The Airforce Gets a Batman Utility Belt

Engineers are looking for ways to lighten the load on its airmen and try to give them high tech gadgetry. So they want to give them a utility belt with a “Bathook” that will steal power from an overhead powerline.

From The Escapist here:

A program started by the U.S. Air Force focuses on making soldiers as versatile as the caped crusader.

Enter the U.S. Air Force’s “BATMAN” program, which aims to develop new equipment so that soldiers are as capable as Batman himself. BATMAN stands for Battlefield Air Targeting Man-Aided kNowledge.

Sheesh, geeks really have taken over everything, right?

The program uses the “human chassis” as its Batsuit, with engineers focusing on how to make it more agile by moving equipment to less straining areas of the body. BATMAN is pioneering the use of chest mounted computers and speech recognition, in addition to batteries that get lighter as they’re used.

The most Bat-like object is the “Bat Hook,” the nickname used for the Remote Auxiliary Power System which has a hook that can be thrown onto power lines, with a razor inside that will cut tap into them. Power can then be siphoned from the hook through a wire that will recharge a soldier’s devices, if necessary.

There is a 4th grade level video here explaining the whole thing. But I see several problems with it. First, you can’t cut the thing back down. Second, you will short out the power to wherever you put the tap. Third, since it only works on the 240 volt lines that run the last hop from the utility pole to a home, why not just enter into the home and use their power to charge whatever you need?