The image changed to show the anchor back at his studio desk.
"Somewhere between design flaws and manufacturing flaws lies the explanation for NanoLance Guide's decreasing quality standard. Just a couple of years ago, this particular device scored five stars on consumer satisfaction, best in class for reliability in the last year's Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show, and overall best performance as indicated by our consumers. Today we can only award it 4.1 stars, a significant loss of prestige for this proud manufacturer. With the hope that this product will soon regain the superstar status it lost, we are rooting for the NanoLance Guide to make a comeback."
A ticker appeared at the bottom of the screen, displaying an email address.
"Remember, for any product or service quality concerns, our email address is shown below. From Ted's Consumer Central, I am Harry Hosteen, always on your side."
…66
Alex had expected higher security measures at Mackenzie Air Field. Just stating her name at the front entrance seemed to have been enough. She was led into a small meeting room, whose dirty windows were facing Highway 98, the place where the disaster had struck a couple of weeks before.
The door opened, allowing two young men to step through.
"Lieutenant Donald Cohen, ma'am," the first one said.
"Lieutenant Barry Jennings, ma'am, a pleasure to meet you."
"Alex Hoffmann, director of infrastructure with NanoLance."
They were so young, so unbelievably young. She studied their faces in amazement. When did they even have time to complete flight training?
"Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today," she opened the conversation. "As you might guess, NanoLance would like to get some more details about the incident that happened here," she said, pointing at the window facing Highway 98. "I'd like to understand from you what happened that day and what your perception was about the cause of the incident. I would also like to know more about how these drones are operated on your end."
"Well, it's simple to operate them, ma'am," Cohen said. "We see on our screen the images captured by the drone's cameras. We have a joystick panel, about this big," he continued, indicating a shape and size with his hands, "and we control the drone's flight from there. All we need to see to be able to control the UAV's flight appears on the control panel's screens. We make it take off, fly, change altitude, attitude, and direction, operate onboard cameras — the sensor array — and launch weapons."
"Tell me a little about the weapons launch, how does that happen?"
"Part of the imagery we receive is an infrared view. We pick up heat signatures from people and equipment, such as motor vehicles, missile launch sites, mostly anything that heats to operate. If we're guiding a combat drone, it will transmit this imagery and we decide which targets we're gonna hit."
"So the drone doesn't fire on its own?"
They both chuckled lightly, looking at each other for a split second.
"No, ma'am, it's always a human operator who decides when the weapons are launched."
"Then tell me please, what do you think went wrong that day?"
Neither responded for a few seconds, looking at each other.
"The thing is, ma'am, we don't know," Cohen said. I was bringing the drone in for landing, after a mission with the Coast Guard over the Gulf of Mexico waters. The drone needed course adjustment; it had the wrong vector for the approach.
Alex blinked when she heard the word "wrong."
"Oh, nothing was wrong at that point, ma'am," Cohen clarified. "The vector was wrong for the approach — the runway is at this angle, and the drone is approaching at this angle," he said, making wide gestures with his arms. "Happens on every landing. All pilots have to correct approach vectors, so they are perfectly aligned with the runway."
"I see. OK, let's continue."
"The drone's vector was 30, our runway is 350, so that required me to change course by making the drone turn. Again, nothing out of the ordinary."
"30? 350?" Alex asked.
"Degrees. Heading. It's the angle between the drone's direction of movement and true north. Or the runway's angle with true north. The drone needed to change its heading from the 30, coming from the gulf, to 350, and align with the runway for final approach."
"Got it, thank you."
"So, I was starting to turn," Cohen continued. "Nothing was out of the ordinary at that point. But then the drone, despite my control, stopped turning and resumed flying straight. I remember saying, 'What the hell?'"
"He did, I remember him saying it too, 'cause that's how I knew something was wrong, and I turned to see what was happening," Jennings added.
"Then," Cohen continued, "I started trying to see if movement in the joystick correlated with any change in the UAV's direction. I was testing the joystick's responsiveness, and I wasn't getting any for a while. For a few seconds, the joystick completely failed to control the drone."
"Then what happened?" Alex asked.
"The weirdest thing. As I was playing with the joystick to see if I could get any response from the drone, well, I suddenly got it. A response, that is. The drone resumed obeying the joystick control, and I had to compensate in a hurry to bring it to the needed heading."
"Why the urgency?"
"When the drone resumed its connection with the joystick, I was in the middle of testing the joystick by pushing it to the extremes of all possible motions, so I was abruptly transmitting extreme course changes. If I hadn't instantly corrected the course after I noticed it had become responsive again, I would've crashed the UAV in the Gulf, within seconds. In retrospect, I wish I had."
"That means you were able to restore the drone's responsiveness to the ground controls?"
"For a few seconds, yes," Cohen answered.
"That's where it gets weird," Jennings said.
"After a few seconds of responsiveness, in which I was, again, applying the course corrections to bring the drone in for final approach, the UAV lost it again and resumed a zero bank angle flight."
"Zero bank angle?"
"It's when an aircraft is not turning, the wings are level, it's not tilted, just flies straight," Jennings explained.
"You're saying the drone lost connection with ground control a second time?" Alex asked. This was getting interesting.
"Yes, that's what I mean," Cohen continued. "For a few seconds, it was responsive; then again, it wasn't anymore. Then it was responsive again, and then we lost it one more time. It was coming in and out of connection with ground control or something like that. At that point, Jennings was running for help, trying to find our commanding officer, and I was desperately trying to get the drone under control. By the time anyone came, and after a series of under control — out of control — episodes, we saw on the screens that it was heading for the mainland, under the wrong heading, and flying too low. The drone was, at that time, completely unresponsive to any of the ground controls. Seconds later, it was all over," Cohen said, dropping his voice to a whisper.
"You see, ma'am," Jennings said, "we took apart the control panel in the room, trying to figure out what went wrong. The technicians said that the ground control panel was working correctly, and that something went wrong either with the drone's navigation controls or with the comlink between ground control and the UAV. Both of us are beating ourselves up over what happened. Did we screw anything up? I seriously doubt it. We weren't even playing with self-guidance that day."