Is this for real?

Spotted in the current issue of Unmanned Systems, the AUVSI magazine: an ad for a sniper rifle/quadcopter UAV (shown above). Absurdly, it says you can take off the rotors and camera and also use the fuselage as an assault rifle! If this were the April edition, I'd think it was an April Fool's joke. The ad is full of typos and the company, AUS International, has a one-page website that looks like it was made in Microsoft Word in about ten minutes. There is no other information about them on the web, and whois says the company website was just registered in April of this year. Apparently they're based in Laredo TX, assuming that they're a real company at all.

What do you think? Is this for real?

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Comment by Condor on July 14, 2008 at 9:46pm: Looks like a mock up / proof of concept. I will they are a shady outfit looking to live of some less then informed investors.

Comment by Patrick Egan on July 14, 2008 at 10:57pm: I don’t know what to doubt anymore when it comes to the systems being marketed. The picture of the offering from SMP with the Taser XREP projectile (Eurosatory 2008, July issue), does it some real justice. The grey top appeared to be a cereal bowl loosely affixed to the craft. Even better was the Thales offering “Spy Arrow”, it was strait out of the hobby shop. In my report the picture is blurry as I was told mid snap, “no pictures please!” What was really surprising was that Unmanned Systems didn’t mention the UGV demo as it drew large crowds.

Comment by Genesis Factor on July 15, 2008 at 8:32am: its fake. Pictures are photoshopped. Shadows don't match, structure doesn't match. I think the laptop is photoshopped too and the controller is an xbox controller.

Comment by Jack Crossfire on July 15, 2008 at 11:07am: Given a high enough payment, it's just a matter of buying an aircraft from someone else & strapping a gun & an autopilot on it. There R zillions of Chinese & European sources of VTOL autopilots & zillions of high school kids willing to integrate them.

Comment by paul hubner on July 15, 2008 at 11:11am: Definitley 'shopped!

Comment by Longshot7601 on July 15, 2008 at 11:23am: Even if it were a real project. I have yet to see ANY hovering platform stable enough for sniper duties much less a small one like this. Maybe if you isolate the weapon from the airframe and then stabilize it with a gyro. But this doesn't seem to be the case.

Comment by wayne garris on July 15, 2008 at 11:31am: i am afraid that this type of business plane is a wide spreed and disturbing trend . i can point to more then a few " businesess " that right now are trying to push uavs ect that havnt even flown yet .

Comment by Condor on July 15, 2008 at 4:46pm: There are a lot of con artists out there I was almost taken by a company called Remote-I (Rhandal Sayat) a few years back. I must say though his website at least had better stolen graphics. There is another "company" I have even seen advertised on the Google adds here www.marcusuav.com who I saw lifted content from MicroPilot (gone already but it was trhere for a while) and if you dug a bit is registered out of a UPS location in Seattle?

Comment by Longshot7601 on July 15, 2008 at 5:24pm: Any body want to buy one of my yet unreleased UAV products? Our company (me) has successfully flown a prototype (chuck glider). We have not released any information on this design for security reasons (emotional security, I don't want to be laughed at). Please send Cashier's Check or Money Order made out to C.A.S.H.

Thank You
Anonymous (With held for security reason too.)
President
Consolidated Autonomous Security Helicopters
PO Box 5100251
Las Vegas, NV 89123

Website to follow.

Comment by Patrick Egan on July 15, 2008 at 5:52pm: I'll take 3, the check is in the mail!

Is this for real?

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