Perhaps we need our own global positioning system so we don't have to rely on foreigners.
Where's the stirrer icon?
A British Army Watchkeeper drone has crashed near Aberporth, taking the number of crashes involving the unmanned aircraft to five. Local reports indicated that the unmanned surveillance aeroplane, which is controlled remotely from the ground, crashed in a lane near West Wales Airport at 5pm yesterday. The Cambrian News …
So, does it save money on the project if we keep on crashing them?
I very much doubt that. The contract will probably have either a "take or pay" structure that means the payments to Thales and their fellow bunglers are guaranteed regardless of losses (because lord forbid they should lose out if a few were shot down). Or they'll have a "loss of profit" clause if the volume of work declines from that expected, in which case we save a tiny bit, but they make as much money overall.
MoD Procurement is a name associated with deep and abiding incompetence, and with a long and distinguished history of failure. Their amateurish buyers will be no match for the well structured, professional, experienced and heavily incentivised teams of lawyers and technical sales people doing the selling.
The way to "sew up the pocket" would be to cast MoD Abbey Wood into some other dimension of time and space.
As a Yank I don't see what you Brits are complaining about. Any US programme of this type would easily cost 10-50 times as much.
And let's look at the results. For that billion swords (over twelve years), roughly 10% of the drones have suffered unscheduled dis-assembly and are lost. The rest are presumably still flying around. Okay, their actual combat experience is quite limited, but they do appear to be simple surveillance drones and are basically meant to surveil locally, methinks. ;-/
If you are a government setting up the kernel of a huge future fleet of Eyes in the Sky, using a new tech, you will expect teething issues and new models that fix problems encountered in early rounds. A new tech with a ten percent attrition rate over twelve years is not that ugly, and is in fact barely adequate for acquiring decent failure data!
I'd have guessed at a considerably higher failure rate myself...
Knowing a bit about this stuff.
The chances are the 5 lost where all experimental platforms and are sacrificial test beds. (but still funded by MOD)
The other 49 are probably mothballed somewhere or not even delivered yet.
Anyway I hope thats what is happening else its a cock up. and Thales will have a lot to explain to parliament.
"using a new tech"
Remote controlled aircraft date back to the 19th century (yes, seriously), and have been in routine military use since at least WW2. Even this specific model dates back to 1998. It's a regular small plane with long-established design and parts. Whatever clever parts may exist in the electronics (it seems to be utterly standard radar and visible/infra-red optics, but being military they're keeping the full details quiet), the ability to stay in the air should be utterly trivial - this is not some groundbreaking design pushing the limits of new tech, it's about as bog standard and well established as it's possible for an aircraft to get.
huge future fleet of Eyes in the Sky
<Song>
I am the eye in the sky, looking at you
I can read your mind
I am the maker of rules, dealing with fools
I can cheat you blind
</Song>
Somehow, seems appropriate.
[Wanders off searching for that Cask of Amontillado at the Fall of the House of Usher]
Alan Parsons was lamenting the invasion of privacy, I think Muse convey the brutal reality better....
Killed by drones
My mother, my father
My sister and my brother
My son and my daughter
Killed by drones
Our lives between your fingers and thumb
Can you feel anything at all?
Are you dead inside?
Now you can kill from the safety of your home with drones
@PaulW81
Could you go redo basic sarcasm/silliness?
Do you really think there are people that stupid in the world or especially on the register forums?
Try this one if low brow sarcasm isn't your thing.
What do you get when you cross a mosquito with a mountain climber?
Nothing. You can't cross a vector and a scalar.
Thales will replace the ones they crashed free of charge.
* "sure they won't"
Of course they will. Just as soon as the Government pays out the termination fee for the dead ones - a sum that just happens to match the cost of delivering a new one..
I could do this stuff for a living - or at least I could if I got rid of my morals and ethics..
(And who wouldn't want to get rid of Ethics - apart from Bluewater of course)
The answer is simple. What are Thales fairly good at? Trains. Cut the wings off, fit two bogies, the new Watchkeeper Railway Drone. No more unexpected descents into terrain. No need for some foreign global positioning system. No need, in fact, for abroad at all. Just what Mrs. May secretly wants.
West Wales is the manufacturers centre of operations, and currently where most of the flying takes place as the Army don't feel it's ready for service use and Thales are trying to get to a position where they do. So it's more like development flying rather than training.
The Army's main base for it is Boscombe Down as it's conveniently near Salisbury Plain, although they did a lot of training in Ascension Island on the grounds if something went wrong you'd be really unlucky to hit anything.
"although they did a lot of training in Ascension Island "
Bad. The last thing we need is drones being tested near albatrosses. Apart from the fact that albatrosses are beautiful and harmless, they have extended airborne duration, rarely crash, and new ones are generated free of charge to the taxpayer. Someone might draw comparisons.
> the local council was considering whether to approve a "major facelift" at the airport, which is about 144km (90 miles) northwest of Cardiff.
> It has been the main base for Watchkeeper drones for a number of years,
I would suggest that a part of that facelift would be the words
LAND HERE
painted in large friendly letters on the tarmac.
I would suggest that a part of that facelift would be the words
LAND HERE
painted in large friendly letters on the tarmac.
In English *and* Welsh. Assuming that they don't use Google Translate to do it - in which case the Welsh version would probably end up meaning "This is land"..
I wonder why the downvotes. I'm Welsh by birth, and I've flown over Wales enough times to know that it's just lumps.
Lumps and sheep.
Lumps and sheep and angry, red faced men in clapped out Escort L's with 'RS turbo' written on the back in felt tip pen.
I was once behind a Vauxhall Cavalier in Talbot Green (it's in Wales), whose owner had managed, with some deft marker pen wizardry, to change the 'L' into an 'i'.
This is Wales once you get out of the cities.
Thales had the contract for the software for the most-recently-sortof-completed chunk of our LRT (Light Rail Transit) system (mostly-aboveground subway stuff). They are two years late in trying to integrate their stuff into the existing system, and the trains have been running too slow for those 2 years. A minor speed increase a few months ago. The city has set deadlines, and is about to "do something".
So, flying airplanes into the ground does not surprise me.
" The MoD tried to hush those crashes up, saying nothing publicly until the news accidentally leaked at a defence trade show."
So that's five crashes that we know about so far, plus an unknown number of other crashes that haven't yet leaked.
Perhaps they should patch out the lithobraking option in the software.
Are they using these to spy on Brits? I know you guys let them put a gazillion CC cameras in London (which is probably a good idea with all the undesirables there now) but why is the army flying surveillance drones over civilian areas?
You guys put up with alot more of this kind of crap than we yanks would.
I know you guys let them put a gazillion CC cameras in London (which is probably a good idea with all the undesirables there now)
Hasn't helped a jot. There have been 74 murders in 2018 in London, and about 2,000 moped robberies a month. For all the CCTV, the Metropolitan Police appear to have abdicated control of the streets.
why is the army flying surveillance drones over civilian areas?
Because we haven't got a war to go to. But in this case, it's development and training flying, not domestic surveillance. Nobody lives in West Wales (well, a few esteemed commentards do).
You guys put up with alot more of this kind of crap than we yanks would.
Maybe. Looking at what your TLAs have been up to, and the abuse of both process, law and technology by your police, I think that USAians are worse off than we are. At least our domestic surveillance agency (GCHQ) is constrained by both funding and its own incompetence, and our police aren't running routinely armed and busy shooting off like they're at the OK Corral.
"For all the CCTV, the Metropolitan Police appear to have abdicated control of the streets."
The government has abdicated funding the police force, mental health services and social services properly.
You can't blame Labour any more, the Cons have now been mismanaging the economy and foreign affairs for 8 years solid.
The government has abdicated funding the police force, mental health services and social services properly. You can't blame Labour any more, the Cons have now been mismanaging the economy and foreign affairs for 8 years solid.
Well,l if the knob-ends of the Labour party hadn't presided over the UK's share of the 2008 financial crisis, and hadn't pissed all the money up the wall on PFI and fuck-knows-what, you'd have case.
I'd be the first to agree that the Cameron/May governments are utterly incompetent - but to imply that Labour weren't culpable for the state of public finances you'd have to be criminally stupid (and I don't believe you are).
"Are they using these to spy on Brits? "
No.
We, like the rest of the "civilised" world have domestic agencies for that. Separation of army and police, all that jazz.
The Met has taken a leaf out of certain TLAs operations manual, and runs it's spy planes through front corporations with PO Box contact details to avoid having to discuss exactly how much of this targeted spying whatnot goes on.
Luckily there are some seriously beardy plane spotters out there, and a light plane with a camera dome in it's belly is somewhat noticeable. The people who make the camera;s also aren't shy about tooting the horn over their products capabilities, such as ANPR.
It's a technique that is certainly used in the US, and almost certainly by the other five eyes. Exactly how legal certain aspects of it are (stingray) are up for debate, but cops with a camera in the sky are generally accepted as being legal.
"why is the army flying surveillance drones over civilian areas?"
Easements, or it's crown land. I get a form letter from the MoD about my Welsh "farm" where they notify me when they are planning on sending some squaddies through, with who to contact if they fuck something up. Or "accidentally" kill a sheep, and then cook it up, as soldier have done since time immemorial.
They also have a standing notice that they might fly planes over, which is why it's not much good for anything other than subsidy collection. Well, any locals who want to keep their sheep on it can, in exchange for a spot of mutton once a year.
Or "accidentally" kill a sheep, and then cook it up, as soldier have done since time immemorial.
"Sorry sarge, it got in my sights just as I was firing.." (never mind that only blanks were issued and bullets don't generally leave a nice clean slash across the throat..)
"Sorry sarge, it got in my sights just as I was firing.."
The story I heard from my Grampy was that they would nominate some rocks as target practice, and then "discover" the mistake later. Or indeed the sheep was going for the throat, so I had to give it the bayonet....
These days I gather it's part of the training of young officers to explain to a surly Welshman that he's down one sheep, and sort out the appropriate amount of reimbursement-by-form and by brown envelope. Good practice for when you're trying to win hearts and minds.
They also do escape and evade occasionally, where the locals are supposed to not help the runners. The Welsh having the typical amount of respect that one expects for being told what to do by a rupert tend to cook up an extra fruitcake to give out.
From the article:
the airport, which is about 144km (90 miles) northwest of Cardiff.
A rather strange way of describing it. Some might have said it was 33 miles southwest of Aberystwyth or maybe 5 miles east-northeast of Cardigan, or even 5 miles east-northeast of Aberteifi. Because if you've no idea where Cardigan or Aberystwyth are then you probably don't know where Cardiff is, either.
Or the article could even have given a link to a map.
Well, Cardiff is about the only place in Wales the English speaking world has heard of (apart from 'hey, don't you guys have that place with the longest name in the world?' - we don't. That honour goes to Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu), and it's so close to the border it's barely in Wales.
It's as though, when they decided Wales could have its own capital city in 1955, they looked at where it could go so that they wouldn't have to go too far into Wales if they ever needed to visit.
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu is only 85 characters.
In Thai, Bangkok is often called Krung Thep Maka Nakhon, or just Krung Thep. However, the full name is “Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit.”
Which is 169 characters....
OK Dodge Geezer. There was a lul so I found this.
Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit
The city of angels, the great city, the residence of the Emerald Buddha, the impregnable city (unlike Ayutthaya) of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukarn.
Enquiring minds etc. PP My pleasure. I'm here all week, Oh wait. ICON.
" one crew used foam to clean up the resulting fuel spill. "
Aviation firefighting foam is quite toxic - a number of authorities around the world have ordered that it cease being used in training exercises due to problems with the runoff.
(not to mention it being very good at disguising people laying on the ground such that they end up being run over by the firefighting trucks, as happened at SFO)
Drone program: Way over budget, dumb decisions (turning off anti crash programs) while flying during thunderstorms. Hiring poor quality engineers to keep the budget down instead of quality engineers, Lack of communication, and too many decision makers where only one is needed and that person should be an engineer. NOT a politician. NOT a bean counter! And NOT a CEO or President or Vice president who doesn't know squat about engineering or design. Step away from the bully on attitude which is the British way of mucking through things.