Germany’s Bundeswehr and Airbus have jointly carried out the world’s first successful launch and operation of a Remote Carrier flight test demonstrator from a flying A400M.
The firm say that “multiplying the force and extending the range of unmanned systems” will be one of the future roles of Airbus’ military transport aircraft in the Future Combat Air System (FCAS).
“The excellent collaboration with our German customer and partners on the A400M UAV Launcher campaign is further evidence of how the development of FCAS will take innovation and technologies to the next level,” said Airbus Defence and Space CEO Michael Schoellhorn.
“FCAS as a system of systems is starting to take shape now.”
The firm added that the device for launching Remote Carriers from a flying A400M was developed in just six months.
“For the test flight, it was loaded onto the ramp of a Bundeswehr A400M, from which the Remote Carrier demonstrator, a modified Airbus Do-DT25 drone, was launched. After the release, the Do-DT25’s engines were started and it continued in powered flight mode. The crew on board the A400M then handed over control to an operator on the ground, who safely commanded and landed the drone.
Remote Carriers will be an important component of FCAS. They will fly in close cooperation with manned aircraft and support pilots in their tasks and missions. Military transport aircraft such as the A400M will play an important role: as motherships, they will bring the Remote Carriers as close as possible to their areas of operation before releasing up to 50 small or up to 12 heavy Remote Carriers. These will then join manned aircraft, operating with a high degree of automation although always under a pilot’s control.”
You can read more on this here.
It was also interesting to note that Airbus will begin work on the next generation of helicopters.
Has the low-level parachuting capability been solved yet? I remember reading that French Parachutes were going to be used to fill the gap.
“The RACER concept is one option for solving the speed requirement of future rotorcraft that Airbus is now exploring as part of the European Next-Generation Rotorcraft Technologies with Leonardo. (Airbus)”
https://www.janes.com/defence-news/air-platforms/latest/europe-formally-launches-engrt-next-gen-rotorcraft-effort
I would have been impressed if it was being recovered by A400M.
Makes you think what Bae have got cooking up at the back of the factory?
Seems like these would be ideal in the case of search and rescue at sea. If they could drop 3 or 4 out of the back of an aircraft, hopefully they could quick cover a larger area than just using a single maritime patrol craft. Obviously there may be an issue with range and/or recovery, but I assume, (not being an air domain expert) that they could get out to an area quicker in an A400 than if they flew from a land base.
When I was involved in the programme we did a study looking into launching Stormshadow from A400M. Anything is possible
Nifty!
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I thought this had already been done by the RAF? I’m sure I saw a video of it.
Drones (in my view) are highly likely to feature promenently in future conflicts yet I find not one comment on a site like this. Interesting. Perhaps we need to allocate the area their own budget and consequently give them a little momentum like the RAF got (one of the few good things to come out of WW1).
Believe the landscape has changed significantly since Feb 24th. Many militaries have been forced to reassess and accelerate plans and activities. Time may be a luxury in relatively short supply. 🤔😳