Supplier bears service costs for technically slimmed-down drones
Keystone-SDA
Switzerland is procuring a reconnaissance drone system from the Israeli manufacturer Elbit. As some of the drones’ functions have to be dispensed with, the supplier in Israel will cover the fixed costs of the service contract for nine years.
+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox
The Federal Armaments Office (armasuisse) and Elbit Systems Ltd have signed a contract addendum to this effect, armasuisse announced on Monday. Elbit will bear the fixed costs for the service contract for the nine years 2024 to 2032.
The procurement of the reconnaissance drone system has been delayed. It should actually have been completed in 2019. Seven years later, at the end of 2026, all the material should be in Switzerland, Head of Defence Urs Loher said.
+ Israeli drone headache continues for Swiss army
In September the defence ministry, armasuisse and the army decided to dispense with central functions. The drones will not be equipped with an automatic evasion system, a system for GPS-independent take-offs and landings or a de-icing system. Nevertheless, they would have centralised capabilities such as long reconnaissance flights.
Translated from German by DeepL/ts
We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.
Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.
If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch
