PARIS — Britain and France will find funds for a future combat drone as they wish to keep building fighter jets, while France, Germany and Italy could invite other nations to sign up as partners to build a surveillance drone, said French procurement chief Laurent Collet-Billon.
Britain and France last year signed a £120 million (US $187 million) contract for a two-year feasibility study for the bilateral future combat air system development program.
"The feasibility study sets a firm foundation for the full-scale development phase that follows," Collet-Billon said. "The future of combat aircraft for Britain and France will be at stake in this next phase, so there's no doubt it will be funded.
"We have to be there. If we are not there, then we will be absent in the export market. There will be an export market. We and Britain are great aeronautical nations. We have to be on it together."
Paris, Berlin and Rome are due to sign a €60 million (US $67.6 million), two-year contract for a design study on a medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) UAV.
"We are at a preliminary stage, all that could change," he said. "France, Germany and Italy have signed a letter of intent for preliminary studies. Further phases will be open to other countries. This could be a program for a federation in Europe."
Spain partnered with France and Germany in a previous three-nation study for a European MALE UAV but that effort collapsed due to a lack of government support.
Poland, concerned about Russia, has included drones among the equipment to be ordered in a 10-year, €33.6 billion budget, Agence France-Presse has reported.
Turkey, which has developed its Anka UAV, is absent from the list of potential partners, as there are concerns in West European capitals over Ankara's perceived lack of action against the Islamic State insurgents and its lack of support for the Kurdistan region, an industry executive said.
BAE Systems, Dassault Aviation, Rolls-Royce, Safran, Selex and Thales signed up for the two-year Anglo-French study for the UCAV.
Airbus Defense and Space, Dassault Aviation and Finmeccanica pitched the idea for the European MALE UAV two years ago at the 2013 Paris Air Show.
The MALE UAV reflects the French pursuit of independence, a consultant said.
"France is a global actor and it is marketing its products like a global actor. France is also an independent actor, and tries not to be too dependent on the US because of the ITAR [international traffic in arms regulations]," said Massi Begous, partner at consultancy Roland Berger.
On the study for a combat drone, France and the UK had "good experience working together," he said. That could be seen with MBDA building the Storm Shadow-Scalp cruise missile and the Anglo-French contract for a helicopter-borne anti-ship missile, dubbed future anti-surface guided weapon (heavy) and anti-navire leger.
France is already working on a UCAV technology demonstrator, Neuron, with Italy, which has 22 percent of the program, and other partners. France's share of the work may migrate to the Anglo-French program, and Italy may then seek to sign up to join the French and the British on their program at a later date.
Meanwhile Britain, which originally pursued the MALE development as a bilateral arrangement with France as part of the Lancaster House defense treaty, has jettisoned for the time being any thoughts of joining being part of a European alliance to replace the Reaper vehicles it currently uses.
The 10-strong British Reaper fleet operated by the Royal Air Force was heavily engaged in Afghanistan, and since the end of that mission much of the fleet has been switched to support the war against the Islamic State in Iraq.
The British are in the assessment phase of a future deep and persistent armed intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance program known as Scavenger, but they say no final decisions have been made.
The answer could be more Reapers but could also equally be another vehicle.
"There are currently no plans being pursued with European nations for a collaborative solution for Scavenger nor is there any intent to become involved in the multilateral program currently being progressed by France, Germany and Italy," said a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence.
That lack of interest in MALE development is mirrored industrially with BAE Systems essentially putting on hold any work related to the platform once the British and French governments decided not to jointly fund risk-reduction work on a potential vehicle.
"The work we're doing with Dassault for our respective governments is around a FCAS [Future Combat Air System] development program and there is currently no requirement for a MALE development program that we are aware of from the UK MoD," said Martin Taylor, the boss of BAE's military aviation business.
A spokeswoman for the company said BAE continues to track whether technology from programs like the Mantis and Taranis demonstrators might meet customer requirements.
"We are continuing to monitor customer requirements for next-generation MALE systems and the applicability of the technical demonstration in Mantis and Taranis to meeting these emerging customer needs," she said.
Mantis is a conventional MALE demonstrator designed by BAE several years ago while Taranis is a UCAV demonstrator jointly funded by industry and the MoD.
Flight trials are continuing on Taranis with the MoD recently agreeing to a third phase of testing set to be undertaken later this year.
The European projects aim to cut the dependence on US UAV manufacturers General Atomics and Northrop Grumman, and Israeli producers Elbit and Israel Aircraft Industries.
A sharper European focus on defense industrial capability reflects the perceived shift of US attention to the Asia-Pacific, and away from Europe and the Middle East, the executive said.
Britain, France and Germany have rallied with the US in the Ukraine crisis in slapping embargoes against Russia, which has responded by signing big energy supply contracts with China.
Apart from energy, there are questions on whether chilly relations with Russia might rule out industrial cooperation with Europeans, the executive said. One of the think tank scenarios is a geopolitics shift in which Russia moves closer to China, which could lead to Moscow building a UAV with Beijing rather than partnering with Europeans, the executive said.
The European projects are effectively efforts to catch up with the US.
The US Navy completed the X-47B demonstrator program, which was designed to show an unmanned jet take off and land from an aircraft carrier.
The next step is UCLASS — Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike — which will develop an operational aircraft. The main contenders are expected to be Northrop Grumman and Boeing. A decision is on hold pending a review of whether the emphasis should be surveillance or strike.
Christopher P. Cavas in Washington, Tom Kington in Rome and Andrew Chuter in London contributed to this report.
