Germany; Luftwaffe eyes Triton HALE as SIGINT platform

The German air force has touted the benefits that a high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned air vehicle would have over a converted business jet to fill the signal intelligence capability gap that it was left with in 2010.

It retired its Breguet Atlantics that carried out this role to pave the way for the introduction of the Northrop Grumman Global Hawk-derived Euro Hawk UAV, although this was subsequently cancelled because of the escalating costs that arose in order to integrate the aircraft into national airspace.

תוצאת תמונה עבור ר/-4ב ארןאםמ

It is now interested in the MQ-4C Triton maritime variant of the Global Hawk – which overcomes a series of challenges that the European variant faced, such as de-icing, some sense-and-avoid capability and communication links to developing air traffic management systems – and is considering starting a programme to explore this capability versus that of a converted business jet for the SIGINT role.