Yet another report tells us UAS are big money.

Visiongain’s latest defence report, The Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) Market 2011-2021: Technologies for ISR and Counter-Insurgency finds a robust and growing market. Visiongain assesses that the global UAV market will reach $7.8 billion in 2011. This will fluctuate in the forecast period of 2011-2021, with value remaining high over the forecast period.

Despite defence spending cuts announced recently, armed forces continue to prioritise spending on unmanned aerial vehicles. UAVs have continually proved themselves in Iraq and Afghanistan and their relative low-cost compared to manned platforms makes them highly attractive alternatives in a climate of restrained or even declining defence budgets. In fact, in some cases UAV spending is substituting spending on manned platforms.

The U.S. continues to dominate UAV spending and is expected to continue doing so over the next decade. However, the rest of the world is aiming to catch up and have in many cases prioritised spending on the development and procurement of UAVs. Large orders are expected across most of the submarkets as countries are seen to acquire different types of UAVs to fulfil their varying requirements. In terms of value, the market will fluctuate as some acquisition programmes are completed while new ones are also embarked upon