As usual, the MoD has been stitched up on price by the Yanks.

But what's happening? We usually buy perfectly serviceable aeroplanes from the US (OK, the batch of ex-USN Phantoms that were held together with paint and filler excepted, but we could have had new F-16 for the same price anyway), then strip out known working equipment and replace it with often unproven, more expensive, "locally sourced" kit instead.

There again, maybe we've been left so far behind in the UAV field, there is no locally sourced kit that fits?