LE BOURGET—The French military and Dassault Aviation are working to have a new, large combat drone ready early next decade for the service entry of the latest Rafale F5 fighter.
The uncrewed combat air system draws on the experience France gained with the Neuron UCAS and should be ready for fielding around 2033 and have its first flight a few years earlier, a program official for the French defense procurement agency DGA said in an interview at the Paris Air Show.
French officials are coy about revealing details of the stealthy system, which is designed to operate alongside the Rafale in highly contested air space to take down an adversary’s air defenses. The UCAS will carry a mix of weapons internally, the DGA official says, including air-to-air weapons. “We will have quite a broad panel of weapons,” he adds.
The operational concept calls for a single Rafale F5 pilot to be able to control one UCAS, though it is possible that could be expanded to control of multiple drones.
The UCAS is being designed to be roughly the size of the Dassault Mirage 2000 fighter, which sports a maximum takeoff weight of around 38,500 lb. The drone will be powered by a single Safran M88 engine, the same powerplant used on the twin-engine Rafale.
Like Rafale, the drone is being designed to also be able to operate from aircraft carriers.
France also plans for the system to be capable of aerial refueling. Designers are still assessing, though, whether it will employ a hose-and-drogue refueling mechanism like the Rafale or a probe-and-drogue approach. France’s Airbus A330-based tanker fleet can support both mechanisms.
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