Saudo noted two mega trends in defense, one being rising defense budgets with a new emphasis on European sovereignty, and the second the transformation of the battlefield, including greater battlefield transparency, widespread electronic warfare and new objects such as drones.

On the changing battlefield

Syria “really was the conflict where we saw GNSS-denied environment and contested electromagnetic spectrum, for communication or GPS access,” while Nagorno-Karabach “was a swarm of drones. And I would say Ukraine is the fusion of both conflicts, adding the return of the war of attrition, which is really particular to Ukraine.”

One element of the transformation “definitely is the transparency of the battlefield, between the sensors on the ground, in the air, in space, doubled by open-source data from social networks.”

“This is really what I would say a transformation of the defense demand. On the battlefield, out of the transformation of the battlefield, we have new objects appearing. Drones are one of them, loitering munitions. They require a different trade-off between technology and needs, and cost efficiency.”

“Does it mean big programs are off the table? Of course not. Look at the U.S. NGAD Next-Generation Air Dominance, look at the CCA Collaborative Combat Aircraft. Look at the Golden Dome. We are not saying at all that big programs of record are off the table, but what we are saying, alongside we have an evolution of defense demand.”

The transformed battlefield requires reinforced protection of existing assets such as tanks, combat vehicles or frigates, for example by adding counter-UAS capability.

Saudo cited frigates in the Red Sea that were initially firing missiles to counter Houthi drones: “Efficient, but not cost efficient.” Safran equipped French frigates with a Paseo XLR electro-optical sensor to see drone threats at 40 kilometers away, allowing early identification and giving frigates the cheaper option of using their 76 mm cannon rather than a missile.

“Reinforcing the protection of existing elements, and alongside, capacity, building mass and what I would call new defense, meaning objects with a different trade-off in terms of technology and needs and cost efficiency. This is a transformation of the defense demand.”

On supply-side transformation

“We also see a transformation of the supply side with new players, be it startups or commercial players, but also existing players, where to play in the new defense arena it’s all about agility, innovation, shortened cycles, being able to do incremental innovation.”

Safran took four weeks to implement PASEO XRL on the French frigates, developed its Skyjacker counter-UAS system based on GNSS spoofing in six months, and in Ukraine integrated the AASM Hammer precision-guided munition on Soviet-era MiG-29 and Su-25 aircraft in four months. “That’s indeed agility, innovation, which is part of what is required today.”

“When I talk about new defense, agility, innovation, part of it is also market players taking risks.” Saudo said Safran has self-financing products including drones, loitering munitions and infrared binoculars, even as he repeated that programs of record will continue.

“In the current environment, you need financially to be able to invest. The defense market is moving fast, and it’s in transformation. It’s about tech and industry: tech innovation, agility, industry capacity to scale up production.

On defense AI and data

The company’s artificial-intelligence unit employs 250 people, “the biggest defense and security pool of AI professionals in Europe for production AI. Many people are talking about developing AI, research AI. This is not the business of Safran.AI. It’s in production, at the heart of real, combat-proven missions.”

Safran in September acquired Preligens, now Safran.AI, which uses AI to analyze images, video and acoustic signals to identify objects of military interest. Saudo said several armed forces around the world use Safran’s AI products for surveillance and detection.

“What we stand for is an open architecture, meaning capacity for the AI solutions of Safran to be agnostic to sensors and harbor data coming from different sensors. Safran is an equipment manufacturer, so our DNA is at equipment level, and being open to work with the different players.”

“We are really where the mission requires. Part of it is edge AI, so we already have edge-AI solutions for full motion video.” Saudo said the company’s Euroflir 410 electro-optical system or a PASEO sight can typically use edge AI for data treatment.

“It’s also an embarked data hub, a concentrator of data close to the battlefield, which is a second piece. It can be on a frigate, concentrating the different data sources, or on the battlefield, concentrating different sensors.”

“Safran is just an enabler for the armed forces, and then it is for them to decide at which echelon the information sort of circles back, knowing that the beauty of data is it can go in many directions. So you can have sort of short loops, but also longer loops with different level of analysis.”

“What we know out of Ukraine is the importance of decentralizing the decisions. If the armed forces decentralize the action, it requires different level of data concentration and making sense of the data. We do not believe in one size fits all, where all the data goes from the battlefield to a satellite to another satellite, and then down to a big sort of center.”

“It’s for the tacticians to decide the way they operate. All we do is we provide enablers, and because our AI architectures are open, because we have this capacity to have both Edge AI and embarked data hub, we then provide optionality for the armed forces, which enables decentralization where they wish.”

On growth areas

Saudo sees growth opportunities in Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance, with AI-enhanced ISTAR core for Safran “because it’s at the junction of electro-optical and AI.”

A second area of growth is resilient or assured position, navigation and timing. “How do you make sure that thanks to the combination of inertial navigation, GNSS, etc, you are immune to spoofing, to jamming, be it for your munitions, be it for your vehicles, be it for your high-value assets?”

Further growth areas are precision-guided munitions, including the Hammer air-launched weapon and missile seekers, as well as drones and loitering munitions, where Safran produces the Lanner 50-kilogram drone and Warbler loitering munition.

“I would add AI solutions as a stand-alone, because we both embed our AI solutions, edge AI and embarked data hub, but we also provide the Safran.AI open architectures for use to integrators to include as a building block in their suites.”

The company also sees “strong demand” for its HTeaming system that lets helicopter crews control unmanned aerial systems in flight, Victor Gerin-Roze, head of UAS at Airbus Helicopters, said at show here last week. The system is modular and can be retrofitted to existing aircraft.

In a first step, France signed a framework contract on June 17 to equip the French Navy’s frigates with six VSR700 drone helicopters, while inviting other nations to join the program. Meanwhile, Singapore signed an agreement last week to test crewed-uncrewed teaming between the Airbus H225M helicopter and the company’s Flexrotor UAS using HTeaming.

Airbus sees the market for the VSR700 as “quite large, especially considering the different types of missions that we can envisage,” Gerin Roze said. “It’s already sea-tested, it’s operational, but we need to finalize the development.”

The executive said the naval version of the VSR700 is the only unmanned aircraft of its size able to land automatically on deck. The helicopter drone can land autonomously on a moving deck in sea state 5, corresponding to rough seas with waves up to 4 meters, using beacons on the deck and without relying on satellite navigation.

France counts on buying ten of the drones for the navy by the end of 2030 as part ot its defense budget plan, and a total of 15 by 2035. The version for the French Navy is equipped with radar, an electro-optical system and an AIS vessel-tracking receiver.

The first VSR700 units will equip four of France’s eight multi-mission frigates and two out of five of its future Defense and Intervention Frigates, the country’s Directorate General for Armament said.

The VSR700 is an uncrewed version of the Cabri G2 by France’s Helicopteres Guimbal, a two-seat helicopter with carbon fiber fuselage and an advertised base price of €418,000 (US$479,000). Airbus replaced the seats with a bigger fuel tank, mission equipment and avionics, with the unmanned helicopter having a maximum takeoff weight of 760 kilograms.

“What is very interesting is that we start from an existing base, certified and already mission proven in different conditions, and we have dronized it,” Gerin-Roze said.

In addition to the maritime-surveillance version, Airbus presented an armed-scout version of the unmanned helicopter at the air show, with other possible configurations including an anti-submarine and surface vessel role or as a cargo drone.

The same technology used on the VSR700 can be used to turn other platforms into drones, with the autonomy brick “a kind of turnkey solution,” according to Gerin-Roze. He said the H145 is the next step, with Airbus already developing an autonomous, uncrewed version of the U.S. Marine Corps variant of the helicopter, the UH-17 Lakota.

Airbus at the Paris show also presented Flexrotor, a 25-kilogram drone that takes off vertically before tilting to winged flight, and tested earlier this month by the French Navy on one of its high-seas patrol vessels, which lacks a flight deck. The UAS was developed by U.S.-based Aerovel, acquired by Airbus in 2024.

Gerin-Roze said the drone when packed is small enough to be carried at the back of a H145 helicopter or a pickup truck. “Taking off from a ship is not an issue, we did some demonstration on decks, you would not even think that something can land on it.”

Teaming missions could include a Flexrotor flying several kilometers ahead of a troop-transporting H225M to scan a landing area, according to the executive.

Airbus Helicopters has been working on crewed-uncrewed teaming for several years, flying its H135, H145 and H130 models with different drones, including the VSR700 and the Flexrotor.

Airbus showcased its HTeaming system for crewed-uncrewed teaming at the Paris Air Show, with a commercial offering planned for 2026. The system can be retrofitted to any helicopter using a modem and four antennas, with the crew controlling the drone using a ruggedized tablet, according to Gerin-Roze.

“We know the workload it represents to pilot a helicopter, so when we developed the tablet, we had in mind to ensure that the additional workload is limited,” Gerin-Roze said. The executive said teaming between helicopters and drones “is really where we have our competitive advantage – we’ve been making cockpits since a long time.”

Airbus is the first to propose anything like HTeaming, according to Gerin-Roze, who said early adopters will probably be defense and security, before the technology spreads to civilian uses.

The company is working on artificial intelligence to allow a helicopter to team up with multiple drones as a next step, and has started working on swarming technology, Gerin-Roze said.

Raytheon’s naval power unit, which supplies missiles including the SM-2 and SM-6 models as well as the AIM-9X Sidewinder, is still hampered by availability of rocket motors, Barbara Borgonovi, who heads the business, said in a press briefing at the show.

“It’s not just about the constraint for demand today, it’s very much more about the increased demand we see in the future,” Borgonovi said. “We have to have more sources of supply qualified across a number of my programs for rocket motors to be able to reach that increased demand.”

Rocket motors have been a hurdle to ramping up American output of advanced munitions, with industry consolidation in recent decades shrinking the number of domestic suppliers of the key component. Meanwhile, the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have used up thousands of missiles, depleting the stockpiles of the U.S. and its allies.

Missile makers and their suppliers have been looking to grow and diversify production in response, expanding existing capacity or adding entire production lines for rocket motors.

Raytheon is supporting current suppliers, which for many of the programs overseen by Borgonovi is Aerojet Rocketdyne, owned by L3Harris. The executive said Aerojet has been investing and had “a great start in 2025,” supplying as many primary rocket motors by May this year as in all of 2024.

The second part of Raytheon’s rocket-motor strategy is to expand business with a number of existing successful partners, Borgonovi said. The company relies on Norway’s Nammo for the rocket motors that power the AMRAAM air-to-air missile and the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile, or ESSM.

Rocket motors are not a constraint for AMRAAM production, with a “very healthy” supply chain, said Sam Deneke, the company’s president of air & space defense systems. For ESSM, Nammo “do an incredible job supporting us on that program, not constrained there either,” Borgonovi said.

“So we are looking at extending our sources of supply for many of our programs to established providers,” Borgonovi said. Both Nammo as well as Italy’s Avio, another Raytheon supplier, are establishing U.S. manufacturing sites that will produce rocket motors for U.S. programs, she said.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office in a 2017 report noted that over two decades, the number of U.S. solid rocket motor manufacturers consolidated to two from six, with the number of suppliers also falling.

Meanwhile, in the Red Sea alone, the U.S. Navy and allied navies fired off hundreds of missiles to counter Houthi attacks against shipping since October 2023, while allies have provided Ukraine with thousands of missiles and rockets as it fends of Russia’s invasion.

“We have to be able to ensure that we deliver when it’s needed to the fleet,” Borgonovi said. “So lots of usage, we need to not just replace but we need to scale for the future because of future conflicts, future demand.”

The company is also looking to partners such as Ursa Major and Anduril for new technology and innovative manufacturing and design methods, according to Borgonovi. Raytheon and Ursa Major in December successfully tested a long-range solid rocket motor for the U.S. Army, using additive manufacturing to cut production costs.

The announcement by the French finance ministry on Thursday comes after the country’s Directorate General for Armament announced a 10-year framework contract with Eutelsat worth as much as €1 billion to provide military-grade satellite communications.

European militaries have been eyeing the role of Starlink in Ukraine, where the constellation of satellites operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX vital for command and control, drone operations and maintaining battlefield communications. The European Union plans to build its own satellite broadband system called IRIS², but lacks anything with the coverage of Starlink for now.

“France is increasing its stake in the Eutelsat Group to support it in a decisive phase of its development,” French Finance Minister Eric Lombard said in a social media post. “This increased investment reflects a clear desire to make satellite connectivity a strategic lever for digital and industrial sovereignty for our country and for Europe.”

Eutelsat is planning a €1.35 billion capital increase, and France’s planned participation will increase the government stake to around 30%, from less than 20% now. The U.K. government is also a shareholder with a stake of nearly 11%.

The DGA deal with Eutelsat for space communications aims to complement the French Syracuse military satellites in geostationary orbit with a constellation of low-orbit satellites. The program, called Nexus, aims to boost the safety and functionality of Eutelsat’s OneWeb constellation as satellites are renewed, in order to increase the range of possible military uses, the agency said.

“France is thus resolutely committed to a process of hybridizing the means of telecommunications by satellite for its forces, combining military and civilian capabilities,” the DGA said.

As part of the contract, Eutelsat will provide the armed forces with priority space resources, particularly those of the OneWeb constellation, as well as increase the security of the satellites in the constellation, according to the DGA.

Eutelsat is part of the consortium together with SES and Hispasat that was picked by the European Commission in November to deploy the IRIS² satellite constellation.

France’s Directorate General for Armament will subsidize work by aircraft makers Aura Aero, Daher and SE Aviation, drone maker Fly-R and aerospace company Turgis Gaillard to produce competing MALE drone demonstrators as early as 2026, the agency said June 18.

The market for MALE drones is evolving rapidly as the war in Ukraine shows their effectiveness as well as limitations. Meanwhile, the number of offerings of affordable platforms is growing, with countries such as France and Turkey focusing on developing domestic capabilities in the area. Companies at this year’s air show presented more than a dozen MALE drones at various stages of development.

“These initiatives are part of an effort to adapt military capabilities to meet evolving threats,” DGA said in a statement, saying the drones “play an essential role in modern conflict zones.”

The agency said recent high-intensity conflicts had highlighted the need for drones with long endurance at medium altitude, but also low cost, capable of performing multiple missions, resistant to jamming and which can be deployed rapidly. MALE drones are typically used for reconnaissance, surveillance and intelligence, and light attack roles.

The agreements mark “a decisive step in accelerating the MALE drone strategy of the Armed Forces Ministry,” the DGA statement reads. “They will make it possible to create the best operational solution while respecting time and cost constraints.”

Delays with the Eurodrone MALE drone being developed by Airbus, Dassault Aviation and Leonardo have forced countries including France and Germany to rely on foreign alternatives such as the MQ-9 Reaper by General Atomics and the IAI Heron from Israel Aerospace Industries, while also causing ballooning costs and a risk of technical obsolescence for the program.

The DGA said the signed demonstrator contracts will add options and create export opportunities and signal its commitment to creating a competitive MALE drone industry that will benefit the French armed forces. The initial budget is modest, with the DGA providing around €10 million ($12 million) in total for the five projects, company representatives told Defense News.

The five companies are offering rather different drones under the MALE label, in terms of size, payload, cost as well as endurance.

Turgis Gaillard presented its Aarok drone at the Paris Air Show, with a wingspan of 22 meters, endurance of more than 20 hours, a weapons payload of 1 metric ton, and a price tag the company told Defense News will be somewhere between €10 million and €30 million. The company has completed high-speed roll tests and plans the first flight of the drone by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, SE Aviation showcased its Driade drone, derived from its MCR 4S kit aircraft, which has a wingspan of around 8.7 meters. The drone will have a payload of 470 kilograms as well as 36 hours of endurance in a reconnaissance configuration, according to the company.

With Driade based on an existing certified aircraft, SE Aviation will be able to test autonomous flight this year, and the drone will have a price tag of less than €5 million, company CEO and co-founder Eric Fumey told Defense News.

Fumey said it’s unclear for now how many drone projects the DGA plans to retain for a second phase, saying that will depend on whether the directorate aims for different drones for different missions, “or one drone that does it all.”

French aircraft maker Aura Aero will develop its MALE drone Enbata under the DGA contract, while Fly-R signed with the DGA for its R2-600 MALE drone, notable for its rhomboidal wing, a joined wing configuration in a hollow diamond shape, and a maximum payload of 600 kilometers and endurance of 25 hours.

For aircraft maker Daher, the drone project is part of a wider push to expand its defense business, company executives said at a press briefing here on Wednesday.

It’s up to the company to show its aircraft can be “dronized,” and Draher may have an advantage to get its drone flying because the model will be based on an existing, certified plane which the company knows how to build, CEO Didier Kayat said.

The priority of the DGA is cost, followed by time to delivery, and Daher plans to test an unmanned aircraft by the end of 2025, according to Pascal Laguerre, the firm’s head of new technologies. The DGA contract will cover about 25% of the costs to prepare the demonstrator, with Daher financing the remainder in order “to play in this arena,” Laguerre said.

For Daher to double defense sales to €600 million euros over the next three to five years should be relatively easy, Kayat said. The company’s defense business includes more than €100 million in revenue as a supplier to Boeing’s KC-46 Pegasus tanker program, according to the CEO.

Other MALE drones on show in Paris include the Bayraktar Akinci at the Leonardo stand, a mock up of the Aksungur drone by Turkish Aerospace Industries, as well as the long-serving MQ-9 Reaper produced by General Atomics, an evolution from the granddaddy of MALE drones, the MQ-1 Predator. Aviation Industry Corp. of China displayed models of several MALE drones in its Wing Loong range.

Safran presented its Patroller MALE drone used by the French Army, with a wingspan of 18 meters and a flight time of 14 hours.

Airbus showed a mock-up of the Eurodrone, a bigger aircraft than most of the competition with a wingspan of 30 meters and a 13-ton maximum takeoff weight, a 2.3-ton payload and an autonomy of 40 hours.

The aircraft is further away from fielding than some of the MALE drones on display at the Paris Air Show, as an infamous example of large-scale, multinational European defense cooperation running into complications and delays. The first prototype flight is now slated for mid-2027, from an original plan for entry into service by 2025.

Airbus at this time continues to target entry into service by the end of the decade, Jean-Brice Dumont, the company’s head of air power, said at a press conference here on Tuesday.

Airbus also presented a mock-up of its Sirtap drone developed for the Spanish armed forces, an unmanned aerial vehicle with a 12-meter wingspan and endurance of more than 20 hours that bridges the gap between light UAVs and heavier MALE systems. The drone is expected to fly this year, with delivery to the Spanish forces by the end of 2026 and certification the following year.

Raytheon extended a partnership with Norway’s Kongsberg to produce the NASAMS air-defense system for another ten years, and is seeking more supply chain partners to add to cooperation agreements in Europe, Tom Laliberty, Raytheon president for land and air defense systems, told reporters here.

The European Union is pushing for member states to spend more on arms procurement within the 27-nation bloc to bolster local defense manufacturers. EU plans such as ReArm Europe seek to reduce reliance on external suppliers including the United States, creating an incentive for the likes of RTX, Raytheon’s parent company, to polish their European credentials.

“Longer term, I think there’s a very appropriate focus on building capacity here in Europe,” Laliberty said. “We’re going to continue to participate in those partnerships, pursue new partnerships, and look to ensure that we’re part of the European strategy going forward.”

Laliberty said RTX, which also includes Collins Aerospace and engine maker Pratt & Whitney, has some 24,000 employees in Europe.

European efforts to strengthen the local defense industry comes amid concerns about Russia’s aggression following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, as well as worries about American disengagement from the continent. U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to walk away from NATO security guarantees if European allies don’t step up defense spending.

Laliberty said partnerships are “very much the way we see Raytheon’s approach” in Europe. He said various countries take different approaches to sovereignty, and “we try to be open and help them meet those requirements.”

“Maybe some of those relationships change, where we’re supplying to some of our European partners or increase their work share on some of our programs, but I certainly believe that we have a very bright future here in Europe.”

Raytheon also signed a memorandum of understanding this week with Germany’s Diehl Defence to co-produce the Stinger short-range anti-air missile in Europe. The company aims to increase production of the weapon by 50% by the end of 2026, in response to “significant demand” related to the Stinger’s performance in Ukraine, Laliberty said.

The U.S. company announced plans to co-develop parts of the future GhostEye radar for the NASAMS system with Kongsberg, with Laliberty saying manufacturing will lean on Norwegian and European suppliers to support production.

A joint venture with pan-European missile maker MBDA in Germany to manufacture the GEM-T interceptor for the Patriot air-defense system “will use as much of a European supply chain as possible,” according to Laliberty. He said Raytheon has several partnerships for Patriot across Europe, including building of the entire launcher in Poland.

Raytheon is working with various NATO countries and the NATO Support and Procurement Agency on future contracts to take advantage of the new GEM-T capacity being added in Germany, the executive said.

“So we continue to work across Europe to find additional supply chains, to find additional partners, to really unlock the capacity here and increase our ability to deliver more product to the war fighter,” Laliberty said. “That transatlantic industrial base is required to meet the needs of all of NATO. So I’m very encouraged that we’ll be here for the long haul.”

The plan envisions an annual Eurofighter production boost from 14 planes now to 20 copies within 36 months, eying 30 at some point after that, said Jorge Tamarit Degenhardt, CEO of a consortium combining Airbus, Leonardo and BAE Systems.

Degenhardt told reporters at the Paris Air Show in June that he expects the export business to grow, with sales campaigns humming in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Poland, Austria and Portugal. That is in addition to requests for planes and upgrades from the core users Germany, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom.

“We didn’t max out yet,” Degenhardt said, referring to company plans to make more jets, faster.

The idea of producing “combat mass” for Europe, as the CEO called it, follows the urgency of recent conflicts sprung on the continent and its environs, most notably Russia’s war against Ukraine.

In that logic, a large fleet of warplanes of the generation 4-plus, which means capable but not stealthy, for example, is better than a futuristic airpower weapon that exists only on paper.

For now, Eurofighter officials are pitching to client nations a mid-life upgrade program aimed at modernizing the jet’s computing power and other basic features. Integrating drone buddies with the manned planes is also under consideration.

Asked about a price tag, Degenhardt demurred, saying only the envisioned technology upgrades are essential to keep the fleet viable.

“Jets delivered today will fly into the 2060s,” he said.

France and Germany are leading the sixth-generation FCAS program meant to produce a brand new warplane-drone mixture sometime in the 2040s.

That approximate target date appears to have become more squishy, as nations absorb lessons in combat adaption from Ukraine that are measured in days, weeks or months – not decades.

As a result, talk at Paris Air Show about FCAS took a more distant, aspirational tone, compared to the premise of a European rallying cry for all things air power under which it began.

A similar trend is playing out in France, where national warplane champion Dassault has eyes mostly on its own Rafale jet development and upcoming drone accoutrements.

The company is looking to extend the operational lifespan of the Rafale by at least two more decades and is currently preparing the next F5 standard upgrade for the fighter, which will add improved connectivity to integrate with other systems and the possibility to team up with a stealthy unmanned wingman drone.

Dassault Aviation CEO Eric Trappier has said the Rafale F5 standard is expected in the 2030-2035 window, with ongoing improvements to the existing aircraft in the coming ten years with partners Thales and Safran, with a focus on networking and connectivity.

The company last year was tasked by France’s Directorate General for Armament to develop the stealthy wingman based on its nEUROn demonstrator, operating ahead of the Rafale and controlled by the pilot of the manned aircraft.

Trappier told a parliamentary committee in April that the next-generation fighter is for the 2040s and beyond, and more likely 2045, with the Rafale and the future aircraft operating side by side for a period of time. Dassault representatives at the air show this week confirmed that schedule of the Rafale F5 standard bridging the 2035-2045 gap.

Meanwhile, FCAS partner Airbus said the goal for the Next Generation Weapons System remains to deliver capabilities to the three partner nations by 2040, and Jean-Brice Dumont, the company’s head of air power, told reporters in a press conference at the air show he had “no breaking news” on the project.

He said phase 1B of the program had “clearly” observed difficulties in execution, and the partners have to accelerate.

Trappier told lawmakers in his April hearing that working with Airbus is “very, very difficult” amid continued bickering over work share.

Dumont said his company is not challenging Dassault Aviation’s role as the appointed leader of the fighter development within the wider program. He said the issue of work share should be treated in “a rather soft manner” to avoid it becoming toxic in the program.

“We today have to protect our intellectual property and tomorrow we will have to share everything, and I believe that’s one of the sources of tensions in this program,” Dumont said. “Maybe some elements of work share may have to be changed to make the program executable.”

The Airbus executive said what is needed now to make FCAS happen is political will and an agreed joint operational need.

“These programs come like the whole foundation of Airbus, like many of the many of the European projects, they come because there is a political will,” Dumont said. “The political will has to be there, otherwise it doesn’t happen.”

The package offered by the two companies will feature the same AI-powered radar that equips the French Navy’s Atlantique 2 crewed maritime-patrol aircraft, said Philippe Duhamel, Thales executive vice president for defense-mission systems, at the Paris Air Show on June 18, after the firms signed a memorandum of understanding.

Thales and Skydweller will initially target military customers, with Thales is now working to integrate the radar in the platform and hoping for contracts “very soon,” Duhamel said.

The system will cost “far less than a Reaper,” with operating costs a factor five to 10 lower than any comparable platform, said Sebastien Renouard, head of international development at Skydweller Aero, referring to the General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper.

“It will be very disruptive,” he said.

Skydweller acts as a “pseudo satellite,” and combined with the Thales smart radar represents a “new paradigm for maritime surveillance,” according to Renouard. The drone is powered by more than 17,000 solar cells and can carry a payload of 400 kilograms.

Skydweller can operate “for days, weeks and months,” Renouard said. “We could certainly fly for a year at some point, but there will be intermediary steps, and those steps are related with the predictive maintenance of both the platform and the payload, because we have nobody on board taking care of this.” He said the company sees 90 days of continuous operation as the first big milestone.

The use case is very different from that of the ATL2 maritime patrol aircraft used by the French Navy, “which doesn’t fly for weeks,” Duhamel said. “Of course, ATL2 has many other functions that Skydweller doesn’t have. So it’s very complementary, it’s permanent surveillance.”

The maritime-patrol version of the Skydweller will be equipped with the Thales AirMaster S, an active electronically scanned array radar operating in the X-band, which Duhamel said has been primarily designed for maritime surveillance. The radar has a range of about 200 kilometers and is able to follow thousands of tracks simultaneously, both on the water and in the air, Duhamel said.

Skydweller is focusing initially on maritime surveillance, where the company feels it’s in a sweet spot as it’s an area where sovereignty is under attack and obtaining intelligence and surveillance is the most difficult, according to Renouard.

AI treatment of the data allows for target classification, limiting the data flow to operators and providing them with a better overview, while the low power consumption makes the AirMaster S suitable for drones, Duhamel said.

Thales and Skydweller have already received interest from several customers, and the companies are talking to military forces, civil emergency services and border control agencies in Europe and the United States, according to Renouard.

“The market for us certainly is military, but not only,” he said.

The solar-powered drone can operate non-stop up to around 40 degrees north and south of the Equator, as well in the polar regions during the summer, while operations during the polar winter would be limited to a day due to the available light, according to the Skydweller executive.

“With the signals we’re getting from the customers, we are studying a rate increase of the MRTT,” said Jean-Brice Dumont, head of air power at Airbus, in a press conference here. “When I say study, it’s more than studying.”

Airbus currently produces between four and five A330 MRTT aircraft a year, and “we would have to significantly increase it,” Dumont said. “The demand signal on the tankers is very high.”

Europe faces critical capability shortfalls in air-to-air refueling, according to the European Defence Agency. Airbus had delivered 36 A330 MRTT aircraft to European customers by the end of April, with another six on order, compared to the United States operating a tanker fleet of more than 400 aircraft.

Dumont estimates there may be a market for an additional ten to 20 of the planes in Europe, with further demand in the rest of the world, he told Defense News. The executive said the MRTT market is hard to gauge as “it’s quite dynamic,” with demand “coming and coming.”

Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark earlier this month signed a letter of intent to participate in NATO’s European MRTT fleet. Denmark already in March indicated plans to join the European tanker pool, including the potential purchase of two MRTT aircraft, saying its participation would cost an estimated 7.4 billion Danish kroner ($1.1 billion) over 2025-2033.

Airbus is seeing interest from countries that want to participate in the European pool as well as existing individual customers that want to grow their fleet in the current security context, and also potential new clients, according to Dumont. “A bit of everything,” he said.

The U.K. is the biggest European operator of the A330 MRTT with 14 planes, while France operates 12 aircraft with another three on order. Six European countries including the Netherlands and Germany have pooled their tanker needs in the NATO multi-nation fleet, which operates nine aircraft with one more on order.

“There is a foreseeable increase of the pool, I think many countries are realizing, with a number of fighters or other aircraft they have that can be refueled, that they have a need for fast deployment,” Dumont said. “So the pool is an answer.”

International operators include Singapore, South Korea, Australia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Airbus says the A330 MRTT has a market share of more than 90% in air-to-air refueling aircraft outside the United States.

Airbus faces a number of thresholds to ramp up tanker production that would entail investments to align tools and resolve industrial bottlenecks, Dumont said in the press conference. The executive said those thresholds might be at six aircraft a year and eight a year. “And then we can go much higher, but that’s another story.”

One question is whether Airbus has the hangars to accommodate higher output or would need to build new hangers or add production locations beyond the current ones. Dumont said. The company converts A330 aircraft assembled in France into tankers at its site in Getafe, south of Madrid.

Dumont said the company is close to signing the launch customer for the MRTT+, a new version based on the A330neo, with more fuel-efficient engines and an improved wing. The first MRTT+ is in production, with a target of delivering the plane by the end of 2028, he said.

Airbus also presented new capabilities for its A400M transport aircraft, including an increase of the payload by 3 metric tons to 40 tons and the capability to function as a drone “mothership” or an electronic-warfare platform for stand-off jamming.

“We are testing dropping drones from an A400M, we are then controlling a drone from an A400M,” Dumont said. “There is a question of mass saturation. How could the A400M play a role in saturation, in dropping a number of small vehicles as close as possible to the hostile contested area?”

The A400M could also act as communications hub for Europe’s planned sixth-generation Future Combat Air System, according to Airbus. The transport aircraft is already certified to be configured as a tanker, including for fighters such as the Eurofighter or Rafale.

France and Spain agreed to advance delivery of four and three ordered A400M aircraft, respectively, Airbus said. Phasing of the deliveries by customer countries was leading to a lower production rate than what Airbus considered sustainable, which is eight A400Ms aircraft per year, Dumont said.

“What we have agreed with them is a mechanism that enables to fill these eight production slots with either a local aircraft or an export aircraft, and a sort of a swap mechanism when export comes,” Dumont said. The production plan for the A400M is filled with eight aircraft a year until early 2029, the executive said.

“We could increase, but I think we prefer having a stable production system,” Dumont said. With the first half of 2029 four years away, “when we see the world as it is, I wouldn’t panic with something four years from now.”

Those homemade options are in addition to the drone lineup from new joint venture partner Baykar, whose jet-powered Kizilelma aircraft could be closest to what engineers are seeking under the British-Italian-Japanese program, Cingolani told reporters at the Paris Air Show.

“To be honest, we have the 345 and the 346,” he said, referring to the company’s trainer and light fighter plane variants. “We could modify those to be unmanned.”

He added: “But there are also big drones produced by Baykar that could be modified. In that case you have the unmanned, but you have to transform it into a real airplane. We start from a real airplane, transformed into an unmanned one.”

Cingolani’s comments appeared to close to the door on the idea that the Baykar team-up would by default lead to a GCAP drone from the Turkish company’s stable.

As with sixth-generation warplane designs of other nations, the GCAP architecture envisions a central aircraft with human pilots alongside which a plethora of drones boasting sensors and weapons would fly.

The program’s focus for the next five years lies primarily on the main aircraft, but the partner nations are free to explore unmanned companions on their own in the meantime, Cingolani explained.

The latest designs for the main aircraft entail “gigantic” dimensions, at 40 meters, he said with a chuckle.