The German Defence Procurement Agency (BAAInBw) and Airbus Defence and Space have signed a contract to provide Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) Heron 1 surveillance unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to support the Bundeswehr mission in Mali.
Similar to the mission in Afghanistan active since 2010, the Heron 1 UAS will be leased from IAI and operated by Airbus. In future, military missions will also be flown solely by military personnel. Operations in Mali will start in November 2016 and are initially planned until February 2018.
“A major success factor for this new assignment is our experience gained in more than 2300 missions over Afghanistan” said Thomas Reinartz, Head of Sales for unmanned aerial systems at Airbus. “There we have proven our reliability to the full satisfaction of our customer – with a fleet availability higher than 95 percent”.
“We are proud to continue to provide an operational solution and excellent service to Germany” said Shaul Shahar, IAI’s Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Military Aircraft Group. “We are pleased to continue our successful cooperation with Airbus, which is a further proof of IAI’s Heron 1 capabilities, advantages and its ability to provide an optimal solution for the most challenging missions”.
On July 1st 2016 the Bundeswehr took over responsibility for the intelligence unit in Mali from the Netherlands. In the perimeter of the UN MINUSMA mission German forces are taking on their tasks mainly in the Gao region. The current threat scenarios and the size of the area of operations – the north of Mali is more than twice the size of Germany – require a long-endurance surveillance system. Based on the extremely positive experience acquired in Afghanistan, German forces will therefore now also deploy the Heron 1 to Mali.
By using the current operator model the Bundeswehr benefits in various aspects. In addition to the high availability of the fleet and high flexibility in terms of contract duration, the German forces can focus entirely on their core missions. They also profit from the system’s full compatibility and interoperability within NATO.
The extension of the Heron 1 operational model is paving the way also for the next drone generation Heron TP, which has been selected by the German Bundeswehr Chief of Staff to succeed the Heron 1 and bridge the timeframe until a European drone development is available.
IAI’s Heron Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) UAS is fully operational with twenty customers worldwide. With over 200,000 accumulated flight hours, Heron has a proven record in military, security and civilian applications. It has been granted airworthiness approvals and certificates by military and civilian aviation authorities worldwide.
Airbus Defence and Space, a division of Airbus Group, is Europe’s number one defence and space enterprise and the second largest space business worldwide. Its activities include space, military aircraft and related systems and services. It employs more than 38,000 people and in 2015 generated revenues of over 13 billion Euros.
