I guess our human creativity is a double-edged sword – it can be used for great good or great evil, and this time around, model airplanes might be on the ban list in stores (in addition to other kinds of model toys like remote controlled helicopters, I suppose) after a 26-year-old man from a Boston suburb was arrested with charges of plotting to attack the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol being leveled against him. The mode of delivery? No, not the standard issue suicide bomber model, but using remote-controlled model planes that are packed to the brim with explosives.
Rezwan Ferdaus intended to use military-jet replicas that measure anywhere from 5′ to 7.5′ in length, where they are guided by GPS devices and can hit speeds of more than 100 mph. While the threat is legitimate, it might not really take off (pun not intended) in a big way since these aircraft were built to be light and not carry too much load – so you can’t really jam in that many explosives as you’d like without them experiencing flight failure along the way.
Better safe than sorry though – what do you think? Maybe driving a remote controlled tank to stop at checkpoints might be a better idea…
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