Digging Through Rockwell Collins Catalog

[straight_stewie]

I know I'm kind of weird, and I find avionics both interesting, and at times, funny. There's some background you'll need for this one though:

Rockwell Collins is an American Aerospace/Defense company. Their primary products are military avionics, they seldom ever sell anything directly to the military, but rather to people who sell flight vehicles to the military. As an aside, if you've ever wondered who makes the baggage carousels at your favorite airport: It's Rockwell Collins. They also made this bad boy:

 For the sake of the joke, it's important to remember that this company primarily provides other defense contractors who build flight vehicles with avionics.

So then there's this thing: 

 

That's a DTU-7100 CompactFlash Data Transfer Unit. According to Rockwell Collins website:

Quote

The DTU-7100 Allows you to quickly transfer files to and from your aircraft or vehicle with the DTU-7100 data transfer device from Rockwell Collins. The device allows you to record and play back the video and audio using industry standard MPEG-2, eliminating the need for storage elsewhere in the system.

Now, I'll admit, I'm not completely finished with my Aerospace Engineering degree, infact, far from it. However, I do believe that there's really only one type of camera on aircraft: The gun camera. And that's the joke. Instead of just coming out and saying it, they beat around the bush: The DTU-7100 exists only to collect gun camera footage. In fact, considering that it requires a DoD security certificate to know that for sure (which I don't), I can just imagine some clueless person sitting at a computer typing out these product descriptions for sometimes highly classified items without any clue as to what they are actually used for.