nEUROn first Flight

The UCAV demonstrator nEUROn made its mainden flight this saturday, 1st December. Developped by 6 European countries (France, Greece, Italy, Spain, Sweeden and Switzerland) the project was initiated in 2003 by France in order to maintain and expend the R&D capabilities of the French military aerospace industries regarding stealth and fully autonomous flight of a combat aircraft.

Lead by Dassault aviation, responsible for the project management, final integration and stealth features, the European partners were assigned tasks corresponding to their domain of expertise :
The main fuselage was made by Saab, the wings by EADS casa, the rear fuselage and engine exhaust by HAI, the weapon bay by Alenia and the weapon system interface by Ruag.

Today's flight, which lasted 25 min, was the first of a serie of 80 that will take place in France, Sweeden and Italy during the next 2 years.

The chase plane which followed the nEUROn during its first flight was a Rafale B that can be breefly seen on that video