French Government confirms interest in Watchkeeper surveillance UAV project

Paris: The largest tactical unmanned air system (UAS) in Europe was today announced as a key pillar of a broad Anglo-French defence coopera­tion in the field of UAS as the French Government confirmed its interest in working with the UK to develop Thales UK’s Watchkeeper.

Victor Chavez, Chief Executive of Thales UK, said “Unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) have played a fundamental role in military operations in recent years, and it is only natural that they now also take centre stage in international defence agreements. The UK and France want to remain leaders in the use of UAVs, and working together on Watchkeeper would ensure both have the best intelligence capabilities without duplicating the costs.”

Watchkeeper UAV, Image Thales

“Cooperation will unlock huge potential benefits in terms of interoperability, joint tech­nology development and industrial collaboration, and the twinning of the British Royal Artillery 32^nd Regiment and the French Artillery’s 61^st Regiment underlines how closely the two nations intend to work in this area,” Chavez added.

For UK, Thales has already delivered 60,000 hours of operating Hermes 450 UAS in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The company’s next-generation Watchkeeper system, to be built entirely in Europe, will deliver life-saving surveillance and operational capabilities to the UK’s armed forces, and is also the only tactical UAV to meet European airworthiness criteria – completing over 100 flights in the UK as part of its trials programme.