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Can it actually be true that the Wasp MAVs cost $291,000 each???

Posted by Chris Anderson on April 7, 2010 at 9:55pm
According to Defence Tech:

"The Air Force is asking for $3.2 million to purchase 11 WASP micro air vehicles – those wicked little Aeorvironment throwable drones that peek over the next ridge. The Air Force says the drones will allow:

Battlefield Airmen to rapidly adapt to the dynamic war fighting environment of the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO). The system provides increased situational awareness in a combat environment, enables ground-based Battlefield Airmen to find and track time-critical targets, and provide bomb damage assessment and force protection for forward-deployed troops."



That's $291,000 each. Can this possibly be right?
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  • Jason April 11, 2010 at 10:21pm
    I work for one of the top five military contracting companies on tactical networking systems, what you have to understand here is there's a lot more going on behind that price tag than people think. I don't work on anything UAV related (other than my own), but I have seen the Army UAV's while out in the field. They are more or less glorified model airplanes, but some important things that make them different are in the things most people overlook. I can go buy a 900mhz video tx and rx for around $150, plus a 520line camera for around another $100. Now in the Army version the video link runs on UHF bands that are assigned to military use, so they are pretty much free to blast the signal at 100mw or 5W+. From looking at a video feed on their ground station, the camera resolution looks much higher than the stuff hobbyists have access to (think high end security camera). The pilot and ground crew have their gear for flying and watching the video feed, but other units on the field have a laptop with a video receiver so more than one combat unit can see what the UAV sees. Also that video feed is encrypted at secret level with crypto keys that change for every mission, the crypto devices are NSA grade and certified by them. Same goes for the radio link, the radio commands are encrypted so you can't just hijack the plane by flipping on a second radio using that channel.

    The planes are around .40 size gas, nothing special there, just a stable airframe for endurance rather than speed with removable wings for transport. Ground station is a few cases of gear including laptops, controls, spare parts, and in some cases a portable satcom link to relay video outside the operating area of the UAV back to a larger base or even back to a base in the US. To give you an idea how neat it is, I can go get on the Army secure net in North Carolina, pull up a list of live feeds being sent in from all over the world, and when I click on one I get a live stream of what that UAV is sending back if it's out in a training area 10 miles away or 6000 miles away in Iraq tracking insurgents. That mostly goes for Predators as they are ALWAYS out lurking around, but if any of the smaller UAV's are broadcasting on a satcom link I can watch those as well.

    Those UAV's are like any other military contract. Typically there is a request for an item such as a new UAV design, a program manager is formed, big military contracting companies bid on the project, someone wins the bid, from there an entire program is formed and delivered. This includes everything from R&D, production runs, testing/improvements, spare parts, training, support, etc.

    So with all that being said...the price tag isn't that hard to believe. There's a lot of smart people and some high end technology most people don't even know existed to make all this work. Needless to say some of it is still overpriced, but that's how it goes. End result to all this is the US military has so many cool toys that if a "real" war broke out tomorrow there's too much of it to take it all with us. Give it 5-10 years and UAV's will rule the battlefield, it's impressive and scary at the same time.
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  • Thomas Trostel April 9, 2010 at 3:10am
    If you want a fair comparison you want to separate non-recurring costs from production costs. Remember, for commercial off the shelf products, the cost of R&D and setting up the production line for something are spread over thousands if not millions of units. If you only want to make 11 ... well .... pretty much anything becomes expensive!
  • Jack Crossfire April 8, 2010 at 4:49pm
    Futaba S3102's jumped from $20 to $40 since last year. Governments print money.
  • Moderator
    Brian April 8, 2010 at 4:41pm
    It's not just the air frame and electronics either. The "package" includes stuff like the pelican case in which the parts are transported. The non-static (ESD safe) modular foam inside a medium sized pelican costs in the 'hood of 350 bones! The case case is another $200. I'm sure there are several large and medium boxes used in this package. So were're talking close to $1000 and we haven't even started with the meat and potatoes...

    It does add up fast.
  • Overwatch April 8, 2010 at 4:02pm
    Yes he is, the difference is that a civilian company sells tens of thousands of those units with pretty much arbitrary quality control while a milspec certified company will most likely sell only a couple hundred units that had to go through an extensive (and expensive) testing and certification process.

    And nobody's gonna let them sell the gear they paid for to be developed to the public (a.k.a. the enemy).
  • Moderator
    Sgt Ric April 8, 2010 at 3:15pm
    But again, the manufacturer of your $1,000 hobbyist UAV is not trying to cover his entire R&D budget with each sale, so why do military contractors think any differently?

    True, the miltary/govt often issue very specific requirements, but the potential for additional sales beyond the
    original tender should allow lower unit costing.
  • Paul Marsh April 8, 2010 at 2:39pm
    Just to expand on my comment a little to show how the figures add up, each $50,000/year employee really costs you $100,000. Let's say you need 10 folks with that average salary. Now we're up to $1,000,000 per year, or 1/3 of that procurement cost. That's just labor. Of course, I'm talking about a dedicated company to this one product. With the economies of scale of a larger corporation, maybe the $3.2MM gets tougher to justify, but I don't think it could go too much lower.

    Paul
  • Paul Marsh April 8, 2010 at 2:20pm
    $700 hammers and $300 toilet seats aside, I can't get too excited over $3.2MM for these systems. Compared to a $1,000 hobbyist UAV (assuming high quality video system, etc.), the difference does seem outrageous. However, just to put this in perspective, let's say you want to start with this hobbyist system and then build a company around it that can supply 11 full-up systems to the military, have spares on hand, provide on-going technical support, etc., etc. I guarantee you'll be well over $3.2MM in no time.

    I'm not necessarily trying to justify the $3.2MM figure, but I am trying to put the issue in perspective.

    Paul
  • Overwatch April 8, 2010 at 2:01pm
    without a MILSPEC stamp they wouldn't even look at us funny
  • Earl April 8, 2010 at 1:31pm
    Any chance a few of us could get together and mfg something at 1/500 of the price or does the BIG boys keep us out of the door ?
    Earl
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