Good to see Britain leading this…, can’t wait for le Bourget!
Can Franco-British UAS alliance beat the financial crisis?
By Craig HoyleTwo years ago, the idea of France’s largest defence contractor joining forces with its UK equivalent on a bilateral aerospace project would have been almost unthinkable, but a global economic crisis and political will have led to the creation of just such a pact between Dassault and BAE Systems.
To be in evidence at Le Bourget for the first time since French President Nicolas Sarkozy and UK Prime Minister David Cameron signed a cross-channel defence treaty late last year, the surprise co-operation includes the planned provision of a medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) unmanned air system. If the allies’ plans hold firm, the type could be in frontline use with their armed forces as soon as 2015-20.
With objectives including sharing the costs of military-themed research and development, procurement, logistics support and some operations, the coming together has been driven not by industrial desire, but financial necessity. Describing the initiative as “practical, hard-headed co-operation between sovereign countries”, Cameron last November said the treaty will “help us to maintain and strengthen our defences at a time when national finances are severely challenged”.
JOINT TEAM
Dassault and BAE over the ensuing months looked beyond their traditional rivalry and into the possibility of jointly creating a next-generation unmanned system capable of performing persistent surveillance tasks. Progress was fast, and in February they signed an exclusive memorandum of understanding to work as a joint team. “We wanted to publicise the fact that we were in this together and that we were serious about taking this forward,” says Ian Fairclough, BAE’s programme director for strategic UAS.
“That decision to partner didn’t happen by chance, and it wasn’t a decision that both parties took lightly. We felt that we had a really compatible set of experience that had been developed nationally and that we would get huge benefit by combining that into a single industry team.” […]
Sign In
June 15, 2011 at 6:30 pm