Germany kills Euro Hawk

Germany has reportedly pulled the plug on the Euro Hawk, an RQ-4 Global Hawk based platform, according to press reports. Northrop Grumman reports they have received no word on the cancellation, or anything else related to slowing the project, but German government sources say they have cancelled it due to licensing and safety issues.

During flight testing of the one article Germany has received, flight control issues cropped up. Northrop reportedly refused to give the Germans technical data that would have allowed them a better understanding of the issues and the aircraft.

Germany has cancelled its planned €1 billion ($1.3 billion) procurement of five Northrop Grumman Euro Hawk unmanned air vehicles, citing significant barriers to certificating the type for flights in civil airspace.

The country's defence ministry said on 15 May that the programme faced "significant certification difficulties", which made it impossible to operate the high-altitude, long-endurance type "reliably and without [safety] concerns".

A full-scale demonstrator of the RQ-4 Global Hawk-derived type was delivered to Manching air base, near Munich, for test flights in 2011. If these had proved successful, Germany planned to buy four additional Euro Hawks for its air force.

www.flightglobal.com...

Originally posted by Zaphod58
During flight testing of the one article Germany has received, flight control issues cropped up. Northrop reportedly refused to give the Germans technical data that would have allowed them a better understanding of the issues and the aircraft.

Sounds like if true, they sunk their own ship on the sale.

Originally posted by CalibratedZeus

Originally posted by Zaphod58
During flight testing of the one article Germany has received, flight control issues cropped up. Northrop reportedly refused to give the Germans technical data that would have allowed them a better understanding of the issues and the aircraft.

Sounds like if true, they sunk their own ship on the sale.

Its not the ship's sinking... its germany itself...

Yep we cancelled it, but in German news it was said that it has something to do with the whole European air safety regulations, because the Hawk does not have an anti-collision system or something like that which would be necessary to operate over European terrain.

Pretty expensive, the worst part is that our government already knew it on purchase. The defence minister is in big trouble now. De Maiziere will probably have to give an proper explanation for this, else he will have to leave I think.

The last scandal (if you want to call it like that) that big was the Starfighter crisis I think

reply to post by aLLeKs


That was part of it. Grumman wouldn't allow them access to the sensitive parts that needed to be modified to allow them to fly over Europe.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by aLLeKs

 

That was part of it. Grumman wouldn't allow them access to the sensitive parts that needed to be modified to allow them to fly over Europe.

Well then that's silly. The manufacturer ought to then program it themselves to meet the customer's specifications.