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For a few years, small children (and me) have had the fun of flying cheap ‘n cheerful RC helicopters around, pretending to be Apache pilots, sometimes with the requisite sound effects. The Army’s decided to get in on the fun, spending some £20 million on an Urgent Operational Requirement for mini-surveillance aircraft. Let’s be honest though – the Army’s buying ittle bittle toy helicopters.
The helicopters measure 8×3.5×2 inches — small enough to fit in the palm of your hand — and weighs just 16 grammes, including the camera. It flies at 22mph, out to a range of 1000m, and can even fly a pre-programmed GPS route on autopilot. It has a controllable camera that the operator can pan around, and the idea is that soldiers take it out on patrol, and use it to peer around corners or in ditches for ambushes and that sort of thing.
It’s a pretty damn good idea, especially for the dense terrain of Afghanistan’s ‘Green Zone’, where ambushes and IEDs are notorious killers. But — and this is a big but — the total programme cost is £20 million. Total number of units delivered? 160, which some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations means that the MoD has paid £125,000 for each little toy helicopter (plus, I assume, the base station). That’s a helluva lot of money, when you consider that the Parrott AR Drone 2.0 does pretty much the same thing (in a slightly bigger package, admittedly), for £300. What do you reckon — is it worth it, or does MoD procurement need a kick up the jacksie? [Gov.uk]
Image credit: Defence Image Database
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Looks like it’ll be shite in anything but perfect weather.
I thought we were in double-dip recession!
Triple dip so far I think and unless some people start throwing cash about we’ll be heading forquadruple dip.
Scary that like.
Only peoples lifes stake nothing important
This, definately not going to help.
I suppose you’ve been in combat and obviously know that first hand?
Yeh, everyday on my ps3
Depends where the choppers are made/designed.
That’s why we need to sell more weapons. It’s the only industry we have left.
We already do, Saudis bought bunch of Eurofighters a while back for 20 million something..
I would like to see how a Parrott AR drone would stand up to a hot sandy desert. These things cost a lot of money for a reason.
Although you just know that somewhere in that £20m its been overinflated so someones sales figures look good.
And what reason would that be?
If they aren’t going to be transparent about spending £125,000 on what ‘appears’ to resemble a small plastic toy helicopter then I think we’re right to question exactly why it cost so much.
Tax payers prerogative I think?
You have a point that they should be more open about it. I think one of the other commenters speculated on reasons why.
I would hazard a guess that unlike a commercial off the shelf thing it isn’t controlled by some terrible means like WiFi.
Could also assume that they actually had to put a lot of research and development into making something that small. I have yet to see anything that small (and I have looked) available.
Gotta say, I think comparing this to an AR drone is like comparing a fiat Panda to a Ferrari.
I can’t imagine that the flight times are going to be drastically different, but the range is huge in comparison to the AR drone. Top speed is about twice as much and these are going to be next to impossible to shoot down.
The technology involved in fitting all of that into such a small body is incredible, and its projects like this that help further the technology that we normal folk get our hands on.
That being said £20m is A LOT of money for a few remote controlled helicopters!
The research is re-usable though, so its not just for the helicopters but the technology learnt in the process…..
If it saves even 1 life imo its money well spent.
i reckon, bit of wind and that thing will be pretty far off it’s original position
Have to remember that anytime you see ‘stupid’ prices quoted for equipment like this or $7,000 for a toilet seat in a submarine, what you’re actually seeing is ‘add-ons’ for off-the-book projects or systems that for security reasons aren’t shown in generally released budgetary figures. (Allegedly)
Most likely what you’re seeing is the cost of micromanagement and indecision by the customer.
The later in the project they change their mind, the more costly it is to remedy.
so more likely they spent an absolute fortune making 1000 of these, and the total cost with development is 125,000 per unit…
i’d like to think that these things fly better than the similar sized units in the shops for £25
You know they will “get lost” while on patrol! haha
Not a gripe at you, Chris, but the general reporting of defence procurement going forward, it’s just worth mentioning here as you’ve cited £125k per toy – In most instances, the individual unit cost is no longer applicable.
Defence procurement has advanced quite a way in the past 70 years, striving to get better value for both the customer, and at the same time trying to maintain income for the supplier, but ultimately shifting the risk of failure to the contractor, not the MoD.
1950/60s – MoD want an aircraft. They spec it, industry delivers for a cost. Aircraft then break down.
“Spares?” [sharp intake of breath through teeth] “That’ll cost ya!”
MoD are billed for more parts and fit them themselves.
1970s/80s – MoD get a little more canny and ask for the spares to be thrown in when they spec the aircraft, but they’re still doing all the maintenance.
1990s/00s – Most recently Tornado & Typhoon, but initially Nimrod MRA4; the MoD actually tell industry what they want to achieve, industry go away and determine what kit the MoD need to achieve that requirement, and sustain a given level of aircraft availability through the 30-40yr life of the contract.
No longer is industry being told to build an aircraft to a spec laid out by the brass, they’re being told to meet a level of service. It’s now on industry’s head to maintain and keep the aircraft working, providing spares, fitting them, in fact pretty much everything other than flying them.
e.g. MoD stumps up £3.6 billion to replace the service provided by Nimrod MR2, and assumes they’ll be getting a 1:1 replacement of 21 MRA4s. Through the development of the contract industry comes up with a plane that means only 9 are needed to do the job that required 21 previously. The total cost of the contract is still £3.6 billion to achieve a goal, not to build x number of aircraft. However, it’s still misleadingly reported as cost per aircraft having risen from £172 million to £400 million.
2010s/onwards – As the MoD are moving more and more towards unmanned systems, it may be that the contract is placed on industry to provide the service entirely.
e.g. MoD or local law enforcement want surveillance on a certain area; rather than give them the kit, train them, etc… it may be more cost effective to just have industry do the work in the most efficient means and pass the data over.
Pass data over <— risky business.
Nah, they’ll just pop it on a table on a train and the MOD can pick it up at the next station,
Not really – there are more than enough secure links available. It’s more likely the MoD will lose the data than industry will
Miniaturisation is very expensive and can exponentially increase costs as size is reduced. You also have a lot of R&D, retooling and testing to pay for which when you order a small number of items it can add up. These contracts often have fixed terms with only options to buy more. That means that the companies have to pay for all of the R&D and manufacturing with that first batch. If you order more the come down significantly in price a lot of the time so the cost for the next 160 could be a tenth that of the originals.
Still doesn’t explain a £125,000 per system price tag?
It does in my view if you have an idea what these kind of systems go for and a realistic view of the economics. You are looking at least £10M in Research and technology licensing alone, another couple of million in software development. Another Million in testing of tech and software. Then another couple in setting up manufacturing e.g.buying hardware, renting facilities, admin costs. You already have spent most of the £20M, then you have to actually manufacture the devices so that means paying highly qualified engineers to put them together and test each one and start over if there are any faults, and for 160 with a short time to deliver means more people. An engineer alone is £50-150K per year, and the company doing the work still has to earn a profit.
Those numbers are just made up but they aren’t unreasonable for the current market. So you see how it all can add up.
If that still doesn’t work out think about it a different way. These things will save the lives of soldiers, a trained soldier and all his equipment is worth a lot more than £125,000. Because these things are so small but effective the soldiers will carry them and use them and they will save lives, it won’t take long before they pay themselves off.
Thanks for explaining a lot the ‘behind the scenes’ stuff up there.
It explains where the money goes, but doesn’t really justify it.
If like someone has already pointed out that there are a number of ‘civilian’ class drone gadgets on the consumer market for a damn sight cheaper, what I would be looking for in justification is what sets this particular £125,000 model apart from those. Without assuming.
Of course it is easy to ‘assume’ that all of that money is in miniturisation, research and tech etc… but exactly what? What new and awesome technology has come from all of this investment?
I agree you can’t really put a price on something that will no doubt save lives, but thats my point exactly. 160 of these things isn’t enough. There is surely need for a hell of a lot more??
And at that price, it’s a bit crippling. I just think (with my obviously limited knowledge of this entire system) we should surely be getting a hell of a lot more for our buck?
What I mean is…
I’d be more impressed if they told me it had thermal imaging, or night vision or could track targets and ‘light them up’ automatically back at the display/user station/handheld device.
Or it was resistant to all forms of typical desert weather.
Or impervious to sand.
Or it was absolutely silent.
Or it was so hardy that even a landrover driving over it wouldn’t break it.
Or it had a tiny dart gun that could fire at people
You know what I mean?
It probably has some awesome features, they just stupidly haven’t mentioned them alongside the £125,000 price tag.
Just from the specs above its at least two or three generations ahead of the available devices on the civilian market. 1Km range along is something pretty impressive, not only do the current civvy systems start to get hair past 100m some are lucky if they can even fly a full radius of 100m circle before the batteries giving out. You also have reliability to think of and many of the civvy devices if used every day in a harsh environment wouldn’t last days let alone months. Plus you have maintenance costs covered in the price and replacements to those 160 as well most likely.
A Parrot AR is also much larger and when you pack additional batteries and gear not really very light. This thing is much smaller and lighter which is a major factor for soldiers already carrying huge amounts of gear. Remember a soldier has to carry his own kit plus potentially another soldier and all of his. It all adds up.
160 isn’t a lot but its enough, we aren’t running as many foot patrols as we used to in Afghan. These things will probably be split with some going to special forces, some to afghan and the rest to Mali. 160 is enough to give high risk units enough of them to use and get a good picture of if they work as intended. If they do work more will be bought and at a reduced price.
Wait what? Some to the Afghans so they can sell it back in black market?
Seriously the pricetag of £125k is a bad joke. If this came in a size of a fly then yes!
You should be getting a lot out for that much buck! They can build UAVs with night/infrared vision that will fly well out of the target range for surveillance.
Fair, fair.
I think i am just desensitised to reality when it comes to tech and it’s actual real world abilities. (Thanks concept brands, movies, computer games and GIZMODO!)
When in reality these features are obviously a real advance in engineering, they still didn’t meet my obviously high expectation levels for that price range.
The chances are that the drones themselves cost £10,000 each in parts and assembly. The work done in designing and developing them to get down to actually building them is what will cost the rest of the money.
It’s exactly the same as the new Routemaster buses developed for TfL – £11.37 million for 8 of them doesn’t equate to £1.4 million per bus, it’s £2.64 million to build them (£330k each), and the rest to design them.
If one of these things helps keeps just one of our fantastic armed forces alive, then it’s worth every penny, no?
I completely agree.
But wouldn’t you prefer one for every patrol instead of only 160?
Interesting how people are commenting on the £125k price tag when they know absolutely nothing about the technology and expertise required to build or create a product or what the £20million contract actually entails. First from a small amount of research it’s a 10yr contract which will require a number of technologies implemented into the product over that time period
So it isnt 20 mill for 160 RC helicopters but a reconaissance solution to save lives
You can’t let the facts get in the way of a good rant!
Or at least I think that’s the motto at the Daily Mail….
The £20 million contract was first laid out in 2008; I’m not saying that the drones should cost the same as an AR Drone or anything like that, and that the unit cost isn’t £125,000; but still, it seems an insane amount of money to deliver a product that isn’t a million miles removed from something that’s commercially available.
No one has had a problem with finding and supplying ‘a reconaissance solution to save lives’.
And if you actually read most of the comments it was exactly because ‘they know absolutely nothing about the technology and expertise required’ that they have made the comments in the first place… To FIND OUT.
Forgive me for questioning something I had no idea about so that I could LEARN. And forgive me for thinking that £125k for one of these kits is a little unreasonable given the information given in the article gives no real information to help explain exactly why they cost so much.
Lets hope next time an advertising campaign is released by the government or some other creative work (My own area of ‘expertise’) comes out with a budget you don’t understand you have someone as wonderfully patient and arrogant as yourself to be as understanding and explain the process for you.
You essentially wrote “but it’s 125k” 3 or 4 times. I took the time to do a bit of digging rather than be lazy and read one article. Im not being arrogant at all, im just not lazy and would rather take the time to research than just rant about something.
If that makes me arrogant so be it. Just find it funny people riddiculing the price tag
Please point out exactly where I wrote “but it’s 125k” three or four times?
You’ll find that I explained why I thought it was a heavy price tag and asked for an explanation.
I actually usually find that Giz commentors are quite handy with this sort of knowledge and expertise and willing to share. I’m not lazy, I was just stoking the usually keen commentors to exhibit their wisdom.
Compared with your approach to just attacking peoples already self admitted ignorance. The arrogant comment is aimed at exactly this. Instead of actually explaining the price tag like others have bothered to do, you just have a dig at them for thinking it’s ridiculous.
He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes, he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever?
If you find it so funny people ridiculing the price tag then explain why you find that so ridiculous? The others have bothered to explain why.
The initial run has worked out at 125k a unit, that may sound high but the first run of any new product/technology is always going to be far, far higher than than any subsequent production.
There’s R&D, tooling costs etc to take into account. Just look at how much the the development of a new processor costs.
125,000 vs £5 for a mirror on a stick…
cause lets face it, a mirror on a stick will work in any weather, doesn’t require special training / recharging
and for this price, can be given to every person in the field.
And is of no use when looking for buried command wires or timing markers which are far more easily (sometimes only) assessable from the air
This isn’t comment postulating; It’s what I do for a living
I tried the ‘mirror on stick, reconnaissance, mk1′, and you’re right it is cheap and simple. Only problems I had with it were having to carry the 100m extension rods, and how hard it was to make out anything in the mirror once I pushed it beyond 15m due to the small nature of the mirror and a lack of active stabilization. I think these little drones will do a much better job, and soldiers won’t get 7 years bad luck if they break it.
Not to mention that the Army is fighting against insurgents armed with RPGs. If they see light reflecting from the mirror, they can just fire the RPG towards the light and it will kill everyone in the room/around the corner/etc. Splash damage.
Saving a life? Considering we have no business to be there in the first place
that simply does not make sense. Starting price for small R/C helicopters about £25 so even allowing for improved quality, say a hundred or two at most not £125k.!
Damn; why didn’t MOD Procurement just look at internet comments for the answer? a £25 toy is exactly the same as a miniature helicopter with 1KM range that transmits encrypted video while being controlled over an encrypted channel, in a hot, dusty environment with limited maintenance available.
As for your first comment;
So because our armed forces are being used to try and bring stability to a shithole where you’ve decided they shouldn’t (presumably from research on wiki and circle-jerk youtube videos) that they don’t deserve protecting?
If the MoD had procurement officers who had some sought of business background they might be able to get things cheaper!!!!!
Problem is most companies supplying the MoD are aware that they can charge anything and still get paid!!!!
Put civilians in charge of procurement and the Defense Budget will rocket down!!!!!!
£125,000 for a toy, me thinks not.
i bet the units are fairly cheap, i bet the control base costs more.. and thus giving them to lads in the field will be ok. would like to see how they fly in high winds.. i take mine outdoors and it just runs away.. lol
The Parrott AR Drone 2.0 may not be suitable for the mission requirements but I reckon the cost of modifying the design of the Drone would be a hell of a lot cheaper than a custom build. How much can dust/dirt/water and general weather proofing cost for the AR Drone. Sometimes consumer tech is the way to go (or at least modified consumer tech). Bespoke will always cost mega wonga.
I wonder what the flight time and charge is on it?
Few points:
- Single axial helicopters without a balance bar are very very unstable, so need clever electronics to stabilise. One benefit over co-axial (two counter rotating blades found in toys) is at least double battery life.
- The BBC has a video of this in flight. The wind initially takes it, but it soon recovers and maintains stable hover. Some very sophisticated gyro & gps tech in there.
- Range is 1000m, speed is 22mph – this is several generations better than the £25 hobby type units.
- Heli & controller are ruggedised / sealed – to stop ingress of sand/dirt and withstand being dropped (expensive).
- Compared with mass-produced ‘toys’, this thing is in a different league.