Article Posted on : - May 12, 2011

The Talarion UAV.

ISTANBUL (BNS): Turkey has joined hands with European aerospace major EADS for the development of Talarion medium altitude long endurance (MALE) unmanned aerial vehicle.

The Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) signed a MoU with Cassidian on behalf of EADS Deutschland GmbH Wednesday “to establish a close collaboration in the Talarion programme,” the European company said.

The MoU was signed during an official ceremony at the 10th International Defence Industry Fair (IDEF) in Istanbul.

“Turkey has always advocated to participate in this major European programme with the Undersecretariat for Defence Industries (SSM) agreeing significant investment and integration in the Talarion prototype programme team by major companies of the Turkish industry led by TAI (Turkish Aerospace Industries, Inc.),” EADS said.

EADS is offering the Talarion drone in response to France and UK’s proposal to jointly design and build a next generation unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) system for Europe.

The new drone will be developed for future operational intelligence and surveillance purposes.

Two other defence partnerships competing for the £600 million ($952 million) programme include BAE Systems-Dassault Aviation and Cobham-General Atomics.

While the British-French group is offering its Mantis UAV, the UK's Cobham and US's General Atomics group have pitched in with the Predator model for the new-generation UAVs.

According to EADS, France, Germany and Spain have placed initial requirements for the new UAV.

The first prototype of Talarion is scheduled to fly in 2014.