Replies

I agree. Sounds like an expensive, roundabout and probably relatively ineffective way to do this.

Well, if you already had some delivery system, equipping it with a GPS guidance system, as opposed to blind firing, is a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the costs involved.

A simple system using any commercial GPS with serial output could be rigged to a PIC device even, controlling thrusters for maneuvering. That would really be the easiest part of a design like that.

If they're not going for a specific target, but an area, a commercially available GPS would probably work (say the middle of DC, NYC or LA). But if they want to hit a specific target like the 9/11 hijackers, they'd need a military unit or do it before the signals are degraded. But it seems like a lot of trouble when all it would take would be someone riding a subway in NYC.

You made the first technically sensible comments.

I have myself done much of the design work to use a BasicX microcontroller ($50) with a multitasking OS in combination with a surplus Motorola Jupiter GPS receiver ($60 or less, serial interface) and mount them on a large Zagi design.

The Zagi would be one of the big models, 6-10 feet wingspan in molded hardened foam. Such a beast would be very stable and, left unpainted, virtually invisible to radar, partly because of its irregular shape and flying wing design. In warm weather when thermals are favorable, it could have a very long range. Attacking a southern city would maximize your range.

Importing the items would not be needed. You could buy the oversized Zagi aircraft kits here in the U.S.

If you look around the web, you'll see that model aircraft enthusiasts have already built exactly these types of GPS guided computer-controlled planes, some complete with remote cameras on servo-controlled servo-mounts. I've read a number of accounts of people who launch planes that fly a predetermined route at a specified height using GPS and then return to land at the designated point.

These are 8' Zagis: