EADS Barracuda UAV / UCAV ....

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24 years 2 months

Posts: 4,082

Just found at the German "FlugzeugForum" ... and as I didn't make the picture I can only give You the link:

http://www.flugzeugforum.de/forum/showthread.php?p=491130#post491130

... take a look at post 2010 - 2016 (page 201-202) !

Cheers, Deino

Original post

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19 years 10 months

Posts: 1,151

EADS UAV "Barracuda"

For all members, who are not logged on at FlugzeugForum.de, the pictures, Deino mentioned, show roll tests of the new EADS UAV "Barracuda" at EADS Manching! :cool: :)
I will ask per PM the photographer/spotter "Join", if I can post his pic's here at this forum.
The "Barracuda" was shown to german military members and officials last weekend, it has the german and spanish Flag on the tail, because tests will be mostly held somewhere in Spain. The distinguishing mark is "99+80". The camo looks like the same as on the german Eurofighter.

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19 years 4 months

Posts: 629

Looks cool. It looks a bit like Sky-X don't you think (the picture shows the Alenia Sky-X)?

http://www.neat.se/press_info/ATI_Nov05/thumbs/24_Sky-X_pad_450px.jpg

Member for

18 years 1 month

Posts: 2

Hey, I like it too!! But I think it looks still quite differrent from the Sky-X. To begin with, the Barracuda seems to be larger... if you look at the relation to the people next to it on one of the photos.

I wonder when we'll see the first pictures of Barracuda outside flugzeugforum.de?!

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19 years 10 months

Posts: 1,151

Join does not allow me or other users at flugzeugforum.de to post his pitures here or in other forums in next time, because he is selling his pictures for publication (i.e magazines).
After his pictures are publicised, he might allow me or other users to post his pictures here.
I respect his statement.
I presume, his pictures of "the Barracuda" will be in the next issue of famous magazines like AI, AFM, FR, FI or Fliegerrevue.
We'll wait and see!

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 4,082

Join does not allow me or other users at flugzeugforum.de to post his pitures here or in other forums in next time, because he is selling his pictures for publication (i.e magazines).
After his pictures are publicised, he might allow me or other users to post his pictures here.
I respect his statement.
I presume, his pictures of "the Barracuda" will be in the next issue of famous magazines like AI, AFM, FR, FI or Fliegerrevue.
We'll wait and see!

Thanks a lot for asking him ... and that's the reason why I only gave links !

Cheers, Deino

Member for

19 years 10 months

Posts: 1,151

Yes, that picture is from Join at flugzeugforum.de. The same picture is also in March issue of the german magazine Flug-Revue. He might allow me to post other pictures of the "Barracuda" next week.

Member for

18 years 1 month

Posts: 18

http://www.flightinternational.com/Articles/2006/02/08/Navigation/190/204572/PICTURES+EADS+Military+Barrakuda+UCAV+rolls+out.html

"The unmanned aircraft is believed to be around the same size as Boeing's X-45, which has a span of 10.3m (33ft 10in) and length of 8m"

This is supposed to be a full tech demonstrator, this would mean the Barracuda project is years ahead of the French Neuron of wich a technological demonstrator is estimated for 2011!
Don't forget that EADS had a lot of technological transfer with the USA, they are currently updating the German Global Hawks and they work on a European version of Predator aswell!
I hope the Luftwaffe will invest in this project, its just amazing how this project was kept secret all over the years while the French President is showing off in front of a wodden model of the Neuron wich doesnt even have wheels to impress the worldpress.

btw, Spain seems to have left Neuron Programm

http://www.dassault-aviation.com/documents/media/ACFC9F.jpg
:dev2:

Go Luftwaffe Go !
http://i1.tinypic.com/mt4dur.jpg
http://www.ila-media.de/galerie_2004/WA_Global_Hawk.jpg

Germany also Pulls Ahead in army uav/ucav technology

The army ordered:
120 Luna UAV's
60 KZO UAV's
936 Taifun UCAV's
+ Hundrets of Aladin Infantry Drones

P.S. he put that small Barracuda pictures online for internet Forums

Member for

18 years 9 months

Posts: 13,432

http://www.flightinternational.com/Articles/2006/02/08/Navigation/190/204572/PICTURES+EADS+Military+Barrakuda+UCAV+rolls+out.html

"The unmanned aircraft is believed to be around the same size as Boeing's X-45, which has a span of 10.3m (33ft 10in) and length of 8m"

This is supposed to be a full tech demonstrator, this would mean the Barracuda project is years ahead of the French Neuron of wich a technological demonstrator is estimated for 2011!

That assumes Barrakuda is demonstrating the same level of technology now as Neuron will do in 2011. Predecessors of Neuron (Saab SHARC & Filur, Dassault Petit Duc & Moyen Duc stealthy technology demonstrators & test vehicles) have been around for years. Petit Duc flew in 2000, SHARC 2002, Moyen Duc 2004, Filur last year . . . Neuron is meant, I believe, to bring together all that work.

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19 years 8 months

Posts: 562

Neuron is a product demonstrator for future european combat planes in the 2020-2030 time frame (and upgrades to existing jets such as Gripen and Rafale) . It's not being built with the goal to be a operational UCAV. That's what Barracuda, SAAB's unnamed 'TUAV', Sky-X, Dassault * Duc etc etc is all about.

Ok, the firms involved in NEURON have other UCAV projects in parallell that if they haven't already had first flight will have soon. Barracuda is no where near as sophisticated as some of the other projects but thus should be capable of assuming operational capability much sooner.

And...since the Swedish defense have said they do not plan to buy any autonomous UCAV's that is not certified also for civilian airspace ,the projects within SAAB is more about perfecting the technology rather than build rough mock-ups no one will order anyway. They are not alone with this position. Filur and B-Sharc will continue flights in 2006 and in 2007 the TUAV (and possibly MALE) will fly. the time table for the other projects have not been made public but they have some interesting ideas in electronic propulsion.

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18 years 1 month

Posts: 18

Filur and B-Sharc are little rc toys compared to barracuda wich is supposed to be a full ucav demonstrator, they look big on single pictures but look at this ...

http://img436.imageshack.us/img436/7834/gripensharkfilur3qn.jpg (the Gripen is already a small Aircraft)

http://i1.tinypic.com/mt4dft.jpg
http://i1.tinypic.com/mt6osj.jpg

its just another dimension

also germany is building infrastructure for global hawk control, this systems could be modified for control of barracuda, no european state has such uav control systems today. Here is the Advantage, we can simply copy many of the Global Hawk's systems, no need for extensive developments.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v716/mazhouma/fgfh2.jpg

Member for

18 years 9 months

Posts: 13,432

Filur and B-Sharc are little rc toys compared to barracuda wich is supposed to be a full ucav demonstrator, they look big on single pictures but look at this ...

(the Gripen is already a small Aircraft)

its just another dimension

also germany is building infrastructure for global hawk control, this systems could be modified for control of barracuda, no european state has such uav control systems today. Here is the Advantage, we can simply copy many of the Global Hawk's systems, no need for extensive developments.

The size of an object tells you nothing about its technological sophistication. Signatory is talking sense: Barrakuda is probably less sophisticated than some of the other projects around, because it's aimed at producing an in-service system sooner. But it's more sophisticated than the European UAVs which are already in service.

Whatever the state of existing UAV control infrastructure in European countries, comparing a projection of future German capabilities with current capabilities in other European countries is meaningless. Other countries are building their capabilities. Consider the British (but produced by an international consortium of firms, headed by Thales) Watchkeeper programme: the air vehicles are based on an existing Israeli UAV, with a relatively unsophisticated but well-proven & reliable airframe, but the ground infrastructure, which accounts for a lot more of the cost, will be usable with future UAVs, perhaps based on Corax, or Barrakuda, or Neuron, or whatever. I could (truthfully) say that no other European country has ground control systems as good as Watchkeeper. But so what? They may have by the time Watchkeeper enters service.

When will you finish school?

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18 years 1 month

Posts: 18

Size does matter. Unlike Saab EADS has a lot of experience in the aerea of UAV's so they dont need to build mini UAV's to learn the "basics", last summer a global hawk landed in north germany and its pilot was somewhere in california, so when germany is buying global hawks we will get the same control abilitys wich could be copied for the Barracuda.
The whole Barracuda programm was launched arround 1995 under Kohl, so it has already 11 years passed.

And France will have an UCAV demonstrator of the Neuron in 2011, at that time Germany will have Global Hawks already in service and the Barracuda programm is almost 16 years old...

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18 years 9 months

Posts: 13,432

Size does matter. Unlike Saab EADS has a lot of experience in the aerea of UAV's so they dont need to build mini UAV's to learn the "basics", last summer a global hawk landed in north germany and its pilot was somewhere in california, so when germany is buying global hawks we will get the same control abilitys wich could be copied for the Barracuda.
The whole Barracuda programm was launched arround 1995 under Kohl, so it has already 11 years passed.

And France will have an UCAV demonstrator of the Neuron in 2011, at that time Germany will have Global Hawks already in service and the Barracuda programm is almost 16 years old...

Saab aren't building mini UAVs to learn the basics: Saab knows them. Saab's building mini-UAVs to test stealth & other technologies.

Yes, EADS has a lot of experience in UAVs, but in case you hadn't noticed, EADS isn't a German company - it's incorporated in the Netherlands, & its major shareholders are roughly equally split between France & Germany.

France has UAVs now - has had them in service for many years, before the Barrakuda programme began. Same for many other European countries (including Germany, of course). Existing European UAVs have been used in weapons release tests, & the Euromale (an EADS-led programme, but French-centred AFAIK) is being built with hardpoints.

Can you please explain to me how buying American UAVs (not UCAVs) shows German superiority in building anything, let alone UCAVs. BTW, if it takes 11 years for a UCAV programme to get to the point of taxiing trials, it's hardly evidence of massive superiority.

Grow up.

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18 years 1 month

Posts: 18

Besides i enjoy your remarks at the end of your posts I didnt say that its far superior nor that other countrys in EU can't set up something similar.
I only said that the Global Hawk and the Predator tech gave EADS a technological advantage over the Neuron federation and others since these systems are already proven in service and battle while all other european efforts in this aerea are just in projection phase.

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19 years 4 months

Posts: 5,707

Did the predator and and global hawk deals involve technology transfer? If so can somebody provide a source? becouse if they didnt then its irrelevant becouse the technology from the two american products would not have been absorbed by EADS, in fact they probably wouldnt even have access to it.

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18 years 1 month

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German Demonstration

In July of 2000, Northrop Grumman and the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) signed an agreement to develop an unmanned wide- area surveillance and reconnaissance system. The project, which brought together the companies' respective expertise in UAV and sensor technology, was initiated to offer a replacement for the ageing fleet of Breguet Atlantique signals intelligence (SIGINT) aircraft of Marinefliegergeschwader 3 (MFG3) Graf Zeppelin based at Nordholz, Germany, due to be replaced by 2008. This cooperation was followed by a bilateral project agreement between the US Air Force and the German Ministry of Defence signed in October 2001.

On July 23, 2002, US Air Force and German Ministry of Defense officials completed preliminary compatibility testing of EADS' electronic intelligence (ELINT) payload with Global Hawk at the Integrated Systems facility in San Diego, California. The first successful demonstration of the ELINT sensor payload aboard Global Hawk took place on November 17 and 22 at Edwards AFB. During the missions, the sensor was able, for the first time, to detect radar transmissions from emitters located at the Naval Air Warfare Center, China Lake, California. The transmissions were sent through a line-of-sight communications link to a temporary German ground support station located at the Air Force flight test center at Edwards.

With the successful integration of the EADS' ELINT payload into Global Hawk, Northrop Grumman undertook a series of demonstration flights in Germany for the German Ministry of Defense (MoD) in Fall 2003. On October 15, the first prototype RQ-4A performed a 20-hour, 53-minute transatlantic flight from Edwards AFB, California to the naval airbase at Nordholz to demonstrate the technical feasibility of using UAVs to perform HALE wide-area surveillance (WAS) missions. Global Hawk was based at Nordholz from October 15 to November 6, 2003, during which time it performed six demonstration flights over the North Sea for a total of 29 hours flight time. The European ELINT sensor enabled Global Hawk to detect and classify electromagnetic signals from aircraft, ships and land based systems, determining the type of radar emanating from each, while relaying the information via a UHF data link to an EADS ground station. These flights represented the first successful operation of a UAV in controlled European airspace, paving the way for further developments of unmanned flight in Europe.

The test program led to a decision by the German MoD to develop and produce a Global Hawk-derived sensor platform called EuroHawk to satisfy its HALE WAS mission requirements. EuroHawk will be based on the RQ-4B model Global Hawk and carry an EADS-developed sensor package. This promising Global Hawk derivative is discussed further in the Emerging UAV Missions International Overview section below.

http://www.northropgrumman.com/unmanned/globalhawk/overview.html

http://www.northropgrumman.com/unmanned/globalhawk/images/GH-Eurohawk-Brochure.pdf

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Posts: 562

@ mark1100

"Filur and B-Sharc are little rc toys compared to barracuda wich is supposed to be a full ucav demonstrator, they look big on single pictures but look at this ..."

Although I've read your other posts in this thread and clearly you are not mature enough to discuss the subject in full, I will try to explain this as simple as I can.

B-sharc and Filur are scaled down demonstrators ok, hence the name BABY-SHARC this is development procedure SAAB have used in the past when they are breaking new ground in aearodynamics development. They also hold a world unique production capacity in composite structures that now enables they to produce testbeds quicker than before. Both the B-SHARC and FILUR have had their fully autonomous flights and sharc downlinked real time video to the Linköping office 2000km south.

So don't come here talking about R/C kiddo, you obviously have little knowledge of these matters. But maybe you have learned something now.
Another "baby" demonstrator that recently flew were the German EADS Phoenix space shuttle, this too at Vidsel base. Would you call this a R/C jet?

History lesson:
21 January 1952 first flight of SAAB 210, "Lill-draken" (Baby Dragon) built to verify the Double Delta-wing airworthiness. Vital lessons learned from this baby jet led to the design of the big Draken and for the Concorde project.

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/121/122saab210redu0ok.jpg

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19 years 4 months

Posts: 629

I think when it comes to UAVs/UCAVs Germany/France/Sweden/UK are roughly the same. sweden/UK have demonstrated stealth (Filur,Corax,Replica) and autonomy (Sharc, Filur, Corax, Herti). France has demonstrated stealth and autonomy shouldn't be such a problem and Germany has indisputable the largest UAV around at the moment (stealthy, autonomy?). Neuron imo is more advanced than Barracuda in stealth, but Neuron will be real in 2011, Barracuda is here already. Whilst the UK won't lag behind because of the soon to be announced new UCAV effort running into the "tens of millions of Pounds" (quote mike turner BAe CEO). So stay cool guys. :cool:

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19 years 8 months

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I'm cool as vanilla ice... well there is only a problem when people compare projects that do not share the same goal. And neuron, barracuda, corax do not share the same goal. There's also a further difference on the issue of autonomous operations as the certification for restricted or civilian airspace differs alot.

Barracuda and Sky-X are quite similar as they both have no airforce commitment behind them yet demonstrate (at least sky-x have so far) a autonomous capability for strikes in a restricted airspace, that can quickly be produced should an airforce need this capability. So far there is little interest by militaries for barracuda/sky-x and similar platforms. Cheap ISTAR uav's is in demand and the french and americans have plenty to offer there.

The next step is for stealth and auton´ certified for civilian airspace with the option to carry a weapons load, and there's no candidate ready as we speak. Anywhere in the world. everyone is rushing to solve the technological problem areas now...