Tinkerer

I took my glider down to the common after work. Clive was there. I get the impression he's an inveterate fiddler when it comes to model aeroplanes -which is true of all people who like to play with toy aeroplanes. He was programming the flight controller to follow a set pattern using GPS and altimeter and all the other technical gubbins freely available to everyone these days.
Some canny fiddlers can even con our ridiculously stupid armed forces procurement operatives into spending £20,000,000 on 160 toy helicopters. I would guess Clive's model cost him around £400 for everything (batteries included). I don't expect the armed forces to use something Clive has put together - but to put it in perspective a Eurofighter costs around £65 - 85m as far as I can work out (but I bet it is loads more in reality) and took decades to develop.
It's almost guilt money if you ask me: When the British government has suffered the embarrassment of the hundreds of deaths in Afghanistan I suppose they'll pay almost anything to save on any further pointless sacrifice. For the people in charge it's the next best thing to admitting the folly of it all. These drones are a good thing and I hope they see an end to the pain suffered by many families of mostly young men - but someone really is taking the piss.