EADS Harfang
- EADS
- IAI
The Harfang (French for Snowy Owl ), formerly called Eagle 1, is procured from the French Air Force in small quantities version of the IAI Heron. As with the output pattern of Israel Aerospace Industries is a drone in the category Medium Altitude Long Endurance, which means to German Lange in about Medium altitude of flight time. The equipped with reconnaissance equipment from EADS and Thales system is used by the French armed forces since 2009 in Afghanistan.
History
When Harfang is a military reconnaissance system that was developed as part of the French defense procurement program Système de Drone MALE interimaire ( SIDM ). She had its maiden flight on 9 September 2006; the testing took place at the Air Force Base Base aérienne 125 Istres -Le Tube instead.
The first drone of this type were delivered to the French Air Force in 2007. On 3 June 2008, the system, consisting of three aircraft and two ground stations, was officially taken over by the French Armed Forces. Beginning of 2009, the mission in Afghanistan at the Bagram Air Base. The end of March or beginning of April 2009 crashed one of the drones.
The drones were operated by the squadron of drones 01 033 " Belfort ", which has been based at the military airfield Cognac Chateau Bernard. They were put out of service in early 2014 and Morocco has expressed interest to take them over.
Technology and Operations
As with the output pattern Heron 1, the Harfang has the characteristic high aspect ratio wings with very low sweep, which increases the endurance and altitude at the expense of high speeds. The drive has not changed and is via a 86 kW ( 115 hp) Rotax 914 payable driving a pusher propeller. Compared to the output pattern externally only the fuselage was lengthened by 80 cm to accommodate the modified sensor equipment. The total length is now 9.3 m.
Landings and take-offs take place fully automatically. The flight takes place according to a pre-programmed route, where in a ground station seated Air Vehicle Operator ( AVO ) and Payload Operator ( PO) may intervene at any time in the flight control. The control may alternatively be performed manually.
Payload
The limited to a maximum weight of 250 kg payload consists basically of the same components as the output pattern: A Synthetic Aperture Radar approximately centered under the fuselage and a gyro- stabilized electro-optical Aufklärungspod under the nose. In contrast to the original pattern, the sensor is, however, not scaffolded by the manufacturer IAI, but only of EADS in France. The components originate largely from Europe, including Thales.
Eagle 2
When the Harfang still the name Eagle 1 was there was the idea to build a development under the name Eagle 2. This variant would have been much greater a considerably more extensive reconnaissance equipment to carry. When driving a turbo-prop engine of 900 kW ( 1,200 hp) would have been used, which is also the flight performance had improved considerably. The project, which was very similar to that realized by IAI Heron for further development of the Heron TP will no longer be pursued. In comparison to the American models, the Eagle 2 would have been in the power range of the General Atomics MQ -9, while the Harfang only moved in the power class of the General Atomics RQ -1 Predator.