British Watchkeeper drones cannot operate in bad weather and are currently not being used for operational deployments, the Times has reported.
The surveillance drones are reported to be worth a whopping £5 million ($6.28 million) each.
The drones conducted their first flight in 2010 and are based on the Israeli Hermes 450 drone that has been employed by the Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza and Lebanon.
According to the newspaper, however, the British drones are “restricted to operating in certain weather conditions”, with the entire £1.4 billion ($1.76 billion) program being branded by Conservative MP and House of Commons Defense Committee member Mark Francois as an “unmitigated disaster, arriving years late and effectively already obsolescent."
An inquiry by the committee into the procurement process for the drones reportedly determined that the program, which was finished years later than originally anticipated, was complicated by “265 user requirements and 1,910 additional system requirements.”
These new additions to the original design apparently resulted in the drones being overweight, which reportedly was part of the reason several of these UAVs crashed during flights.
Presently, Watchkeeper drones are not being used by the UK for operational deployment, although they are involved in training exercises, the newspaper added.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the UK defense ministry reportedly described Watchkeeper as “a highly sophisticated drone which has accumulated more than 4,000 hours of flying, providing vital information for soldiers on the ground.”
“It has been successfully deployed across the world, including Afghanistan, where it played a crucial protective role for British troops,” the spokesman added.
In June 2022, the Mailreported on a Watchkeeper crash off the coast of Cyprus, highlighting that this type of UAV “has difficulties flying in poor weather conditions.”
The media outlet also mentioned at the time that one Watchkeeper “was lost during a test flight to see how the UAV would cope with 'icing' conditions,” adding that this drone program as a whole “has been beset by problems.”