Friday, June 22, 2012

Amelia Earhart Last Trip Footnote

I never knew before that Amelia Earhart did a stop in Bandung after a flight from Bangkok in her last flight, the attempt to encircle the globe: http://acepilots.com/earhart2.html. It's rather surprising and not-so-surprising at the same time.

I have known for several years that the Netherland/Dutch East Indies Government (now Indonesia) did try to establish aviation "center" in Bandung despite its rather bad location (sorrounded by mountains, Bandung was prehistoric lake long ago).


Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Automotive Night Vision (civilian version of FLIR?)

When you read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automotive_night_vision. Every single one of the implementation reads like a Forward Looking Infra-Red (FLIR: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_looking_infrared) to me. To be more precise, read this line from GM implementation of the automotive night vision: "This system was developed with Raytheon and worked by using an infrared sensing camera mounted behind the vehicle's grille".

Now, why would Raytheon is in there? if it's not for FLIR tech, then I'd be surprised. The question is: what kind of FLIR sensor is being used? I think it must've been the  long-wave infrared (LWIR) cameras because it doesn't need Cryogenic cooling which is almost impossible in the target vehicle, given the required size and energy requirement.

Another question is will this technology be adopted en-masse? Time will tell. But, to be sure this is a dual use tech.