His Boy Elroy

[MIflyer]

From Avweb:

"Growth in e-commerce is the fuel for a slew of startups that want to use electric propulsion and autonomous operation to dramatically reduce the cost and increase the use of air cargo. A leader in that drive is San Francisco-based startup Elroy Air. Mesa Airlines is backing the concept."

By the way, the USMC used the KMAX autonomous helicopter for supply in Afghanistan.

 

[SaparotRob]

Where's Daughter Judy?

 

[Crimea_River]

Jane, his wife....

 

[MIflyer]

Let's hope that no one ever has to yell, "Stop this crazy thing!"

 

[Gnomey]

Let's hope that no one ever has to yell, "Stop this crazy thing!"

It'll happen at some point…

 

[MIflyer]

There was a Soviet Soyuz manned launch where the latches holding the upper stage to the rest of the booster came loose on one side. The upper stage and spacecraft started waving around like a Dixie cup on a broomhandle. The crew was yelling "Stop this crazy thing." or some version thereof but the people at Baikonur thought that all looked good and did nothing. When the upper stage tried to separate from the core vehicle the latches that had not released earlier had been so warped by the flailing around that they refused to let go. Then it because obvious that the upper stage was not going to tow the first stage into orbit and the Baikonur people activated the abort. The spacecraft made a High-G descent and came down in a remote mountainous area near the Chinese border, rolled down a hill and was about to plunge over a cliff, so the crew scrambled out and huddled in a snowstorm, being menaced by wolves before being rescued by a hunter and his daughter.

Were that not enough, at the ceremony where they were to receive their medals there was an assassination attempt on the Soviet premier and some of the bullets struck the car the cosmonauts were riding in.

I call this the "Wile E. Coyote" launch failure.