UK chief of the defence staff, Adm Sir Michael Boyce, last week told the parliamentary Defence Select Committee that the UK will consider arming its unmanned air vehicles. "I see it as an attractive thing to explore," he said. The Ministry of Defence is expected this month to select two of the four teams bidding for the Watchkeeper programme to continue into the next study phase.
Source: Flight International
The maker of uncrewed aircraft received an additional $9 million from the US Air Force Research Laboratory to continue development work of the experimental Off-Board Sensing Station jet, believed to be the basis for General Atomics’ bid for an autonomous aircraft capable of supporting crewed fighters.
A US think tank contends that drones will be critical to defending Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack and makes several recommendations for developing this capability.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) and Lockheed Martin are incorporating a Net-Enabled Weapons (NEW) capability into the MQ-9B SeaGuardian unmanned air vehicle (UAV).
