The German Defense Ministry plans to resume testing of the EuroHawk unmanned aerial vehicle similar to the U.S. Air Force’s Global Hawk, a move that comes more than one year after announcing the program was being halted.
Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen said in an interview on the German television station ARD Sunday that Eurohawk flights will resume to perform testing at higher altitudes than it has previously flown.
The prototype EuroHawk would be used only for testing and Germany will look to the U.S. Navy’s Triton, which, like EuroHawk, is also a derivative of Global Hawk, as the possible solution for operational aircraft, she said. Northrop Grumman [NOC] produces all three aircraft, designed to fly for more than 24 hours at altitudes reaching 60,000 feet.
“In EuroHawk is a technology, a reconnaissance technology, that we need in the future,” von der Leyen said, adding that Germany needs an independent capability for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions.
The Germany Defense Ministry announced in May 2014 that it was canceling the $1.3 billion EuroHawk program after learning it could not be certified to fly in European airspace, and after spending more than $600 million. The revelation resulted in a political uproar and calls for von der Leyen’s predecessor to resign. Germany had received one test vehicle and planned to buy four production versions.
Although EuroHawk has been sitting in a hangar for a year, it appears the German government did not follow through on canceling the program. Von der Leyen played down the platform, emphasizing the sensor technology planned for the aircraft is more important.
“When we go into normal service, we will use another airplane, another drone that is called Triton,” she said. “We want the technology. The platform is not so important–it must just carry what is developed.”
The U.S. Navy said last month that Germany had been expressing interest in Triton, which it is developing for maritime surveillance. Capt. Jim Hoke, the Triton program manager, said the Germans had been asking questions about its flight certification, noting the Navy had gotten the first Triton cleared to fly across the United States.
“We are the first unmanned system like this that has gone through that rigor of a flight clearance,” Hoke said. “What the Germans are very interested in, is, that talks about air worthiness, so that leads to how can you safely integrate into airspace. They are interested in how they do something similar with that.”
Hoke said Triton has gone a long way to meeting the standards required for European airspace, but there would still need to be additional steps for the Germans. “We have not the 100-percent solution, but we have covered a lot of ground toward their concerns based on what we’ve heard from them,” he said.
Hoke said, however, he is limited in how much data he could share with Berlin because there is no formal agreement between the two countries regarding the MQ-4C Triton. “You can’t share everything without formalization,” he said. “We are able to answer their basic questions. We are able to describe how we can share additional information that they may be asking about.”
Northrop Grumman spokesman Randy Belote would not comment directly on von der Leyen’s interview, saying only that the company is aware of Germany’s desire for airborne ISR.
“A Global Hawk-based variant can affordably meet Germany’s requirements for surveillance missions,” he said. “Global Hawk high altitude long endurance systems have logged more than 130,000 flight hours and have the safest aircraft record in the U.S. Air Force.”