The BAE Systems Taranis took $303 million and 1.5 million hours to develop, uses stealth technology to hide from the enemy and can be controlled via satellite link from anywhere on Earth. It just passed its tests in Australia.
It's great news for Rolls-Royce, GE Aviation Systems, QinetiQ and the British Ministry of Defence since as you would expect, this flying wing cost quite a bit more than they first thought and its first flight was delayed by two years to keep things interesting at the office.
Designed for intercontinental missions and gathering intelligence from both air and ground, the Taranis is powered by a Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour Mk.951 turbofan with a trust of 6,480 pounds, and despite its primary investigative role, it will also carry a variety of weapons in its two internal weapons bays enabling it to attack both aerial and ground targets. BAE won't get into more details about that.
A great day for the Royal Air Force and British engineering in general, and presumably a rather sad day for goat owners in less fortunate countries all over the world: