I saw this a few weeks ago and thought maybe some of you would be interested.
http://www.codeonemagazine.com/archi...s/apr_03/hawk/. Its an unmanned aerial vehicle that is used for close support recon. LM basically built a big foam park flyer with a camera that troops can carry around. Once launched, it flys itself through a route an operator defines on a laptop. Nobody directly manipulates the controls so it doesn't require a trained pilot. One cool feature allows the operator to monitor a particular location by clicking a point on the map. the plane will go into a circular holding pattern around that point so they can get a closer look.