One and one don’t make five

Some perhaps obvious scaremongering from Fox News and some very spurious claims from the investigators. If you can find somebody that can lift an extra 20lbs with a Raven then I will eat my hat.

The story centres on the sale of a Raven put up for sale on eBay by Henson Chua.

In March, Chua was indicted and charged by a grand jury in Tampa with violating the Arms Export Control Act and smuggling, after he imported an RQ-11B “Raven” Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) from the Philippines into the U.S. The Raven is listed on the U.S. munitions list as a defensive item, and U.S. law forbids people from buying and selling defense equipment without permission from the government.

According to the indictments, in May 2010, the Department of Defense learned that a “Raven” had been listed on eBay for $13,000. They determined that it belonged to the U.S. government, and an agent of Homeland Security Investigations began to correspond with the seller, posing as a potential buyer.

Over the course of several months, the two corresponded about selling the plane, and also discussed how best to smuggle it out of the country. The agents believed the seller was Chua, who was from the Philippines and then in the U.S. on a non-immigrant visitor visa. He claimed he purchased the plane through an auction by the Philippine government, which had sold it as abandoned property.

Chua faces a maximum sentence of 20 years, though it is unlikely he’ll serve that long.

Linking this incident to the recent model aircraft against Washington plot was yet more mischief.

How will the authorities deal with perfectly legal licensed sUAS once the NRPM process is finally over?

There will no doubt be several systems for sale capable of carrying large payloads and with better autopilots on suppliers shelves.

In the meantime the bad guys will have to be content with anyone of the Raven model clones still available on eBay.

Perhaps to increase payload our favourite Raven mod could be undertaken.