up after a few weeks. Said the Colonel, "We do fine driving trucks, but we are not pilots."

whootowl

@CajunGuy: I wonder if Col. Stuart had something to do with it...

[www.imdb.com]

WorkingOnYourInvoice

@weatherman: technically, that would be you...

frigg

Now this is the best Ive seen:
[youtube.com]

zakeen

Seems like it was auto-falling rather than auto landing.

Metasheep

As TOTO said, the altimeter shows 173 feet before crashing. I wonder if maybe the altimeter was jacked up, causing the machine to think it was higher up than it really was. And since it flashed "auto landing" before going down, it's possible there was no manual control of it as it went down.

The poor guy's look on his face was pretty priceless, though.

CajunGuy

My cousin actually does serve as a drone pilot for the Air Force. He had been building RC planes with his dad since childhood, graduated up to building a kit plane, got his pilot's license and then went to work for a contractor who builds the drones.

Now he's serving his country, providing aerial support for soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan. From Kansas.

JacquesAss

How come it says 173 feet when the video ends? Did it crash or did the camera just zoom in to the troops?

You would expect the altitimeter to be zeroed to ground level for this type of flight.

Toto

That must have been a Japanese drone plane. WWII era....

Obee Juan

@weatherman: Be grateful that we have yet to hear from Kent Brockman

dingus

Where's the sound?!? I wonder if they screamed like a bunch of girls?

mlehet

Confused? I don't think so. Well I'm trying Skynet beta right now, I'll tell you how it goes.

Kaiser-Machead

Man, that's gotta be a nasty bruise. Too bad there's no audio, I can just imagine these guys screaming like little girls. LOL.

WorkingOnYourInvoice

First person to mention skynet should get a commenting time-out.

weatherman

The robots are trying to take over!!

Leathersoup

SQUAK: "Auto-Land produced unusually rough landing."
CREW CHIEF: "Plane not equipped with Auto-Land."

In other news, the plane looks to me like its out of control from the start of the video. Pilot: "Hold my beer and watch this!!"

Crominator56

Oh, it lookes like it clipped some power lines. Good thing it didn't have a hellfire on there.

MagnoliaBoy

No, it landed... and automaticaly to boot. My guess is it was using GPS to find it's landing spot and these dudes were just in the way.

MagnoliaBoy

So much for the "auto land" feature.

The Lab

you could serve without leaving the US.

Actually, serving from your living room . . .

schrosa

Were the OK? How big was this thing?

BLAKELEY

Oops. I bet the soldiers got a big laugh when they saw themselves on the video.

Jeyl

The plane was probably made in China and bought from Wal-Mart.

ninjatales

It's called a Raven.

SpcJeff

This is either fake, or it simply caught an updraft and stalled causing the rapid rate of descent. But what tips me off to the fakeness is the altimeter not being compensated with a barometric reading and the fact that the soldiers had more than enough time to hop out of the pickup truck, but just gawk instead.

rukasu

either fake (they certainly had enough time to jump out of the back of the pickup at least) or it caught an uplift and stalled

rukasu

More than likely it was a Raven landing. The Army actually did analysis to determine how badly someone could be injured before clearing Raven to operate over troops. IIRC given its weight, flight velocity, and density Raven was found to have less energy and impact than a baseball thrown at 20mph.

nova3930

The UAV they are flying around is called a Raven. It's about 4 Lbs. in weight. I flew one for a year in Iraq. These guys were either trying to be funny or just didn't know what they were doing. Believe me they weren't hurt. The entire thing is made of styrofoam and the propeller plastic.

SpcJeff

@Vagabum: An YELLOW was squashed by the Warlock on the victim's jeep.

whootowl