(NSI News Source Info) FARNBOROUGH, England - July 23, 2010: Makers of unmanned military planes said cuts in defense spending and Western troop withdrawal from Afghanistan would not hit demand, and they stood to benefit from fewer boots being on the ground in the future.Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or drones, are used extensively in Afghanistan. Some companies exhibiting their UAVs at the Farnborough Airshow this week said they are likely to benefit from a general drive to let robots do dangerous or boring work, taking soldiers out of harm's way.
"(Cuts) will always have an effect ... but intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance tends to be the first thing deployed before a battle begins and the last thing before it ends," Ed Walby, Northrop Grumman's business development direct for the Global Hawk, told Reuters.
"In theory, something like a Global Hawk should do well in a budget tightening," he said on the sidelines of the airshow.
The Global Hawk has been used by the Pentagon in Afghanistan since 2001 when U.S. and Afghan forces ousted the Taliban in a military operation following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
Unlike General Atomics' Predator, which is used extensively in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the high-altitude Global Hawk is unarmed and is primarily used to collect satellite and infrared images of land.
The Global Hawk also costs significantly more than the Predator, with a price tag of at least $30 million, something which Walby defended on grounds that it lasts for many years, making it less disposable than a Predator.
Both Washington and London have said they want their troops out of Afghanistan within the next five years and U.S. President Barack Obama sees his troop withdrawal timetable starting as early as next year.
The scale-down by NATO's top two contributors in the conflict does not faze France's Thales (TCFP.PA) either, which is the only company making drones for Britain's Defence Ministry (MOD).
Thales has developed the Watchkeeper drone for the MOD and expects it to be used in Afghanistan from next year. At least six of its Hermes 450 UAVs are leased to the MOD in Afghanistan.
http://defense-technologynews.blogspot.com/2010/07/dtn-news-airshow-drones-set-to-gain.html
No comments:
Post a Comment