Moderadores: Lepanto, poliorcetes, Edu, Orel
Neuron programme launched
The Neuron-program is now officially launched, the French ministry of defence has announced. The program is being headed by Dassault Aviation and involves only the best aviation corporations in Europe.
The Neuron-partnership sees six European countries jointly developing a European UCAV, Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle, demonstrator. Neuron will be a demonstrator measuring 10 meters long by 12 wide and weighing in at 5 tons. It will also be completely autonomous and undetectable by radar.
The maiden flight is planned for 2011. In developing the demonstrator the companies involved will be developing cutting-edge technology for future UAVs. These technologies include advanced aeronautics, autonomous decision-making, stealth technology for avoiding detection, as well as adaptation to network based defense.
In addition to Sweden and France, the program also involves Italy, Spain, Greece and Switzerland. The six-nation collaboration has now started up in earnest, and every day sees around 50 development engineers from the companies involved gathering in offices at Dassault Aviation in Paris.
At most some 1,000 people will be working on Neuron in a virtual environment, from Paris and other locations in Europe. About 100 people from Saab will be involved in the project and at most 15 people stationed in Paris.
The project is characterized by experience and excellency. All the participating companies have had to undergo a qualifying stage to prove that they are the best in their field.
Chief project manager Thierry Prunier comes from Dassault Aviation, and the deputy project managers are Mats Ohlson of Saab and Ermanno Bertolina of Alenia. Saab is participating in the overall design alongside Dassault. “Saab is performing well in international competition, and our extensive involvement in Neuron is further proof of this,”says Mats Ohlson.
Barrakuda UAV technology advances
Posted on: Feb. 14th, 2006 - www.janes.com
Images of the EADS Barrakuda stealth unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) demonstrator indicate that the company's work on stealth may have outpaced that of BAE Systems, Saab and Dassault. Barrakuda is a much larger, heavier and more sophisticated aircraft than the very small test vehicles that other European companies have unveiled to date.
Barrakuda has an estimated wingspan of 8.75 m and an overall length of 9.5 m, in the same class as the 5,500 kg Boeing X-45A demonstrator. It is reportedly powered by a Snecma/Turbomeca Larzac engine, but the size of the exhaust suggests a larger engine (such as the Honeywell F124 used on the X-45A, or a Rolls-Royce/Turbomeca Adour).
Berlin sources confirm German interest in unmanned jet fighter
Posted on: Feb. 14th, 2006 - news.monstersandcritics.com
Berlin - Europe's main aerospace company is well advanced in a secret project to build a tiny but lethal unmanned fighter aircraft, sources in the German capital Berlin confirmed Tuesday.
While the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) shows an artists' impression of the plane, apparently jet-powered, on its website, it has refused to discuss the project, which is code-named Barracuda, and very little information has filtered out.
Last month, the German news magazine Der Spiegel said the unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) had been shown to the head of the German air force and would make its maiden flight somewhere in a remote part of the Iberian Peninsula this month.
The defence industry sources confirmed that report.
The testbed plane is a reconnaissance drone with no attack capabilities, but EADS is believed to be looking to develop a plane that could take on many of the tasks of existing fighter-bombers such as the all-weather Tornado attack plane used by European air forces.
nEUROn UCAV Project Rolling Down the Runway
Posted on: Feb. 15th, 2006 - www.defenseindustrydaily.com
In November 2005, DID noted a Forecast International report on the future UAV market that forecast trouble for the proposed six-nation nEUROn Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) project. In the end, however, Sweden signed on. The project is now rolling down the runway with a EUR 405 million budget, with the French DGA procurement agency acting as program executive.
The Neuron project joins Britain's CORAX UCAV, and the USA's J-UCAS program that includes the Boeing X-45C and Northrop-Grumman's X-47B Pegasus. The Neuron program's goals are threefold, and DID also offers details concerning the envisioned platform, the program structure, and its schedule.
como es que España participa en los dos principales programas de UCAV's europeos(participa tanto en el Barracuda como en el Neuron segun he leido o creido leer..)?Sinceramente no lo entiendo
BAE Systems Detailing UCAV Research Efforts
Posted on: Feb. 16th, 2006 - www.aviationweek.com
LONDON -- BAE Systems is beginning to detail previously classified unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) research efforts, including flying a representative low observable air vehicle.
BAE first flew a UCAV demonstrator, dubbed Raven, in late 2003. The low observable design is part of the company's wider work into UCAV technology for the British Defense Ministry.
Two Raven carbon-fiber composite airframes have been built and flown. Test flights of the jet-powered UCAV demonstrator were carried out in Australia at the Woomera Range. Radar cross-section reduction is a key element of the airframe design. The air intake is mounted on top of the fuselage, with control surfaces on the wing aligned with the trailing edge. The airframe is a flying-wing configuration, with no vertical or horizontal tail surfaces.
Northrop Grumman concluded a series of flights Jan. 5 that demonstrated the weapons-capable MQ-5B Hunter unmanned aerial vehicle's (UAV) ability to fly more than 21 hours, which is almost a ten-hour increase over the original RQ-5A Hunter UAV.
"The MQ-5B increases our gross take-off weight to 1,950 pounds, providing our forces the capability to perform intelligence-gathering missions exceeding 21 hours using a single unmanned aircraft; or carry significantly more payload weight," said Lt. Col. Jeff Gabbert, program manager of medium altitude endurance programs for the Army.
"The fact that the MQ-5B is integrated into the Army's One System ground control station offers us interoperability and decreases our training time, enabling us to train our first unit very rapidly as they deploy this greatly improved system in the near future." Northrop Grumman accomplished the endurance increase by adding fuel capacity to the Hunter's center wing area and increasing the efficiency of the air vehicle's heavy fuel engine.
BAE Systems recently demonstrated its vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aerial system (UAS) at Fort Benning, Ga., for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and U.S. Army representatives.
The unmanned system is designed to fly for more than one hour, and deploy a signals intelligence (SIGINT) payload, known as "WolfPack." As part of DARPA's Network Centric Experiment VIP Demonstration in January, BAE Systems integrated WolfPack with its UAS to demonstrate the deployment and relocation of the sensors.
"This demonstration shows that unattended battlefield sensors can not only operate autonomously, but that they can be made to be self-deploying, self-relocating and, if needed, self-recovering," said DARPA Program Manager Preston Marshall. WolfPack consists of unattended sensors designed to detect and disrupt enemy radio transmissions while avoiding disruption of friendly military and protected commercial communications and radars. BAE Systems unmanned aerial system is one of a number of options being explored to insert the WolfPack sensors in urban and remote battle space.
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