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Do you want to know the ending of the seventh and last Harry Potter book (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)? If so just go to the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows web site.
Just kidding 
the site does not reveal the ending of the book but it holds an ending contest. There will be two winners. One winner will be selected for coming up with the best ending and the other winner will be selected for coming up with an ending that is most similar to the ending that JK Rowling puts into her book. The first winner of the contest will be selected on the day before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is released (July 20th 2007). The second winner will be selected two weeks later after we’ve had the chance to read the book and draw a consensus on the details of the ending. The person who gets the most facts right will be the winner of the second prize. The prizes are 500$ each! You can already see a number of entries right now.
If you want to keep up with the rumors about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the Harry Potter rumors site is a place to keep a look at.
Elbit Systems has unveiled a large mock-up of the Hermes 900, a development of the original Hermes 450 design. Elbit says that the new, larger, UAV is a tactical MALE UAV system, that will be available for a relatively lower cost than comparable systems.
The Hermes 900 has a maximum take-off weight of 970kg and can carry a 300kg internal payload. The aircraft has a 15m wingspan, and a flight ceiling of 33,000ft. Officials say that the maximum endurance with a minimal payload is 40 hours. According to defence analysts, the system could easily be weaponised. According to Eli Yitzhaki, VP, business development and marketing, the new UAV fills a market requirement for a relatively low-cost MALE system.
The UAV is currently configured to carry synthetic aperture radar and a turret-mounted electro-optic/infra-red sensor. The flight test programme for the system is scheduled to end in April 2008, with first flight tests occurring in November of this year.
Source and more info: domain-b
Unmanned aerial vehicle teams from 1st Air Cavalry Brigade have amassed 20,000 flight hours in the skies over Baghdad.
The crews, assigned or attached to the 615th Aviation Support Battalion “Cold Steel,” 1st ACB, 1st Cavalry Division, surpassed the deployment total of the unit that previously had the mission in Multinational Division-Baghdad, according to Capt. Joshua Chase, executive officer for Company E, 615th ASB – the unit that conducts the UAV mission for MND-B.
Soldiers from Co. E’s headquarters section track the flight hours and perform administrative duties for attached aerial vehicle operators. The unit has had only five accidents in 20,000 flight hours that resulted in total loss of a UAV, compared to 14 for the previous unit in about 16,000 flight hours, Chase said.
In all five cases, the accidents were caused by mechanical failure in which the vehicles had reached the expected end of their use cycle, said Staff Sgt. Jaime Gomez, Production Control noncommissioned officer in charge for Co. E and a native of El Paso, Texas.
“We pride ourselves on our safety record,” Gomez said. “On the maintenance side, if we fail, that reflects on our section.”
“The success rate as far as safety is the biggest compliment to how we do business,” Chase said. “We are rewriting the book as far as how this system should operate.”
Source and more info: blackanthem
With the successful first flight of the new unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) Sharc, EADS Defence & Security (DS) has launched the flight test campaign for this innovative unmanned helicopter. During the first flight, the unmanned coaxial dual-rotor 200 kg class helicopter – which is being tested by the Military Air Systems unit of DS – demonstrated stability and impressive flight characteristics.
Through this UAV demonstrator – roughly 250 cm long, 70 cm wide and 120 cm high – EADS has extended its range of high-performance UAVs. With a maximum take-off weight of 190 kg, the system can accommodate 60 kg of mission equipment in its payload compartments. Sharc is equipped with a redundant flight control unit, a laser altimeter and also control and data links. Sharc has been designed as an unmanned aerial vehicle without hydraulic components, the rotors being controlled by means of electrical actuators.
“The innovativeness of this demonstrator in all its details provides emphatic evidence of the leading position that EADS Defence & Security occupies in the field of high-performance unmanned aerial vehicles within Europe,” stated Stefan Zoller, member of the EADS Executive Committee for Defence & Security, in reaction to the successful first flight.
The modular design of the avionics facilitates the integration of a whole range of different mission equipment. Tests on electro-optical and infrared sensors are part of the overall flight campaign. In addition, Sharc can also accommodate a compact synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system.
“The Sharc demonstrator is a step on the way to a product that is precisely tailored to our customers’ needs. With its ability to land autonomously on deck, large payload capacity and excellent, stable flight characteristics, Sharc not only meets the navies’ military requirements for unmanned reconnaissance and surveillance as well as aerial target designation and damage control missions, but is also suitable for industrial monitoring,” explained Johann Heitzmann, CEO of Military Air Systems.
Thanks to its flight characteristics and the planned sensor equipment, Sharc already meets all the basic requirements in its pre-development stage before series production. The unmanned helicopter will be capable of autonomous take-off and landing – despite heavy seas – from a ship’s landing.
Source and more info: shephard
Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) has successfully performed an engine run of the first U.S. Army MQ-8B Fire Scout Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), the Class IV Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) in the Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS), at the company’s Unmanned Systems Center in Moss Point, Miss.
“The engine run is a significant milestone for the FCS program. It marks completion of final assembly of the initial manufacturing phase of the first Army Fire Scout,” said Joe Emerson, Northrop Grumman’s FCS Fire Scout program manager. “We’ve been diligent in tracking our costs and meeting milestones such as this, which validates our commitment to quality, technical excellence, cost and delivery. We’re definitely looking forward to fielding this aircraft.”
The FCS Fire Scout has now completed the initial assembly process and will await delivery of mission avionics and sensors.
The MQ-8B Fire Scout has been flying under a Navy contract since December 2006, but this marked the first time aircraft operations were conducted at the Moss Point site. The engine run team consisted of Northrop Grumman employees and experienced flight test personnel from Moss Point, Miss., San Diego and Lexington Park, Md.
Source and more info: epicos
Persistent surveillance is becoming a pressing requirement for US forces, spawning a number of programmes aimed at demonstrating unmanned air vehicles with endurance capabilities ranging from weeks to years.
The latest of these is the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) VULTURE programme to demonstrate the ability to keep a heavier-than-air UAV on station for more than five years.
VULTURE – which stands for Very-high altitude, Ultra-endurance, Loitering Theatre Unmanned Reconnaissance Element – is a complement to DARPA’s ISIS (Integrated Sensor Is Structure) programme to demonstrate technology for an unmanned airship capable of remaining on station in the stratosphere for a year or more.
DARPA has invited proposals for the VULTURE programme and plans an industry day on 7 June. The agency is looking for the capability to “deliver and maintain a 1,000lb, 5kW airborne payload for an uninterrupted period exceeding five years with a 99%+ on-station reliability”.
“VULTURE, in effect, will be a retaskable, persistent satellite capability in an aircraft package,” says DARPA in its fiscal year 2008 budget submission, which indicates the UAV will be solar powered, like the ISIS airship.
Source and more info: flightgloba
Engine tests have been completed on the MQ-8B unmanned aerial vehicle that is a component of the U.S. Army’s ambitious Future Combat Systems.
Northrop Grumman said in a statement Tuesday the MQ-8B Fire Scout is now set to receive the mission avionics and sensors that will make it an airborne hunting dog that sniffs out and tracks enemy targets and then illuminates them with a laser rangefinder.
“The engine run is a significant milestone for the FCS program,” Program Manager Joe Emerson said in San Diego. “It marks completion of final assembly of the initial manufacturing phase of the first Army Fire Scout.”
Engine tests will continue at the Northrop facility in Moss Point, Miss., as new Fire Scouts are turned out. The Navy version of the UAV, which is part of the Littoral Combat Ship program, has been flight tested since late last year.
The Fire Scout is basically a small, unmanned helicopter with a range of more than 100 miles and the capability to transmit real-time imagery, targeting data and battle damage assessments back to brigade-level U.S. commanders. The aircraft was designated the Class IV unmanned aerial system for the Future Combat Systems program.
Source and more info: upi
It is a little past 8 a.m., a Canadian soldier has just been killed 30 kilometres away, and Capt. Tom Lee is fretting.
He has a tool that could save other Canadians now battling the Taliban, but the weather refuses to co-operate. Finally, the conditions are right, the engine on his unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) throttles up and the craft springs off its catapult mounted on the back of a truck.
One of Canada’s little-known fleet of spy planes is airborne over the Afghanistan desert.
“There are troops in contact,” says Capt. Lee briskly, using the military jargon for a firefight, “and I have to go.” Within minutes, the French-made Sperwer airplane just launched from a fenced compound within the huge NATO base at Kandahar will be beaming back video of the terrain below, and of Taliban movements in the Zhari district where the troops are fighting.
From a rocky start three years ago, such UAVs have become an almost indispensable part of the Canadian arsenal in Afghanistan, officers say.
They offer intelligence on Taliban movements, targeting for artillery and airstrikes and tips on the presence of civilians who should be avoided in those target areas.
Source and more info: canada
Years of experience combined with an “engrained culture of unmanned aerial systems employment” qualify the Air Force to serve as the Pentagon’s executive agent for mid- and high-altitude UAVs, according to Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne.
Speaking Wednesday at the first annual 55th Wing ISR Symposium in Omaha, Wynne said such a move makes obvious sense, since the Air Force has “codified UAS deployment procedures across the current and future spectrum.” In addition, Wynne said he’d like to see unmanned systems tied operationally to the Air Operations Center (AOC) — an Air Force command element.
“The Air Force has stepped forward,” Wynne told a gathering of intelligence officers and defense contractor representatives. “It’s no longer about tactical or strategic, for only the ultimate target determines this. It’s much more about connectivity and the ability to harness information. Connectivity with space and air-breathing systems, language protocols, airspace control, identification of friend or foe, air defense – all fit into the air commander’s bucket.”
Wynne’s comments were hardly off the cuff — they support a wider Air Force campaign to take charge of all U.S. medium- and high-altitude UAVs. His direct subordinate, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley, revealed this new strategy March 5 in a three page letter that set Army officials on edge.
Source and more info: airforcetimes
