The Age reports that the military’s robotic Global Hawk spy plane program, originally budgeted at $150 million, has ballooned to $1 billion after losing four of seven prototypes to crashes—a crash rate 50 times higher than the F-16.
Read [TheAge]
Update: Gizmodo reader Andrew Leyden points out, “Please note that the $1 billion figure you quoted is AUSTRALIAN dollars I believe, not US dollars.
Here is the original [SMH] article, and you will see all the citations to Australian defense programs (which would be in Australian dollars).”
Either way, I’m sure that meets or exceeds their ‘crashed robot plane’ budget for this year.
