Free Republic

The Lockheed Martin Skunk Works revealed on 19 July that it has secretly built and flown a large, high-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that has been designed to test a range of new technologies critical to what the company foresees as a ‘third-generation’ of unmanned platforms that will emerge in the US in the next decade. Nicknamed Polecat, the high-altitude flying wing demonstrator was launched in March 2003 with USD27 million of internal Lockheed Martin funding and was completed 18 months later. It did not fly, however, until last year. Its key feature is an advanced laminar flow wing that...

WATKINSVILLE, Ga. - A northeast Georgia woman is suing her county's fire department, saying she hurt herself sliding down a firehouse pole during a party. Andra Gooch, of Watkinsville, claims the Oconee County Fire Department and county commission chairman were negligent when she hurt herself at a Nov. 2003 party. Patrons at the party - for the son of a fire department employee - had access to the pole and the area where fire trucks were parked and other equipment stored, according to the suit. At some point during the night, Gooch slid down the firepole from the second story...