Germany Cancels Drone Purchase Program Over Airspace Clearance Costs .

An official says Germany has canceled plans to purchase and modify U.S.-made Global Hawk surveillance drones for 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion).

The drones made by Northrop Grumman were to be equipped with special signal interception devices and re-named Euro Hawk.

First 'unmanned' flight over British airspace.

Aerospace company BAE Systems flew a Jetstream 31 – dubbed the "flying test bed" – from Warton in Lancashire to Inverness in Scotland.

Strictly speaking, the flight was not an unmanned one, in that two pilots were in the cockpit as a precaution.

But as a BAE Systems spokesman said: "They were sitting there having a coffee. They did not have to do anything."

“DRONES” crece el uso militar y civil con fines científicos para localizar personas, estudiar aves y volcanes.

Además de su creciente uso militar, las aeronaves no tripuladas o “drones” se emplean con fines científicos y civiles para localizar personas, estudiar las aves y los volcanes, o para recabar información de la fauna y el medioambiente.

Carecen de piloto, tripulación y pasajeros y sus dimensiones son considerablemente menores que las aeronaves convencionales, pero el potencial de este avance tecnológico, que viene registrando un imparable desarrollo desde finales del siglo XX, es enorme, como lo demuestran sus aplicaciones más recientes.