Watchkeeper will provide the UK armed forces with an essential Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance (ISTAR) capability based on a tactical unmanned air vehicle (UAV) system and will be a key component of the UK's drive for Network Enabled Capability (NEC).

Watchkeeper is a programme of major importance for the British Armed Forces, and as such, this decision consists a strong vote of confidence in the Thales UK team.

The Thales / Elbit Systems Joint Venture (JV) will play a significant part as the provider of core UAV subsystems to the UK's Watchkeeper Prime Contract Management Organization of Thales UK.

The Thales / Elbit Systems JV and its supply chain, will create a significant number of new jobs in the UK. The Thales UK Watchkeeper solution will create or sustain 2500 jobs across the UK. These high technology jobs in systems integration, prime contracting, engineering and manufacturing will be within Thales UK, the Thales Watchkeeper team companies and throughout their UK supply chain.

As the market for UAV systems is growing strongly, the selection for the Watchkeeper programme is a significant milestone in positioning Elbit Systems and the Thales / Elbit Systems JV as major suppliers of UAV's, both for the UK and for export.

The Thales UK team intends to supply Watchkeeper and address the rapidly growing worldwide UAV systems market, estimated to be worth around GBP3bn over the next 10 years. The operational benefits of the Thales UK team solution include: a fully integrated ground environment; higher endurance, lower attrition air vehicles; a minimal logistic footprint and the ability to deploy a full system to theatre in a single C-130 Hercules aircraft.

The Thales UK led team includes the Thales/Elbit Systems JV company, Elbit Systems, Marshall SV, LogicaCMG, Vega, Boeing, Cobham, Cubic, Supacat, QinetiQ and Praxis.

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