Aviation Week & Space Technology - January 15, 2015

AviationWeek.com/awst

load accounting for roughly half of the
money spent so far, and an increasing
need for ears in the sky to Germany’s
east, a compelling case is emerging to
get the sensor in the air.
“Around €300 million has gone into
the sensor, and it cannot be fully devel-
oped or improved without this thing
fl ying,” Runge told the Defense IQ UAS
Training and Simulation conference in
December.
The signals intelligence payload for
Euro Hawk is split into two parts—
electronic intelligence (elint) and com-
munications intelligence (comint)—
each placed in gondolas hung under
the wings. This limits the options for
a follow-on platform.
“Most civil aircraft have engines
under the wings,” Runge notes. “If
you have the sensor gondolas next to
the engines it creates lots of problems
with reception, and you could create
structural problems on board.”
The Bundeswehr (German defense
department) considered deploying the
system on another unmanned platform
—it also operates the Israel Aerospace
Industries (IAI)-built Heron under a
leasing agreement, and is due to tran-
sition to the larger Heron TP in 2015—
but this option has been ruled out.
“We would have had to split the
sensor load, but it is designed in a way
that interacts,” says Runge. “You can-
not have a comint aircraft and an elint
aircraft not communicating, and you
would have to always have two air-
borne, [which is] very complicated.”
The choice has narrowed, therefore,

to an unspecifi ed business-jet platform

or the Triton, which has been designed

with civil certifi cation in mind and car-

ries subsystems to deal with icing and

lightning-strike protection. It is this is-

sue—certifi cation of the safety of the

airframe to fl y over inhabited areas of

Europe—that, Runge says, “broke the

back of the Euro Hawk program.” Spe-

cifi cally, he cites NATO’s Standardiza-

tion Agreement (Stanag) 4671, on air-

worthiness of unmanned aircraft, as

the document that led to the program’s

cancellation.

“In 2007, when we closed the con-

tract, there was no Stanag 4671,” he

says. “But it was in force in 2010 when

we brought [Euro Hawk] over. This is

what it was tested against, and obvi-

ously it was not up to the high stan-

dards that were required. We were

already thinking about how to bring

[lightning protection and anti-icing

systems] into the program anyway,

but the MQ-4C now is a somewhat

complete package. We would recognize

the [U.S.] Navy as an airworthiness

authority that we could base our own

airworthiness certifi cate on.”

“A lot” of the initial cadre of 11 pilots

were trained to fly Euro Hawk dur-

ing courses at Beale AFB, Calif ornia,

Runge says, three of them to instructor-

pilot level. Three will be transferred to

NATO’s AGS (Alliance Ground Surveil-

lance) program, another Global Hawk-

based system; fi ve are currently under-

going conversion to the Heron.

Germany’s Heron program —initial-

ly envisioned as a short-term stopgap

ahead of procurement of a planned

European medium-altitude, long-en-

durance UAS —is “a success story, but

there are some drawbacks connected

with it,” Runge says. “It’s done mis-

sions of 96 hr.-plus, and right now it

fl ies about as many hours per year as

a full wing of tactical aircraft, so it is

comparatively cheap.”

The platform has fl own over 20,000

hr. since it was deployed in March

2010. There have been some losses,
      which Runge ascribes in large part to
      issues around training, and the speed
      with which the system was deployed.
      “We had 11 weeks training with IAI
      [in Israel], and after that there’s no
      follow-on training,” he says. “So you
      directly deploy into the area of op-
      erations, and at that time there’s zero
      operational experience. It’s easy to un-
      derstand that this creates problems.” c

DEFENSE

Germany may adapt

the U.S. Navy’s MQ-4C

Triton to conduct aerial

surveillance.

NORTHROP GRUMMAN

52 AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/JANUARY 15-FEBRUARY 1, 2015