EADS Pacific plans to participate in the Australian Army's JP129 tactical unmanned air vehicle competition with EADS Eagle medium endurance and Fox-T tactical air vehicles.
The proposed architecture would comprise three Fox-T systems and one Eagle, a common ground station and signal processing architecture, and common sensors which could be rotated between air vehicles as required. Eagle is a development of the Israeli Aircraft Industries Heron medium-altitude, long-endurance UAV. EADS says the proposal is intended to provide the Australian Army with a more flexible capability.
EADS concept data shows that a single Eagle UAV operating from Darwin would have a surveillance footprint extending over a 1,000km (550nm) radius for more than 12h from an altitude of 22,000ft (6,700m). This would enable sustained monitoring of all of East Timor, which is an ongoing focus for Australian Army operations, as well as the Indonesian territories of West Timor and Ambon.
Source: Flight International
