British troops lose their seventh drone off the coast of Cyprus
A £ 30 million British Army drone, difficult to fly in bad weather, crashed into the waters off Cyprus.
On May 29, when he plunged into the sea during a regular training flight, he crashed during the flight from RAF Acrotiri in Limassol.
Watchkeeper was first put into service in Afghanistan in 2014.
However, the tech platform crashed at least seven times, two were lost off Wales and one crashed on landing.
One was lost in Test flight Find out how the UAV deals with “icing” conditions.
Aerial surveillance platforms are plagued by problems, with budgets skyrocketing from £ 800m to over £ 1.4bn.
According to the manufacturer Thales, the system can be deployed within two hours.
Some fleets have been used to monitor migrants across the strait.
Tory backbencher Mark Francois has expressed anger at the recent loss of the aircraft.
He tells The Sun: The system, which went into service a few years later, has been plagued by problems.
“Still, almost every day in Ukraine, we see other drones successful.”
According to MoD, unmanned spacecraft host a variety of sensors, including: Electro-optics Infrared full-motion video day / night camera, synthetic aperture radar, and moving target pointing radar.
In a previous crash, the operator turned off the drone’s autoland feature when it was unable to land due to bad weather.
This also removed some safeguards and crashed Halfton’s surveillance platform.
According to some accident reports, “all-weather aircraft” can easily be covered with bamboo in fog, rain, snow and gusts.
| £ 30 Million Thales Swatch Keeper | |
| length | 6.5m |
| Wingspan | 10.9m |
| Cruise speed | 77kts |
| payload | 150kg |
| Power | Wankel rotary engine |
| range | 150km |
| Altitude | 16,000 feet |
| Sensor range | 200km |
Following this latest crash, further investigation will begin. (Source MailOnline)
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