Good to see the Times c0ck it up again!
At present the ministry leases Reaper UAVs from General Atomics, of the United States, for use in Afghanistan
They were purchased outright in 2007 under Foreign Military Sales for UOR!!!
Right, onto the "Bandwidth Naysayers" - satellites are not the only answer and Line Of Sight (LOS) comms on other frequencies. See how they did it here, in the UK, first:
Ministry of Defence | Defence News | Equipment and Logistics | Pilotless passenger jet flown remotely by RAF in world first
LOS with a manned aircraft flying 3-500nm away does not give latency issues (not that 1.5 secs (max) with Geo Stationary Satellite is that big an issue anyway for most applications!). Furthermore, the latest micro-satellites in NEO from UK manufacturers could be provide a better solution or the 60,000ft balloons also already pointed out.
So why bother? You don't have to use the satellite bandwidth looking for downed aircrew's locator beacons when they could be something more useful (like flying UAVs!). You don't have to have a mini rescue package of A-10s, MH53s and Apache/Cobras on standby. You don't have to run the risk of having your aircrew paraded on telly. You don't have to support an expensive life support system on an aircraft.
The bottom line - for every expense generated by UAVS there is a saving elsewhere.
Oh, and a Predator or Reaper costs about the same as it does to train one of Beagle's cheaper alternatives (pilots?) - the difference being that you should get 20-25,000 flying hours from Pred/Reaper and I don't know many combat pilots with that many hours! Training a UAV pilot is significantly cheaper than training a manned aircraft pilot - ask the Royal Artillery who are doing fine with the Hermes 450 - shock horror!
Your choice, ladies and gents - join the "Luddites" or embrace the next step in aviation?
I, for one, will not be joining the "let's smash the loom" brethren.
B Word
