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| BAE Taranis |
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Northrop Grumman RQ-180 UAS Stealth Drone |
For over a decade, American defense contractors have dominated the business of building unmanned aerial vehicles -- "drones" in the popular parlance -- for the military. And not just our military. When France wanted to beef up its robotic air force last year, for example, it called General Atomics and ordered a fleet of Reaper drones with a price tag of $1.5 billion.
Australia plans to spend hundreds of millions of its own dollars to acquire MQ-4C Triton drones from Northrop Grumman. Why, even the United Kingdom relies on U.S. drones for air cover in Afghanistan.
However, the U.K. is taking steps to "declare its independence" from America today by building a drone of its own.
Earlier this year, major U.K. defense contractor BAE Systems (NASDAQOTH: BAESY ) let slip a few details about its new combat drone, giving analysts a glimpse at the plane's size and shape, and predicting that when complete, it will be "the most advanced air system [that the U.K. has] ever conceived."
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