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Watchkeeper achieves Release to Service

Developed by Thales for the British Army, Watchkeeper is a high-performance, multi-sensor, all-weather Unmanned Air System (UAS) that can remain airborne for more than 16 hours in a single mission. The tactical UAS will be deployed by the British Army for life-saving surveillance and intelligence capabilities in support of military operations. Crucially, Watchkeeper is certified to the same safety standard as manned aircraft. 

Luke Bridges, an engineering graduate, is part of the Watchkeeper Integration Team. In his first role at Thales, Luke has been involved in writing test cases for Watchkeeper’s features and physically running the tests to ensure the kit is in compliance. This has involved working in labs at Crawley and Leicester, as well as witnessing flight trials in West Wales.

The RTS is an important milestone that follows the MoD’s rigorous safety and airworthiness reviews over a period of more than two years to ensure that Watchkeeper can be operated safely by the Army. 

Through the life of the Watchkeeper programme, RTS has been the key milestone that the team have focused on most. The RTS specifies the limitations within which Watchkeeper can operate and gives the Royal Artillery confidence in the safety of their equipment and the training provided to operate and support the equipment enabling them to extract the best functionality in a safe way.

Eddie Awang, Vice President of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Business Line (BL), says: “This is excellent news for the Watchkeeper team across Thales and the UK MoD. I would like to thank everyone involved in getting the programme to this point, and I look forward to announcing future milestones for Watchkeeper.”