The Directorate General of Armaments (DGA) has launched a new national campaign of flight tests of the Neuron UCAV technology demonstrator.

The DGA Flight Test Center will oversee this campaign, one of whose objectives is to study the use of a UCAV in a naval context. The campaign includes sea trials onboard the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. It will be followed by an electromagnetic signature measurement campaign carried out until early 2017 by DGA’s IT Dominance unit located in Bruz, near Rennes in Brittany.

Neuron foreshadows the next generation of combat aircraft. Launched in 2006, the project is a European cooperative effort that brings together, in addition to France with Dassault Aviation, five countries and their industrial partners: Italy (Alenia Aermacchi, now Leonardo-Finmeccanica); Sweden (Saab); Spain (Airbus Defence & Space); Greece (HAI); and Switzerland (RUAG).

DGA provides management of the project and Dassault Aviation is prime contractor. Neuron’s first test campaign, conducted on behalf of the six nations between December 2012 and September 2015, included 123 flights. They were first made in Istres for the opening of its flight envelope, the development of the system and the evaluation of its stealth by the DGA.