England - Farnborough - British soldiers and Thales Watchmaker UAV

British Army soldiers gather outside the hospitality chalet of aerospace manufacturer Thales. Standing in mid-day sun, the troops are dressed in ISAF desert uniform, alongside a company-built Watchkkeper an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Watchkeeper WK450 is a £800 million contract awarded in July 2005 to Thales to provide the British Army with or all weather, Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) use. It has a weight of 450 kg and a payload capacity of 150 kg, and will have a typical endurance of 17 hours. The MoD's newest and most sophisticated surveillance and targeting drone, the Watchkeeper, is undergoing trials at Aberporth in west Wales. While the arguments over America's policy of "assassination by drone" rage across Pakistan and Afghanistan, fuelling public concern over the cold-eyed automation of warfare, the future of UAVs is quietly taking shape here on the Welsh coast, where there is daily proof that UAVs and manned aircraft can co-exist in British airspace.

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Contained in galleries: Farnborough 2010

British Army soldiers gather outside the hospitality chalet of aerospace manufacturer Thales. Standing in mid-day sun, the troops are dressed in ISAF desert uniform, alongside a company-built Watchkkeper an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Watchkeeper WK450 is a £800 million contract awarded in July 2005 to Thales to provide the British Army with or all weather, Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) use. It has a weight of 450 kg and a payload capacity of 150 kg, and will have a typical endurance of 17 hours. The MoD's newest and most sophisticated surveillance and targeting drone, the Watchkeeper, is undergoing trials at Aberporth in west Wales. While the arguments over America's policy of "assassination by drone" rage across Pakistan and Afghanistan, fuelling public concern over the cold-eyed automation of warfare, the future of UAVs is quietly taking shape here on the Welsh coast, where there is daily proof that UAVs and manned aircraft can co-exist in British airspace.