{"id":54750,"date":"2019-06-21T20:15:55","date_gmt":"2019-06-21T20:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2019\/06\/21\/us-drone-maker-senses-a-leg-up-in-europe\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T23:58:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T23:58:25","slug":"us-drone-maker-senses-a-leg-up-in-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/digital-show-dailies\/paris-air-show\/2019\/06\/21\/us-drone-maker-senses-a-leg-up-in-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"US drone maker senses a leg up in Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PARIS \u2014 U.S. drone-maker General Atomics looks to get a foothold in the European market by touting the promise of smooth civilian-airspace integration of its aircraft by militaries there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company considers the United Kingdom, with its Protector program of 20 or so planned aircraft, as the launch customer for the MQ-9B SkyGuardian, a successor to the Reaper. The medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) drones come with safety features that executives at this year\u2019s Paris Air Show said will enable a so-called military-type certification by the British authorities in the summer of 2023 \u2014 the final step toward allowing the drone to fly routinely alongside civilian air traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Belgium also has gained U.S. approval to buy four of the aircraft, complete with a detect-and-avoid suite that can alert the system whenever its flight path risks hitting another aircraft, according to a March 26 announcement by the Pentagon\u2019s Defense Security Cooperation Agency. That technology, along with a host of technologies for safe operations that have long been standard in manned aviation, is still considered something of a holy grail in the drone business.<\/p>\n\n\n\t