By Sabine Siebold
BERLIN, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Airbus has carried out the first test flight in Europe of a US-built drone that it hopes to team with Eurofighter jets, but without yet incorporating its European mission system, the CEO of its defence division said.
The limited European debut for the Valkyrie drone developed by US-based Kratos Defense aims to show that regulatory barriers that hampered past efforts to integrate military drones into Europe's complex airspace can be overcome.
In 2025, Airbus
and Kratos announced a partnership to supply the German Air Force by 2029 with combat drones capable of flying autonomously, being remotely piloted or teaming up with Eurofighters.
The drone will be based on Kratos' rail-launched uncrewed collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) Valkyrie, with a range exceeding 5,000 km (3,107 miles), and equipped with Airbus' mission system.
"For now, it's a major step in terms of the clearances required to make this project happen," Airbus Defence and Space CEO Michael Schoellhorn told Reuters following the flight over northern Europe on September 29.
"We flew up to Mach 0.8 at various flight altitudes and attitudes. We tried all sorts of things and were very impressed, so it was a complete success," he added in an interview.
Airbus is competing in an increasingly crowded field that includes Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Atomics, Anduril Industries and Saab to build uncrewed combat aircraft to tap what could become a new multibillion-dollar global defence market.
In 2013, Germany cancelled the Northrop-developed Euro Hawk drone after a wrangle over European civil certification rules.
Schoellhorn said Valkyrie was expected to have Airbus' MARS Mission System on board for its next test flight in the first quarter of 2027. The first flight teamed with a Eurofighter jet is scheduled later that year.
COST ESTIMATED TO BE €20 MILLION PER UNIT
Schoellhorn put the cost of Valkyrie at around €20 million ($22.4 million) and estimated total German needs at around 500 CCAs.
The German Air Force is working to clarify requirements — for example, whether the drone is meant to operate alongside fighter pilots in air-to-air combat, air-to-ground strikes or electronic warfare, he said.
"I hope that in the first half of 2027 it will become clear what we're supposed to deliver or what the industry as a whole is supposed to bring to the table."
He floated the possibility of German or European production if order numbers allowed for it.
Asked about dependence on the US at a time when Washington is seen as an increasingly unreliable partner by some in the Western alliance, Schoellhorn said equipping an existing US platform with a European system was a pragmatic compromise.
"The central element — the place where data is processed, where missions are managed, and where the data is implemented in the mission — that is designed in Europe," he said.
($1 = 0.8928 euros)
(Reporting by Sabine Siebold; Editing by Tim Hepher and Paul Simao)
