NEI Nuclear Notes

Never very happy to be outdone by the French , the American government is, like their baguette-eating comrades, sending over to Japan some helicopter-like drones to help out at Fukushima. The more the merrier, we say : The government intends to use a small U.S. remote-controlled aircraft to check radiation levels around spent nuclear fuel pools at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, sources said. Use of the T-Hawk drone, which is capable of hovering and moving vertically, was proposed by the U.S. government, the sources said. The U.S. military has employed it in reconnaissance operations in Iraq and other countries. Reportedly measuring about 35 cm in diameter, the T-Hawk has been described as a "micro air vehicle." The T-Hawk drone is made by Honeywell, so we wandered over there to see how it measures up against the French Helipse . Pretty well, as it turns out : One or two air vehicles, one ground station Packable within two packs, compati...