US Air Force Shelves $3B Worth of Brand New Drones

[W.G.Ewald]

Air Force Shelves $3B Worth of Brand New Drones - Yahoo! News

Far from spying on terrorists, more than a dozen high-tech surveillance drones, which together cost the U.S. government more than $3 billion, could soon be sitting in a storage facility gathering dust after top Air Force officials admitted this week the birds still are not as good as the half-century-old spy planes they were designed to replace

 

[indian_sukhoi]

3billion for a dozen drones??

 

[W.G.Ewald]

3billion for a dozen drones??

We are talking about the US military.

But the savings would be $2.5 billlion, so the loss is only $500 million. :-(

 

[asianobserve]

I think you should not only count the worth of the project by its induction into service. Those drones may have lead to development of news systems that could be incorporated to existing weapons. Without embarking on those projects there would simply be no opportunity to develop these new systems (I'm speculating). But I guess this what gives the Americans the edge because they're willing to tolerate mistakes (albeit costly), they just keep on researching and developing new systems... Like what Churchill said, "The Americans will always do the right thing... after they've exhausted all the alternatives."