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Speaker 1: Our military is after the UK to take part in

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Speaker 1: the Military Drone Racing tournament. It helps develop defense forces intelligence,

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Speaker 1: surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. Has drones become a key part

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Speaker 1: of combat? Of course. Major Richard Adams is with our

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Speaker 1: Uncrude Aerial Systems team and he is with us Richard morning,

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Speaker 1: Good morning Mike. How long have you been in the military.

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Speaker 2: That's a good question, mylon Zel, but different from most.

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Speaker 2: I've been in the Defense Force for the past fourteen months.

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Speaker 2: Prior to that, despite growingt and christ Churich, I spent

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Speaker 2: seven years in the British Army as well.

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Speaker 1: Oh, I see. The reason I asked that question is

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Speaker 1: this will have been something that if you've been there

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Speaker 1: long enough, you would never have seen. This is a

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Speaker 1: modern part of military, you know, thinking and activity that

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Speaker 1: you wouldn't have seen when you joined a long time ago.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely so. I had my first exposure to this sort

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Speaker 2: of technology back in twenty eleven twenty twelve in Afghanistan.

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Speaker 2: And while it was very different back then, it looks

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Speaker 2: very different today than just fourteen years ago.

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Speaker 1: And what's the pathway you reckon? You think if I

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Speaker 1: ring you in ten years time, exponentially, it will have

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Speaker 1: changed again.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, if you look at what's happening in Ukraine at

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Speaker 2: the moment, every six months looks completely different to the

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Speaker 2: past six months, given the way that this technology is changing,

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Speaker 2: which is why we're attempting to all while we're looking

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Speaker 2: to adapt as quickly as possible, so we have the

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Speaker 2: most upstate equipment available to our people.

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Speaker 1: What's the advance? Is it distance? Is it accuracy? It's

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Speaker 1: is it payload or what.

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Speaker 2: It's a little bit of everything, So it is accuracy.

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Speaker 2: So you look at the some of the work that

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Speaker 2: Ukraine did destroying very expensive Russian bombers one hundreds of

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Speaker 2: miles inside of Russia. It's payloads, so different sort of payloads,

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Speaker 2: whether it's for surveillance or whether it's for strike, so

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Speaker 2: for connectic activity, and it's also ways to overcome countermeasures.

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Speaker 2: So you know, again we'll here Ukraine that's spent a

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Speaker 2: lot of effort into doing fiber optic drone. So having

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Speaker 2: cables instead of using radio frequency is to ensure they

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Speaker 2: can't be jammed.

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Speaker 1: Interesting then, because it's it's it's the interface between I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's it's no one likes blowing stuff up and no

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Speaker 1: one likes war, but what the Ukrainians did to the

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Speaker 1: Russian Air Force was astonishing, wasn't it.

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Speaker 2: It was spectacular, absolutely, But I think it's also it

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Speaker 2: also speaks to what they do on a day to

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Speaker 2: day basis in terms of the impact that they're having

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Speaker 2: with the sort of technology. So any on which figures

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Speaker 2: you look at. The estimates are that seventy percent of

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Speaker 2: casualties now in that conflict are caused by drones and

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Speaker 2: that's mainly through the odoral advances that have happened over

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Speaker 2: the last two or three years.

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Speaker 1: So are we any good? I mean, when you go

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Speaker 1: into competition at this sort of thing in Britain, are

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Speaker 1: we good?

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Speaker 2: Yes, we are. So we've had some success in the past.

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Speaker 2: It's something that we we're leaning into more now just

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Speaker 2: given the impact that sort of skill can have on

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Speaker 2: milk operations. But now we have a very very talented team.

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Speaker 2: So we've got a team of five that's head and across.

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Speaker 2: It's a tri service team from the Army and avan

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Speaker 2: Air Force and they're competing against or they're want of

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Speaker 2: fourteen nations that are competing at the tournament. So we're

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Speaker 2: expecting them to do rismly.

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Speaker 1: Well, good on you mate, We'll go well with it.

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Speaker 1: I appreciate your time and insight. Major Richard Adams, who's

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Speaker 1: New Zealand Army lead on this uncrued aerial systems team.

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