You can just imagine the conversation between Hammond and the BAES UAV rep…….
Oh yes Phil, we quite agree, the age of the large MPA is long gone. We wouldn’t dream of going down that route.
But this is your lucky day.
We have been developing the next evolution of UAV, just for this eventuality.
We are calling it the Jindivik MRA4!
Oh we have big plans and even bigger bills…..eeeer I mean dreams for this nearly brand new platform.
We have a stock of nearly new airframes and we are going to put new wings on them……yes new wings…..this would not have been considered possible a couple of years ago. What’s more we are going to put in a new engine as well. But not just any old engine……we are developing a warp drive engine – we’ve seen it on the TV, so it must be possible. You’ll be able to get on task before you’ve gotten airborne. It will be truly amazing.
We are also developing, just for you mind, and might I add, at great expense to ourselves (well at least for the time being) a magic telescope that can do everything you want. It can look half way around the world, look through hundreds of feet of water, look around corners (day or night). In fact I am confident that we can tell you that it can do everything you would want it to do – and more.
Of course, we have a special offer on at the moment, seeing as it’s nearly Christmas, if you wanted to order, say 9 of these unbelievable air vehicles we would only charge you for 21 – what a deal.
I tell you what, as you are our best and most gullible customer – I’ll throw in a set of magic genie lamps that will compliment your magic telescope nicely. When rubbed this little fat man appears (looks a little like your friend George, from Number 11) and offers you three wishes. He is preprogramed to ignore questions such as “Can we have a proper MPA”, or “Can we have some trained aircrew with a wealth of MPA experience”, or “can we have a proper MPA base along with a team of dedicated personnel”.
What’s that you say? Contracts? Oh Phillip, you hurt my feelings – don’t we trust each other? You don’t want to waste all your money on expensive lawyers. Tell you what, as a sign of good faith, we can write up the contracts and let our bankers look over them for you……and as you’ve caught me in a good mood, I won’t charge you a penny, not a penny…..you are a very busy man, all you will have to do is sign on the dotted line.
Just one thing…..some of this technology isn’t quite ready yet, so you might have to wait a little while longer. Also, whilst we are on the subject we could use a little advance on the deal, just to ease our cash flow and keep our investors and directors happy.
Don’t worry old boy, we’ve done this all before.
Last edited by INT ZKJ; 10th Dec 2012 at 11:26.