The CIA’s amazing bots

[wraggster]

http://hackadaycom.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/dragonfly1.jpg?w=450&h=300When you have a virtually unlimited budget, you can pull off some amazing things. This has become most evident recently as the CIA has been showing off some of its old tech (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciagov/). That dragonfly you see above is near life-size and actually flies. They hired a watch maker to build a tiny internal combustion engine to run it. That alone is pretty amazing, but this thing was actually flying in the 70′s. Upon further inspection of the wings (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciagov/5416228423/in/photostream/#/photos/ciagov/5416228423/in/photostream/lightbox/), we actually have no idea how this sucker is supposed to fly. Despite our skeptical viewpoint, you can see a tiny clip of it flying after the break. You can also catch a video of “charlie” the robot catfish.
[via Botjunkie (http://www.botjunkie.com/2011/02/09/this-robotic-dragonfly-flew-40-years-ago/)]
Read the rest of this entry » (http://hackaday.com/2011/02/10/the-cias-amazing-bots/#more-34665)

[VampDude]

There was mention of something like this in Jesse Ventura's Conspiracy Theory.

I think it flies via being shot, the CIA have been playing with flies and other insects for the past three or more decades.