[forbes]

$20,000,000 for 160 units. $125,000 each. Slightly more expensive than the remote control helicopters you buy as toys. If this number is correct, I would love to know what justifies that amazing cost per unit.

EDIT: Jeebus, it is actually 20 million pounds.

[eliben]

That's a simplistic way to look at things. As others mentioned, there's of course R&D. But there's also a huge difference between military-grade hardware and your hobby kit. Would you rely on the latter with your life? To work reliable in all conditions? To provide an encrypted video stream to a special control unit?

[Unosolo]

This is the case of economic stimulus through military spending in addition to hidden high-tech subsidy on taxpayer's tab. And redistribution of wealth, if you wish.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to do any amount of "crucial R&D" that will eventually be sold to taxpayers irregardless of outcome? Every big corp manager's dream.

It doesn't matter if the thing works extra reliably or not: an average lifespan of the battlefield equipment is measured in hours. At a significantly lower costs these copters could be disposable suggesting an entirely different patterns of tactical use.

Apart from the redistribution of wealth from the taxpayers' pockets into the pockets of elites the military spending is "no questions asked" then compared to social projects. Taxpayer's either won't care at all or will come up with reasoning such as "military grade means X1000 the civil costs".

[GiraffeNecktie]

Meh. Still sounds like an absolute bargain for a government project which always entails tons of overhead starting with a complex and time consuming procurement process, project management, auditing, vacations, management changes, political spin doctoring, competing priorities, etc etc.

And then it's military on top of that, which means ruggedized equipment, security and lots of field testing.

[hartror]

R&D.

The production cost of the units is likely quite reasonable but the cost of developing and testing the system is what cost ₤20mil.

[3amOpsGuy]

Begs the question though, what exactly are they doing during R&D?

About 2 years ago i was building comparable devices for around £285 GBP each. Today i can do the same (thanks to cheaper lighter parts and experience on my part) for slightly over £110, that could be reduced for bulk builds.

My R&D costs were 2 weeks worth of my evenings reading and planning.

You can buy a commercially developed equivalent with better flight stability than the model they've produced (their design is inherently more unstable - and thus agile, and possibly slightly quieter) for under £60 delivered, video reception equipment is a separate purchase at £30.

[gallamine]

You should consider that most (all?) of the tiny RC equipment comes straight out of China. Given that, I suspect that they had to build the thing from the ground-up. Did you do everything from choosing materials to designing your own gearbox?

[rubyrescue]

except that theirs probably (hopefully) is not (easily) jammable and the signal is not (hopefully/easily) interceptable...

[3amOpsGuy]

Hopefully!

Although i reckon even the common kit that's been available to consumers for the past few years could be tricky to jam without concerted effort:

http://www.futaba-rc.com/technology/fasst.html

I.e. to jam this frequency hopping requires than you either a) figure out what channels to jam at what time or b) saturate the full bandwidth.

If you can do either of those, you'd probably be better jamming the voice comms than RC helis. Not sure though.

[rdl]

The frequency hop rate for commercial stuff is pretty low.

[dbaupp]

Presumably the military has met (and solved) this problem already, so it's just a case of getting the RF equipment small enough.

[Jplenbrook]

R & D, ughhh hum, I mean payoffs.