Again I have no ability to verify or confirm the provenance of this snippet of discussion but it's the only thing I've ever found that seems to show the other side of the LEMV story:
You forget Northrop had the contract, not HAV Ltd, they were just a sub contractor and spent the funds allocated to them. Which was less than 100 million usd. What did Northrop do with the rest ?? Northrop would not even pay for the various contractors involved in the sub assemblies to fly out and finish the job correctly. It's all history now and it's a good move for the US DoD folks to allow the LEMV to return to Cardington, if their experts had thought Northrop had done such a good job they would have handed the ship to them, which is probably why RZ is so peeved.
To a question about what will be different in the UK:
because they will have the time to fit turbines and install the bow thruster which was not even delivered in time for the first flight. Also all the sub contractors are easily available in the UK for any required mods, like changing the skids for a hoverskirt. It will take time for a "New LTAV era", but the cargo LEMV will be a real good start. There are only 6 designers in the world that understand lifting body aerodynamics and flight control systems. 2 of them work for HAV Ltd, BUT none ever worked for Lockheed, which is why their P791 got binned for demonstrating hybrid dutch roll on approach and their Hale D crashed on first flight.
there are always technical issues with a prototype, particularly when forced to fly before all the systems had been fitted (No bow thruster, so out of C of G limits). The no2 LEMV would have been a lot lighter, as more time would have been available to manufacture a lighter envelope etc. No one is saying that HAV Ltd won't need more time and funding. HAV did a great job with very limited funding and did what a lot a nay sayers said they could not do, in getting a full size stable hybrid air vehicle flying in such a short time frame. What I would like to know is what Northrop did with the funds allocated to RPV flight control, surveillance and ground station equipment?