UK Gives Green Light to Watchkeeper UAV
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Britain has given the green light to the Watchkeeper Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Program. The initial August 2005 contract award to Thales UK was worth around GBP 700 million, and the program expected to create or sustain up to 2,100 high-quality manufacturing jobs in the UK. The Watchkeeper platform is based on Elbit Systems’ Hermes 450 UAV platform, and executed via a joint venture.
Watchkeeper will be an important system, working as the likely medium-range mainstay within a complementary suite of manned (vid. ASTOR Sentinel R1) and unmanned (Buster, Desert Hawk, MQ-9 Reaper) aerial Intelligence Surveillance Target Acquisition Reconnaissance (ISTAR) systems. This will make it a core element of the UK Ministry of Defence’s Network-Enabled Capability strategy.
The latest update to this FOCUS Article includes the phase-out of the old and unloved Phoenix drones, and a flight hour milestone on the front lines for the early-deployment version…
- Watchkeeper: Rationale & Concept
- Watchkeeper MK450: The Platform
- Watchkeeper: Team and Program
- Contracts & Key Events [updated]
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