Expenses must flow differently
...it was an expensive project that generated some interested lines of coverage but wasn’t commercially viable or effective.
The problem is, as always, to hide the expenses in the right departments, groups and boxes. One might even say that such expenses must fly silently.
Therefore, it is suggested to create a new project to deal with the drones. You instruct the military establishment to create an artificial eagle to capture drones. The eagle-drone-capture-drone project will be well funded when it is brought under military supervision. Expenses will never be a problem any more as they may be shuffled, exchanged, moved, increased, flattened and politically accepted because the eagle drone project will be too big to fail.
Project is a go and the problem completely solved when the proper project acronym is attached.
icon: replace rotating wings to flap and it fits