Germany Backs Out on Euro Hawk

Photo courtesy Northrop Grumman Corp.

By Danielle Lucey



Germany has canceled its plans to continue with the Euro Hawk program, a modified version of Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk that was to be used for surveillance.



According to an Associated Press report, a major hurdle for the program was the large expense of clearing the aircraft to fly in European airspace, even though the program has already spent 250 million euros to deliver one of the five aircraft planned. 



The project, with an original planned cost of 1 billion euro, flew that aircraft in its first full-system test flight out of Manching, Germany, in January. The total number of aircraft delivered was supposed to be five. And the original flight was behind schedule by about half a year.



Speaking with Unmanned Systems contributor Marc Selinger in an interview that occurred prior to Germany’s announcement, Matthias Schmitt, a spokesman for Germany’s Federal Ministry of Defence, explained the program’s delays.



“Phasing in the Euro Hawk as the first high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aircraft system has proven to be more complex and difficult than expected,” he said.



The Block 20 modified Global Hawk variant delivered will likely be put to other uses, according to EADS, which entered a 50-50 venture with Northrop Grumman called Euro Hawk GmbH for the program. 



“The Cassidian-developed mission equipment can be integrated on other platforms,” Bernhard Gerwert, the chief executive officer of EADS’s defense unit Cassidian, said in an e-mailed to news outlet Bloomberg.