Rising fuel and
maintenance costs led Santa to pursue the operation of an Un Santa Vehicle, or a
USV for his yearly present deliveries. Using the basic "General Atomics
Predator" design, a few minor tweaks were added, such as chimney location
software, and this would allow Santa to deliver his presents all from the
comfort of an indoor office.
Click on
images below to see larger images
The test flights showed
great promise, and Santa was planning the use it for the first time in
2009, but a series of inexplicable fuel contamination incidents involving
reindeer and the hacking of the direct video feed by disgruntled Elves
sympathetic to the soon to be unemployed reindeer led Santa to shelve the
"Polar Predator" for the 2009 Christmas Season. Hopefully, once
the data is encrypted, he'll resume operations with his first Remotely
Piloted Vehicle.
I used the Accurate
Miniatures version of the RQ-1 Predator. Assembly was easy, as was the paint
scheme. Red. I'm lazy...it's small...so red it was!
The figures and "Reindeer"
came from Preiser and ModelPower, and are in Ho (1/87 scale). I think Santa is
wondering if perhaps Mrs Claus should be wearing a slightly longer skirt...
Alvis 3.1
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