PARIS, LONDON and ROME — Air force officers from Britain, France, Italy and the US will meet in Paris this week in what could lead to joint MQ-9 Reaper training and other burden-sharing issues.
It is hoped that the initial meeting of the Reaper users group, scheduled for to be held Jan 27-29 at the Ecole Militaire staff college, will hammer out the terms of reference for the user group, decide on major topics of work and bring the nations up to a common understanding of each other's aircraft, ISTAR platform, according to officials familiar with the initiative.
Officials announced the formation of the group The move follows an announcement at the NATO Summit in Wales in last September, where the alliance said allied partners planned to set up the users group.
"Several Aallies are establishing a multinational MQ-9 remotely piloted air system users group, in particular to enhance interoperability and reduce overall costs," the alliance said.
An Italian defense source said it's "good news" that nations want to share knowledge, adding that the next meeting will be later this year in the US.
"The intent [of the first meeting] is primarily define the terms of reference and the agenda of the next MQ9 Users Group which is supposed to be later on in 2015 in the US," said an Italian defense source.
"The fact nations want to share their knowledge is good news," he said.
Collaborative training and opportunities to share burdens share are likely to be amongst the opportunities on the agenda.
"Training is expected to be a major subject, with a sharing of best practice," a French Air Force officer said.
Last year, the Italian Air Force said it was considering a new in-house training school for UAV pilots, which would reduce the need to send pilots to the US for training, and could be open to non-Italian pilots.
Increasing demands for drone unmanned air vehicle missions overseas and in Italy — with a deal now signed with Italian police to use Reapers for crowd-control operations in the country Italy — had created a need to amplify training operations, the Italian official said.
New NATO Reaper users are also expected to join the Ggroup.
The Netherlands is considering purchasing the remotely piloted vehicle and a spokeswoman spokeswomen for the Defense Ministry defence ministry there said it would was the intention to join other Reaper users in the group if the procurement goes ahead.
The If the deal goes ahead the Dutch could be operating Reaper's by from 2017.onwards
The user group will share lessons learned on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, with armed operations excluded from the agenda, a French official said.
Britain and the US are the only two nations flying armed versions of the General Atomics Reaper. Italy would like to arm it's machines but so far has failed to get the approval of the US Ggovernment for such a move.
One European source said part of the drive behind creation of the user group was to help reduce costs.
Aside from sharing ideas and best practices, the group also presents an scheme is also a useful opportunity for defense diplomacy and coordination coordinating with key allies, he said.
The allied partnership should move industry out of its "comfort zone," which could help cut costs, an air force officer said.
Although not confirmed, the intent is for a steering committee of involving senior officers and program directors to get together every on a 12 months, cycle backed up by a working group meeting every at a six monthsly interval.
It's not clear exactly who will be at the meeting, but Britain's Defence Ministry of Defence said it is dispatching despatching five members of the Royal Air Force to Paris.
In response to a Pparliamentary question Jan. 22, the MoD said representativesfrom the Royal Air Force's Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance Headquarters RAF's ISTAR headquarters located at RAF Waddington, along with members of headquarters Air Command and the Air Staff, will attend would be attending the meeting.
The Waddington air base is home to the Air Force's RAF's Reaper operations.
Britain withdrew it's 10-strong Reaper fleet from Afghanistan late last year.
Some of the aircraft platforms have deployed to an unknown Arabian Gulf nation base region to fly missions against so called Islamic State fighters terrorists in Iraq and Syria.
The MoD said in response to a second parliamentary question about the Reaper last week that the remaining vehicles in the fleet have been boxed and "relocated to the UK [where they] have been placed in storage for routine fleet management purposes."
Reaper is not cleared for flight in UK airspace, so the RAF machines are effectively grounded if they remain in Britain.
It's possible all the boxed Reapers could may eventually end up at the Middle Eastern Gulf base to allow the Royal Air Force to mount a more effective fleet management program.
France, meanwhile, will add is going ahead with adding to the two Reapers flying from Niamey, Niger.
"I will order in 2015 a supplementary system, that is three supplementary drones," Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on a Jan. 2 visit to French forces in Niamey, daily Le Parisien reported. A third Reaper from the first batch of units will be deployed in March, he said.
The third Reaper will be at the same Block 1-12 standard as the first two, making the French and US Air Force the only two services to fly that advanced model, two French officers said.
France began flying the Reaper in January last year 2014 to support ground troops in neighbouring Mali.
On the Niamey base, French pilots rely on General Atomics staff for the takeoff and landing, the most sensitive tasks. The pilots take control when the Reaper is in the air, the Air Force officer said. Once the Air Force pilots acquire a sufficient number of flying hours, they will be "authorized" for landing and takeoff, the officer said.
Satellite communications on the Reaper allow the flight training to be carried out across the Atlantic.
French pilots training on the Reaper are based at the Cognac air base in southwest France, working with US Air Force pilots based at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada.
US pilots hand over control to French counterparts, who fly the UAV in a vastly different landscape: Creech is in the desert, while Cognac is set in the French rural countryside.
Emails: ptran@defensenews.com; achuter@defensenews.com; tkington@defensenews.com
