A UK-Saudi what if - how likely?

What If?
This seems to have gotten overlookeed in the other thread where the discussion has moved on to other matters but what do you guys think about this bit of day dreaming and speculation?


This is pure hypthetical theory but a thought has occurred to me regarding the announcement of Saudi Arabia finally) signing up for the Typhoon.

The timing of it seems quite a coincidence coming so soon after the revelation of the Corax Raven, this makes me wonder if perhaps the UCAV announcement wasn't deliberately timed to precede this announcement?

My thoughts are that maybe the Saudi's have already been intensively briefed on the UCAV project many months previously, possibly to the point where they have been offered production UCAV's to go with their Typhoons in order to serve in the A2G role,. Such an offer could include favourable terms or industrial partnership, maybe even with some Saudi money helping to fund the full scale development of an operational UCAV?

Of course this is hypothetical, but if Saudi involvement in a BAE UCAV is part of the terms then maybe BAE thought it better show some UCAV work publicly as a precursor?


[edit on 22-12-2005 by waynos]