George Laidlaw is a novelist and President of the Ottawa Independent Writers.
Man with his inventive brain has been increasing the development of remarkable new electronic gadgets such as ipods, invisible aircraft, and genetic manipulation.
Yet with the advancement of the next newest device it often leads to the question 'what do we do with the old one.
That question and its answer can cause a major embarrassment to both political leaders and military experts.
The Stealth Bomber aircraft F117 or Sly in the Sky is such an example. It gives a short wave radar echo the size of a golf ball, which makes it all but invisible. No wonder it can fly through the night without the enemy of the USA or NATO being able to track it.
This aircraft is a billion dollar bomber that has more gadgets and advanced technology than your girl friend has freckles but in the war with Yugoslavia the invisible aircraft was suddenly shot out of the sky. Why?
Needless to say losing a billion dollar aircraft certainly might make military planners wonder if their pensions were safe.
We in the West are always looking for the best there is and are happy to relegate old model 101 type B Series IV to the waste dump. That waste dump may be a ware house with thousands of 'junked' items that are still not a total loss. Sometimes these outdated items are sold off to Third World countries that couldn't possibly afford our newest gadget and who might not be of the right coloured stripe to have one.
A type of radar (long range) versus short range radar was sold off to several countries unknown to the military experts. Although it wasn't as good as short wave radar it had the ability of tracing the path of these bombers. It's accuracy was minimal, but by using several of these devices together the path could be predicted and it was only necessary to flood the projected flight path with missiles and perhaps a lucky hit might occur.
Oops.... Back to the drawing board.
To read more about this interesting story read MARZIPAN by George Laidlaw www.georgelaidlaw.ca
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