Europe’s defense industry could build a hypersonic glide vehicle to help the EU better defend itself against similar adversary systems.

The Countering Hypersonic Glide Vehicles (CHGV) project, worth a potential €78 million ($84 million) of funding, is one of 32 projects open to bidding in the European Defense Fund’s (EDF) latest call for proposals. A total of €1.1 billion is available this year.

• European Defense Fund’s 2024 budget reaches €1.1 billion
• 80% of defense equipment is purchased outside the EU
• FMTC project is intended to mature airlifter technologies

As it enters in its fourth year, the European Commission-led EDF aims to support defense research, development and cooperation among member states, providing funding only to industry based in the EU and Norway.

This year’s call prominently features aerospace projects, including the development of advanced radar sensors and new-generation medium--altitude, long-endurance (MALE) uncrewed air systems (UAS) as well as the advancement of next-generation medium helicopters and airlifters.

These projects reflect European leaders’ growing ambitions to expand their defense industries’ technological offerings and the plans of member states to cooperate in the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) initiative. The call comes as EU leaders urge member states to spend as much as 50% of their procurement budgets within the union by the end of the decade.

A newly published European Defense Industrial Strategy (EDIS), prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, strives to improve the structural readiness of Europe’s defense industry: to be prepared for production ramp-ups and ensure security of supply. That strategy is supported by both the EDF and the European Defense Industry Program (EDIP), a new legislative initiative with regulatory and financial mechanisms to encourage and boost European defense cooperation.

As defense spending rises across the continent, European officials remain troubled that nearly 80% of the equipment purchased has been acquired from outside the EU. Moreover, only 18% of the equipment was purchased in a collaborative manner.

“Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine has also given us a new awareness and a new responsibility,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in Brussels on March 21. “In reaction, member states have already spent €100 billion more on defense, and that is good. . . . But we have to strengthen Europe’s defense industrial base. . . . We need to spend better, and we need to spend European.”

The development of the HGV demonstrator is one of the largest projects in this year’s call. Its production would allow industry to build and validate performance assessments of the “most demanding HGV systems,” the EDF literature states, paving the way for European industry to develop a defense against HGVs being built by adversaries.

This is likely to feed into the PESCO Timely Warning and Interception with Space-Based Theater (Twister) hypersonic defense initiative and its associated EDF-funded Hypersonic Defense Interceptor Study (HYDIS2) and Hypersonic Defense (HYDEF) projects, led by two rival factions of the European missile industry (AW&ST July 3-16, 2023).

“There is a need to further improve knowledge on the HGV threats . . . and on the combination of their signatures and kinematic behaviors to successfully detect, track and counter these threats,” the documents state.

The latest call is also set to progress two emerging projects: one to develop a new medium rotorcraft for EU militaries, potentially to meet NATO’s Next-Generation Rotorcraft Capability (NGRC), and another to produce a European alternative to Lockheed Martin’s C-130J Hercules airlifter and replace such types as the Airbus C295 and Leonardo C-27 Spartan.

A new phase of the EU Next-Generation Rotorcraft Technologies (ENGRT), first launched in 2022 and valued at €100 million, calls on industry to explore technologies and rotorcraft architectures to pave the way for a European collaborative helicopter that could be ready by 2035. The new EDF project will follow on the existing ENGRT initiative led by Airbus and Leonardo Helicopters and could fund the development of a demonstrator or inflight demonstrations of so-called technology bricks for the rotorcraft.

The €30 million Future Midsize Tactical Cargo (FMTC) project follows on from the Future Air System for European Tactical Transportation (FASETT) EDF project launched last year and seeks technology maturation efforts for the airlifter.

These initiatives, the documents suggest, could include the maturing of avionics technologies, smart aircraft controls and new propulsion technologies, such as making the aircraft more electrical than previous generations of airlifters (AW&ST July 17-30, 2023). The documents say such efforts could “lower the risks” associated with the FMTC’s development and enable a first flight in the early 2030s.

European industry is also being asked to develop and prototype a new-generation MALE UAS that could be more widely adopted by member state militaries. Now that MALE UAS are an “indispensable capability” for European air forces, officials report that some services are struggling to “fully benefit” from systems purchased from outside the EU that are incompatible with their own sensors.

The €100 million project—separate from the multinational Eurodrone program—is intended to develop a prototype system to meet “commonly agreed EU defense objectives” to ensure “European strategic autonomy and technological competitiveness.” Bidders must also prototype a common sensor pod for the proposed air vehicle, containing different sensor payloads for national needs.

In addition, the call for proposals asks industry to work on small UAS, perform studies on collaborative combat aircraft and mature relevant technologies for a short-range air-to-air missile for future combat aircraft.

Industry has until early November to deliver its proposals.