Commander to graduating cadets:

"The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea.

They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall

mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by

small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is

clear: To build and maintain those robots. Thank you."

All the money spent on all these fantastically clever new ways to fight and kill people. Wouldn't it be cool if we could just spend some of it on becoming their friends instead??

"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one"...

They should put a white sheet on top to scare the insurgents into thinking it's a ghost so that they don't just blow it out the sky with a well aimed shot.

Amazing, $5.7 million (£3.8 million) for 5 systems!

Off the shelf model helicopter kit (from a good model shop) plus everything needed to get it into the air - less than £1,000. Add to that video capability for, lets say, another £1,000 and you have a somewhat cheaper solution. Christ, for £2k it's a throw away system compared to the T-Hawk. In fact, at £2k a time you could have almost 2000 of them....

Having flown model helicopters myself and as I'm looking for a job at the moment then, for a reasonable salary and a bit of help, I'll build and fly the first AND I'll train others to do the same.

Offers? Seriously, the Register knows how to get hold of me. <GRIN>

ah beaten to it i doth my cap sir

im sure the taliban will welcome their new hoverbot masters with a well placed RPG ;-)

what still no ROTM icon el reg for shame!

Mark Thomas bough a cheap remote control helicopter, mounted a cheap radio camera on the bottom and flew it over a british Amry base where nukes were supposedly no longer being stored.

I think it cost him a couple of hundred quid. And that was several years ago.

The british army should just hire the guy who won Robot wars 5 years on the trot with "Chaos II" and get him to knock something up for £75.

in fact, it's just a matter of time before chinease firm starts knocking something similar out for a tenner and flogging them on ebay.

It's gonna be a bit of a tell when they fly it over loose dirt, and it kicks up a cloud like a leaf blower. Which, actually, leads to a second question--- does it sound like a leaf blower?

More to the point, didn't Han Solo and Chewbacca take one of these out on Hoth in the Empire Strikes Back?

Mine's the fur lined one with built in hood and goggles with the laser crossbow.

I doubt if Mark Thomas's hobbie chopper has the range for forty-five miles or can transmit an encrypted video signal back to the controller. And you also failed to read the bit about how a ducted fan means the T-Hawk can go into enclosed spaces without the danger of the rotor blades hitting anything and crashing the drone.

Having said that, the individual cost seems excruciatingly high, even if as I suspect a lot of that covers clever coms gear rather than just the motor and duct. I can see the advantages for sending the T-Hawk into enclosed spaces, but seeing as it's so pricey I doubt if anyone will risk doing so, which kinda ruins the point. Surely a flight of Robinson R-22s ($240,000 new to the public) with supporting crews would be cheaper, and they can carry real people as well as cameras and sensors, and still be carried around on a medium-sized truck. In fact, my fave carplane the Parajet Skycar would seem to offer even better value, and could roll along the roads under their own steam when not flying ahead to scout for bad guys.

flying cyber-dealybobs (used a technical term there) from "The Terminator" movies? Those would seem to be useful enough that we can disband our militaries and put the robots in charge...wait a second......

You can just see some of the posher bits of the army putting an order in for a brace of Purdeys.

oops, don't go giving the venerable mad Jaquie any ideas there...

anyhow, my thoughts are that this whole line of expenditure is a farce in the face of the thousands loosing jobs, houses and everything. how do gvt get to spend so much money on this?.. oh, forgot, budget (our tax money). nevermind all this bailout nonsense and economic crisis, eh?