Danger Room tells us in a recent post that iarpa, the research project end of the intelligence gathering community, wants to overcome a fairly obvious problem with drones, which is that they are loud as all get out. To that end, they have inititiated the Great Horned Owl Program, which, despite the animal loving sound of it, is actually intending to imitate the silent swoop of the birds. The general idea is that they won't hope to keep drones quiet for all that long, but only for a crucial part of a mission. They would run on battery power for a short time, something like a hybrid car.
Nocturnal owls are known to be the most silent of birds. This National Geographic article has it all, but essentially, these owls' trailing feathers are ragged like the edge of a scarf, and help to break up the sound as air flows over the top of the wings and into the downstream.
I'm not too crazy about an owl sneaking up on me in the dark, let alone a drone...
Nocturnal owls are known to be the most silent of birds. This National Geographic article has it all, but essentially, these owls' trailing feathers are ragged like the edge of a scarf, and help to break up the sound as air flows over the top of the wings and into the downstream.
I'm not too crazy about an owl sneaking up on me in the dark, let alone a drone...
