Germany has signed a €430 million ($555 million) commercial contract for the development of its first Eurohawk signals intelligence-gathering system, based on Northrop Grumman's RQ-4B Global Hawk Block 20 unmanned air vehicle.
Signed with prime contractor Eurohawk on 31 January, the deal incorporates an air vehicle, payload manufacture and integration, and non-recurring engineering activities. It will also cover the complete ground command and control infrastructure for the planned five-aircraft fleet, plus logistics support and flight testing. The demonstrator system is scheduled to be delivered in 2010.
A separate commercial contract is planned for acquisition of another four UAVs following the successful delivery and acceptance of the lead platform and ground architecture, with the full system scheduled for delivery between 2011 and 2014.
The use of commercial mechanisms for the deal paves the way for an easing of control restrictions on access to the Global Hawk for a number of other countries, including Japan, Singapore and South Korea. The nations have all previously explored foreign military sales-based acquisitions of the high-altitude, long-endurance platform.
The splitting of the purchase into two phases is a consequence of German military acquisition rules, which require new capabilities to be demonstrated to production standard before a full fleet purchase can occur. The German defence ministry signed the development deal immediately after the nation's parliamentary budget committee gave its final approval for an acquisition at a 31 January meeting.
The UAV-based system is to replace the German air force's Breguet Atlantic electronic intelligence aircraft, in use since 1972.
A joint venture between Northrop and EADS, Eurohawk will separately contract both companies to respectively supply air vehicles, payloads and ground infrastructure systems. EADS executive committee member Stefan Zoller says that with Eurohawk the German air force will "be able to cover its own future reconnaissance requirement with groundbreaking technology".
Source: Flight International
