Airbus

Airbus is a European aerospace group formed on 18 December 1970, best known as the world's largest maker of commercial airliners. Its Defence and Space division, operationally headquartered at Blagnac near Toulouse, France, designs and builds military aircraft, satellites and unmanned aerial systems, and traces much of its UAV heritage to EADS, which merged into Airbus's current corporate structure.

History and products

Airbus entered the drone business through EADS in the 2000s, adapting the Israeli-designed Heron into the French Air Force's Harfang reconnaissance UAV and developing the stealthy Barracuda technology demonstrator. Since rebranding as Airbus Defence and Space, the company has focused on two flagship programmes: the solar-electric Zephyr high-altitude pseudo-satellite, acquired from QinetiQ in 2013, and the Eurodrone, a twin-turboprop MALE UAS being built jointly with Dassault Aviation and Leonardo for Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Airbus also supplies UAV-related systems for naval aviation and target-drone applications.

Products on this site

The Zephyr is Airbus's solar-powered stratospheric endurance aircraft, and the Eurodrone is its next-generation European MALE programme. The EADS Harfang and EADS Barracuda were earlier French reconnaissance and stealth-demonstrator UAVs. The VSR700 is an unmanned naval helicopter derivative, while the Atlante, SIRTAP, DeckFinder, Tanan 300 and target drone systems round out Airbus's smaller tactical and target-drone offerings.