Posted on 07/19/2002 4:36:21 AM PDT by joan
Phoenix, Britain's £300m first unmanned spy plane, is likely to be abandoned after its failure in Kosovo, the only operation in which it has been deployed.
"Phoenix is one of the most controversial MoD programmes of recent years. It was 10 years in development, six years late and now looks as though it will be in service for only seven years," David Laws, Liberal Democrat deputy defence spokesman, who has asked parliamentary questions on the unmanned aerial vehicle (uav), said yesterday.
Twelve of the drones were lost over Kosovo, at a cost of £200,000 each, either through technical faults or hostile fire. They including one which landed intact and was put on display in a Yugoslav museum.
The US asked British forces to establish a satellite datalink so that the Phoenix could transmit real-time images to control centres. Phoenix was not up to the task.
The MoD is tendering for a successor to Phoenix, called Watchkeeper, in a planned £500m procurement programme to provide tactical reconnaissance and surveillance capability for the next 30 years.
According to representatives of the biddersfor the Watchkeeper contract, none of the proposals include a plan to incorporate Phoenix, said Mr Laws. He quoted an official from BAE Systems, the company that makes Phoenix, as saying: "Phoenix is dead."
Mr Laws said: "£300 million, and 10 years of research, for a spy plane used in one operation is a damning indictment of successive Tory and Labour defence management. Phoenix is in fact a white elephant."
The armed forces minister Adam Ingram said: "The Watchkeeper programme will subsume the capability offered by Phoenix."
The Serbs were also very happy to have received its hightech payload. The first thing the Brits asked when Milosevic was forced out was for it back, but it was too late as it had already been sent to Moscow!
The Phoenix
X9
VRN
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