Batman ropes

Sunday Times:

BRITISH scientists have invented a high-speed “Bat rope” to allow special forces soldiers to climb high buildings or cliffs at more than 10ft a second.

The device, demonstrated for the first time last week, works by firing a small rocket carrying a grapple hook attached to a winding motor. At the press of a button the user can ascend the rope and then come down just as quickly.

The rope, known as Upstart, was commissioned by the Pentagon and is being studied by British special forces as well as the Metropolitan police and coastguards.

In addition to being used for SAS-style operations, it could be used by the police in hostage sieges or for complex rescues on cliff faces. The Upstart is similar to a gadget used in the Batman films when the superhero fires his rope up the sides of buildings and winches himself up at high speed.

“This wouldn’t have been possible even a few months ago,” said Ken Pink, the inventor of Upstart and an engineer at Qinetiq, formerly the government’s defence research agency. “We’ve been able to get a huge charge from a new battery and combined it with a motor from our bomb-disposal robot to get a prototype device that shoots a person up a 100ft rope in 10 seconds.”

...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

Is the F-35 obsolete?

Headline USA: Pentagon Fires Back after Musk Calls Its Most Expensive Project ‘Obsolete’ 'Yeah, as I'm sure you can appreciate, Mr. Musk is, currently, a private citizen, I'm not going to make any comments about what a private citizen may have to say about the F-35....'   ... ... Drones appear to be replacing jets for many operations.  The Russia-Ukraine war is an example of that.  Drones are often hard to detect and can be used for intelligence operations as well as for attacking enemy targets.  It would not surprise me to see drones engaging other drones in combat.  They also cost much less than manned fighters.  
Read more

Apple's huge investment in US including Texas facility

Blaze: Apple announced a $500 billion commitment to infrastructure in the United States over four years, its largest commitment to domestic spending to date. Apple said it will expand teams and facilities in Arizona, California, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, and Washington as part of its new spending. With a new facility in Houston, Texas, Apple will reportedly double its investment in advanced manufacturing along with increasing investments in AI and silicon engineering. The company said in a press release that the Houston facility will produce servers to support Apple Intelligence, the "personal intelligence system that helps users write, express themselves, and get things done." ... The Texas facility will be for advanced technologies.   Texas has become a place that is very supportive of the tech industries.  Austin and Houston have seen much of the tech growth in the state.  Texas universities have been active in the AI field.
Read more