Hood Tech Vision Plays a Supporting Role in New Movie Captain Phillips Hood Tech Vision imagers provided

the photographic information of Captain Richar d Phillip's lifeboat in the events portrayed by the recently released movie, Captai n Phillips. Hoosd River, OR, November 06, 2013 -- Hood Tech Vision imagers provided the phot ographic information of Captain Richard Phillip's lifeboat in the events portrayed by the recently released movie, Captain Phillips. From: Hood Tech Corp Vision, Inc., Hood River, Oregon Date: November 5, 2013 Subject: Hood Tech Vision Plays a Supporting Role in New Movie Captain Phillips Contact: Dr. Andy von Flotow, Hood Tech Corp Vision, Inc., 541-387-2288, andy@ho odtech.com Movie-goers are familiar with the Navy SEALs; theyve appeared in dozen of films , including the recently released "Captain Phillips", starring Tom Hanks. Howeve r, many people got their first look at a relatively new and very effective piece of military technology in "Captain Phillips", when the Navy orders the launch o f Hood Tech Vision imagers carried aboard a small UAV. Hood Tech imagers provide d the information needed to precisely locate the lifeboat, Phillips and his capt ors. The Navy uses Hood Tech imagers on UAVs as one of their tools to take pictures t o combat piracy. US Navy About a decade ago, the US Navy began using UAVs and Ho od Tech Vision imagers for surveillance, providing a unique perspective on enemy activities. Fortunately, the destroyer USS Bainbridge had such equipment on boa rd, and was able to use it to rescue Captain Phillips. While larger drones employ their cameras for target acquisition, among other uses, and have become the focus of public attention, small UAVs and their imagers hav e not received the same level of scrutiny.Nor do the imaging systems on board th e smaller UAVs get the level of publicity given to the powerful systems on highflying drones. But the smaller UAVs need not fly nearly so high as the larger dr ones to be invisible and quiet enough to accomplish major portions of the practi cal work of day-to-day reconnaissance and surveillance. The successful assault on the pirates by members of the SEAL team would have bee n much more difficult without the precise information provided to them by Hood T ech Vision imagers and the small UAV that carried them. Their presence led to a successful conclusion to the hijacking, when Navy SEALs were able to rescue Capt ain Phillips from the pirates. And based on that real-life action, Hood Tech Vis ion earned a minor role in the movie's story. Hood Tech Vision imagers, mounted on a UAV launched from the US Navy's destroyer U SS Bainbridge, monitored the life boat that carried Somali pirates and American cargo ship commander Richard Phillips in 2009. US Navy When Hood Tech began prod ucing 800-gm video-camera turrets in 1998, it enabled an entirely new class of s mall unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Hood Technology Vision now designs and man ufactures imaging and video processing systems at the highest level of the Natio nal Imagery Interpretability Rating Scale (NIIRS): level 9. Hood Tech matches im proved stabilization technology with electro-optical lenses that zoom up to 170 times. This results in a field of view of 0.3 degrees, in a package that weighs less than six kg. Designed for manned and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), boats, land vehicles, a nd stationary mounts, the reliability and utility of Hood Tech's daylight and ther mal imaging products has been demonstrated over more than 700,000 hours of use i n a variety of temperatures, humidity, dust, smoke, haze, and other environmenta

l factors (http://www.hoodtechvision.com). Dr. Andy von Flotow founded Hood Technology in Hood River, Oregon in 1992. Alon g with the design and manufacture of stabilized imaging systems, Hood Tech: Develops, tests, and manufactures launch and retrieval systems for UAVs Operates controlled launch and quiet wind tunnel test facilities Monitors blade vibrations in industrial turbines and jet engines, including diag nostic methods that predict possible future failures. The Hood Tech web site is: www.hoodtech.comsss Contact: Andy von Flotow hoodtech.com 3100 Cascade Hood River, OR 97031 541-387-2288 ken@hoodtech.com http://www.hoodtech.com