(by Mark Prigg and Richard Gray, UK Daily Mail)

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has given the go ahead for four defense contractors to begin building “Gremlin” drones.

Composite Engineering, Dynetics, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and Lockheed Martin will develop the drones.

The program envisions launching groups of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) from existing large aircraft such as bombers or transport aircraft – as well as from fighters and other small, fixed-wing platforms – while those planes are out of range of adversary defenses.

When the gremlins complete their mission, a C-130 transport aircraft would retrieve them in the air and carry them home, where ground crews would prepare them for their next use within 24 hours.

The gremlins’ expected lifetime of about 20 uses could provide significant cost advantages over expendable systems (such as missiles) by reducing payload and airframe costs and by having lower mission and maintenance costs than conventional platforms, which are designed to operate for decades.

We’ve assembled a motivated group of researchers and developers that we believe could make significant progress toward Gremlins’ vision of delivering distributed airborne capabilities in a robust, responsive and affordable manner,

said Dan Patt, DARPA program manager.

The idea is to replace the expensive and increasingly vulnerable multi-function combat aircraft which currently perform a range of different missions.

Instead they propose deploying from the air smaller unmanned aircraft, each with different capabilities, to perform a mission before retrieving them mid-air so they can be used again.

Not only would the concept remove the risk to pilots by keeping them out of the front line but it would also drastically reduce the cost of each aircraft.

Mr. Patt of Darpa, said:

Our goal is to conduct a compelling proof-of-concept flight demonstration that could employ intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and other modular, non-kinetic payloads in a robust, responsive and affordable manner.

The Gremlins would be launched in mid-air from larger aircraft and then retrieved in the same way.

The agency is hoping to build on its automated mid-air refuelling technology alongside the sea based platforms for capturing drones as they come into land.

In its briefing, the agency said it hopes that by using cheap drone aircraft it would be possible to overwhelm the increasingly sophisticated defenses of enemies.

A. Match the following first paragraphs with the titles on the next page.

It is now official that they are the reason man has AIDS. Scientists agree that although Chimps do not suffer from AIDS themselves, eating them, as is common and considered a delicacy in some countries, is the reason the virus is passed on to humans.

It is said that everyone has the ability or potential to write that blockbuster that will ensure our fame and fortune. Now a bus-driver from London has done just that and proved the point by writing a novel that has already been nominated for the prestigious Booker Prize.

After a hectic morning shopping, all my friend and I wanted to do was to sit down, drink a cup of tea and have a cigarette. Easy enough you might think, but not so. Every coffee bar, café and fast food restaurant we looked in, did not allow smoking. It seems us smokers truly are the pariahs of society.

B. Read the following first paragraphs and think of an appropriate title for each one.

It’s that time of year again! Lots of expense, your patience tried to its utmost limits thanks to being in such close proximity to your family, over-eating and over-drinking - perhaps overindulging generally - receiving presents you don’t really want and seeing relatives you don’t really want to see. They get wheeled out every year for a free meal and a sherry and drive you mad with their complaints. How to avoid all this? Do something different - go on holiday and let someone else take the strain.

C. In the following paragraphs, only the supporting ideas are given

Today, it is a science fact that technology has advanced to the point where anything is possible. Used as a means of increasing productivity, many factories are switching to automation - R2D2 does not require holidays, a bigger office, sick pay, a pension, and, most importantly, he does not go on strike.