Lookout Below

The U.S. Civil War has claimed another casualty 143 years after it ended, adding to the 618,000 people who lost their lives in the deadly conflict.

Sam White, a Civil War buff who crisscrossed the Virginia countryside in search of wartime relics, was killed in his driveway when a cannonball he was restoring exploded.  The old cannonball was still powerful enough to send a chunk of shrapnel through the front porch of a house a quarter-mile from White’s home near Richmond.

White’s death "shook the close-knit fraternity of relic collectors and raised concerns about the dangers of other Civil War munitions that lay buried beneath old battlefields.  Explosives experts said the fatal blast defied extraordinary odds.  You can’t drop these things on the ground and make them go off."

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The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has become the weapon of choice for the U.S. military. The UAV is an unpiloted aircraft that is flown by remote control or pre-programmed flight plans. UAVs are deployed heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan and used primarily for reconnaissance and attack. UAVs are preferred for missions that are too “dull, dirty, or dangerous” for manned aircraft.

This video shows what happens when you arm a UAV with a 30mm cannon and point it at the enemy. Warning: the video is explicit.

The world’s first stealth fighter, the F-117, is retiring after 27 years of service in the U.S. Air Force. The fighter is retiring to free up money to modernize the fleet with the F-22 Raptor, also a stealth fighter. Fifty-nine F-117s were made; seven have crashed, one in Serbia in 1999.

The F-117 stealth technology was developed in the 1970s to fly into heavily-defended areas undetected and drop its payload with surgical precision. Although not invisible to radar, the F-117’s shape and reflective coating greatly reduced its detection.

An F-117 pilot said, “We knew stealth worked and it would take a lucky shot to hit us, but we knew a lucky shot could hit us at any time.” Incredibly, a stealth fighter has never been shot down.

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