Drones taking off

Dusk over Ankh-Morpork: a drone in a box marked ready to fly, a crowd filming a light over the airport, workmen renaming the drone wall, and a factory filling crates marked best before while a brass fighter chases a paper drone.

A box marked ready to fly, with a class label on its side. A light over an airport, filmed on a phone and not confirmed. A wall announced in a speech and renamed within weeks. A drone that goes stale in two months, and a factory announced at a thousand jobs. An approve button, one thumb away from the missile. Between 2022 and 2026 the European drone moved from a transport strategy to a defence programme, and its figures changed from euros of market to units of production.

Disclaimer

Figures in these chapters are as their sources gave them on the day. Drones, the defence commissioner has pointed out, go out of date in about two months, and the observatory sees no reason its pages should do better.