Airman Injured In Heat-Beam Test!

What's going on here? Are airmen being used as guinea pigs in weapon experiments?

An airman received second-degree burns April 4 during a test of the Defense Department’s nonlethal millimeter-wave heat beam at Moody Air Force Base, Ga., according to Marine Corps Maj. Sarah Fullwood, spokeswoman for the Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrator program, Quantico, Va.

The heat beam fires after a generator on the Humvee creates 50,000 volts of electricity, which powers a gyrotron, a tube that bunches electrons in a magnetic field to emit a 130-degree-Fahrenheit directed-energy beam, said Diana Loree, who runs ADS efforts at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland.

An unidentified airman looks over
the military’s Active Denial System

And heck! The average temp in the shade in Baghdad during the hot summer months can reach 50 deg C or 122 F! So WTF is a 130 Degree Fahrenheit heat beam going to do to you? This one must've sure been hotter than 200F. Or it aint a 'Heat Beam'!


Here...



[edit on 6-4-2007 by mikesingh]

Wow, you'd think Army Times would have used a technically literate writer wouldn't you?

At any rate, sure, most of the "guinea pigs" for ADS have been volunteers from the development staff and KAFB base personnel.

Military personel can be tested at any time with or without their knowledge. Such are some of the newer laws. If this thing can generate directed heat at 130df that would cause discomfort and if you stayed in it would cause burns. 140df will cause burns in less then 1 second.

Originally posted by mikesingh
What's going on here? Are airmen being used as guinea pigs in weapon experiments?
And heck! The average temp in the shade in Baghdad during the hot summer months can reach 50 deg C or 122 F! So WTF is a 130 Degree Fahrenheit heat beam going to do to you?

This one must've sure been hotter than 200F. Or it aint a 'Heat Beam'!

That's the part where the writer didn't know what she was talking about. The beam itself has no temperature. On average, it will raise the top 0.3-0.4mm of your skin (more or less) to 130 F. So it's more like leaning your face against a piece of metal in the sun in Bagdad than standing around in it.

To get a 2nd degree burn, IIRC, it's taken over a minute in the beam or something metallic that was just the right size in your pocket. That's with the intensity set correctly. I guess they could have cranked it up too high.

In the end, I bet they're going to have to use some sort of active control on this like they did for some of the more advanced laser dazzlers. Measure what the beam is hitting and throttle the power/duration accordingly instead of just running it.

They just showed that 'Heat Beam Weapon' on the Discovery Channel the other day. It seemed to work then, the host of the show even got Zapped by it. The host tried to pull the Commanding Officer in to the 'Beams' path but he wasn't having it at all. The name of the show was FutureWeapons. It was just on last week. I am sure it will be repeating all this week.

Here is a link to the shows site:
dsc.discovery.com...

[edit on 4/6/2007 by digitalassassin]

to expand on DA's post I too saw that episode of future weapons (love that show) and the host did mention that all people both enlisted and officers involved in the program are required to stand in the beam.

As mentinoed he tried to pull the officer into the beam (which I thought was funny) and the officer mentioned that he's been in the line of fire with the beam like four times.

I believe the reasoning behind this is that you have to understand the weapon. It heats you up so fast that you have to be aware of how this new technology works and how fast it works.

If the point is to disband a mob or render a mob leader helpless you have to understand how quick the device works.

Don't think there's anything sinister in this.

IMO of course.

SPiderj

An airman received second-degree burns April 4 during a test of the Defense Department’s nonlethal millimeter-wave heat beam at Moody Air Force Base, Ga., according to Marine Corps Maj. Sarah Fullwood, spokeswoman for the Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrator program, Quantico, Va.

The heat beam fires after a generator on the Humvee creates 50,000 volts of electricity, which powers a gyrotron, a tube that bunches electrons in a magnetic field to emit a 130-degree-Fahrenheit directed-energy beam, said Diana Loree, who runs ADS efforts at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland.

I guess nondirected microwaves have been safe to use all this time, it's freezing outside, let me jump in the ole microwave and warm up

j/k

Thanks for clearing that up. I do love the show too. I should have said that they all went in to the beam previously. I wasn't trying to make a conspiracy out of it. On the show it did seem like an effective "Less than lethal weapon". I bet the guy with the 2nd degree burns was trying to see how long he could stand in the beam and found out the hard way how long.

Originally posted by JacKatMtn

I guess nondirected microwaves have been safe to use all this time, it's freezing outside, let me jump in the ole microwave and warm up

j/k

LOL...Funny as hell.

But if I remember on the show they said it wasn't microwaves. It was some sort of 'radio signal' that did it. No Radiation whatsoever. If I remember correctly.

Originally posted by digitalassassin
LOL...Funny as hell.

But if I remember on the show they said it wasn't microwaves. It was some sort of 'radio signal' that did it. No Radiation whatsoever. If I remember correctly.

Microwaves are a radio signal. It is microwaves..95GHz.

I should have said that they all went in to the beam previously. I wasn't trying to make a conspiracy out of it.

ha actually I didn't take it that way at all...I just assumed you missed the bit where he said they all had to go in.

spiderj

Originally posted by Tom Bedlam
Microwaves are a radio signal. It is microwaves..95GHz.

The article said milliwaves......


Isn't milli more than micro?

So our military is going to start cooking our enemies in the future....

Very sad........

Originally posted by JacKatMtn

Originally posted by Tom Bedlam
Microwaves are a radio signal. It is microwaves..95GHz.

The article said milliwaves......


Isn't milli more than micro?

So our military is going to start cooking our enemies in the future....

Very sad........

Yet another reason they need a technical consult -

The wavelength of 95GHz is about 3.2mm. So it's a 'millimetric' wave, which is a microwave. 95GHz falls into the W band of EHF microwaves.

The thing is, the word 'microwave' isn't terribly descriptive of wavelength in terms of SI units. In general, any signal with a wavelength of 1 meter to 1 mm falls into the microwave bucket, although you'll find a lot of different criteria at both ends.

Somewhere above 100GHz you start transitioning into the t-wave regime, although again, it's more of a continuum than a rigid definition, and by definition you have to be sub-millimetric to "really" be a T-wave, somewhere around 300GHz.

Originally posted by Spiderj
As mentinoed he tried to pull the officer into the beam (which I thought was funny) and the officer mentioned that he's been in the line of fire with the beam like four times.

I believe the reasoning behind this is that you have to understand the weapon. It heats you up so fast that you have to be aware of how this new technology works and how fast it works.

If the point is to disband a mob or render a mob leader helpless you have to understand how quick the device works.

That's exactly what it is. Police departments do this all the time with pepper spray, and the army does it with tear gas. If you're going to use something on other people, you have to understand the effects of it, so you go through it.

Originally posted by Tom Bedlam

Yet another reason they need a technical consult -

It's way beyond me..... I am still trying to grasp the concept of

New Wave music from the 80's.......

A toy I seldom see them mention is the fence version of this. There's an ADS-like fence system that will get your attention.

It's sort of the human equivalent of the invisible dog fence, only you don't need a collar.

Generally they have a security fence, this thing, then the electric fence on the inside, so you have various levels of "what part of go away didn't you understand" as you progress. Not to mention, the fence field can sense if someone's in it or playing around with tin-foil suits and sound the alarm.

The fence system seems a lot more apropos to me. You're not supposed to be somewhere, they tell you that, and you have to just blatantly ignore it before you get warmed up, which would probably only happen to a few people at a time.

The ADS's major weak point as a crowd control device IMO is that it can induce a panic retreat in a crowd and people can end up trampled or crushed - a bad thing. As a device to empty out a building in MOUT, it would definitely have its uses, though.

^lol...Either that or does anyone watch 'LOST' how about a security fence like that. It is just a series of metal noids and if you pass between two a sonic wave or beam kills you. It also blocks mysterious black fog...lol

i wouldn't be surprised if that thing is capable of heating a surface to 200+ degrees should the desire arise. also, i like the way they always claim that the technology is several years away though they clearly have a finished product pictured. it seems by the time any new military technology gets announced to the public, you can rest assured it's already in full production.

i'm sure they plan on using this somewhere, and i noticed that humvee wasn't wearing desert camo.

rest assured i'll be staying away from those things when the tyranny hits home.

It's not in desert camo, because MOST Hunvees are still in European camo from when we were planning to fight in Europe. About the only ones painted in desert camo are ones that are either being sent to, or recently came back from Iraq.

Not to mention that ONE article sitting there is hardly proof that there are dozens of these things ready to be used. How are they supposed to test them if they don't build a few? But a few is hardly "operational". When they say they're years away, they mean before it's officially operational, not until they build them.

[edit on 4/6/2007 by Zaphod58]

I would be more worried about the first fatality that is linked with the system, I can almost see it now....

MPOIC - "Stand Back" "Disperse, or you will be Zapped"

Crowd - "Heck No We Won't Go"

MPOIC - "This is Your FINAL Warning!!, (Sergeant, initiate the sizzler,
set to stun.) "I Repeat This is Your FINAL Warning!!"

Crowd - "All We Are Saying.. Is Give Peace a Chance, The Answer My
Friend is Blowin in the Wind"

MPOIC - "Fire!" the sergeant fires the weapon, an electric charge fills
the air, then something goes horribly wrong. A smell of burnt
hair and flesh, muffled cries of the protesters as they create an
ugly smoldering mass of a carbon footprint much like the
spontaneus combustion stories we heard of in our youth.

MPOIC - "What in the SamHill happened Sergeant? I told you Stun!"

SGT - "I am checking on that right now sir, it seems to be, aha I
think I found it yes! here it is sir!"

MPOIC - " Well..........What the @&%!! is it!"

SGT - "A circuit board failure sir, uh let me see ...mmmmmmmm
ah yes , mmmm Oh this explains it, look here sir.."

MPOIC - "Made in China?"

:bnghd:


[edit on 2007/4/7 by JacKatMtn]