Politics stop Israeli-made UAS from serving European armies
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עברית (Hebrew)
Only political considerations, are preventing Germany and France from buying medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) unmanned air systems (UAS) from Israel.
A European source told iHLS that the two governments have a “proven solution at hand but still choose to waste time and money.” Germany and France have been evaluating the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) Heron and Heron TP UAS.
According to Defense News the three companies that caused a stir ahead of the Paris Air Show this summer by publishing a letter calling for a joint effort to develop a European UAS program have been asked to provide further details of their proposals by the German and French governments.
Christian Scherer, the chief sales officer of EADS Cassidian, said the two governments had invited the companies to “come back and be more specific [about the idea] before the end of the year.” “There is progress. It’s not in the public eye but we are working on being more specific than what we said around Paris Air Show time. There is a lot of paddling under the surface to put meat on the bone right now,” he said. “The governments have said ‘tell us more’ and that’s what we are going to do over the few months. Italy has tacitly said the same thing,” Scherer said.
iHLS – Israel Homeland Security
Cassidian, Dassault Aviation and Alenia Aermacchi published an open letter to French, German and Italian governments 24 hours before the Paris Air Show opened, calling on them to pool resources to develop a medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) UAS to protect skills, jobs and European sovereignty. The letter was prompted by the prospect of Europe missing out on a key aviation capability as the governments moved instead to order the General Atomic Reaper MALE.
The Europeans have dithered for years over MALE developments, leaving the field open to U.S. and Israeli products for sale to the European governments, particularly those embroiled in the war in Afghanistan, hungry for intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance.
An Anglo-French effort involving BAE Systems and Dassault on the back of a 2010 defense accord appears to be going nowhere as the two companies focus more on unmanned combat air systems.
