The nEUROn program

The nEUROn program

Neuron is the European unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) demonstrator for the development, integration and validation of UCAV technologies and is not for military operational deployment. Dassault unveiled a life-size model of Neuron at the 2005 Paris Air Show. The operational UCAV is expected to be a larger design than the Neuron demonstrator. The aircraft performs an air-to-ground mission in a network centric warfare.

The main aim of the Neuron programme is to sustain and develop European manufacturers' aeronautic and other technologies for next-generation combat aircraft and UAVs.

By mid 2005, a series of memorandums of understanding had been signed and industrial teaming arrangements been set up. By the end of 2005, the governments of France, Greece, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland had agreed to invest in the Neuron programme.

In February 2006, the Neuron programme was formally launched with the award, by the French DGA on behalf of the participating nations, of a contract to Dassault as prime contractor for the design and development of the Neuron demonstrator.

This began a 15-month feasibility phase. The DGA awarded a contract for a 19-month project definition phase in June 2007. This will be followed by the production of a Neuron demonstrator. Dassault will carry out ground tests and first engine run up in 2011. First flight of the Neuron is scheduled for 2012. Flight tests will begin in France followed by tests in Sweden and then Italy.

The UCAV will be able to launch precision-guided munitions from an internal weapons bay and will have a stealth airframe with reduced radar and infrared cross-sections.

Neuron programme

Dassault Aviation is the design authority with responsibility for the general design, system architecture, the flight control system and final assembly together with ground tests and flight tests. Dassault's UAV and UCAV design capability was developed under a sequence of experimental development and validation programmes, Aeronef validation experimental (AVE). Dassault started the AVE LogiDuc programme (AVE logistics to demonstrate UCAV) in 1999.

Saab Aerosystems, based in Linkoping, Sweden, is responsible for overall design, fuselage, avionics, fuel system, flight control, airworthiness, autonomy, multipayload capabilities, structural design and manufacture and ground and flight testing.

"The Neuron UCAV will incorporate highly advanced avionics, stealth and network-centric technologies."

Dassault Aviation received the front and central fuselage section of the Neuron UCAV demonstrator from Saab on 25 January 2011. Saab has built strong capability in UAV and UCAV technology with the SHARC Swedish highly advanced research configuration demonstrator, FILUR flying innovative low-observable unmanned research UAV, the EuroMALE European medium-altitude long-endurance UAV with EADS and the establishment of the Link Lab drone development centres, a joint venture with Linkoping University.

Technology development on the Neuron programme would be applicable to planned upgrades of the Saab Gripen fighter aircraft, which is expected to remain in service until about 2035.

In March 2004, the Hellenic Aerospace Industry (HAI) and Dassault signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the Dassault UCAV programme, which became the Neuron programme. Under the terms of the MoU, HAI is responsible for the engine exhaust, the rear fuselage section and the test rig. The rear fuselage section was delivered to Dassault Aviation in January 2011.

EADS CASA of Spain is responsible for the wings and also the ground station and integration of the data link. EADS CASA and Dassault signed the MoU agreement in May 2005. EADS CASA delivered the wings of the Neuron to Dassault in March 2011. The wings were shipped to Istres for final assembly.

Ruag in Switzerland is responsible for the weapons interface and wind tunnel testing.

Alenia Aeronautica in Italy is responsible for the development of the electrical power system, the air data system, development of the Smart Weapon Bay, and for flight testing. It delivered the weapon bay doors and mechanism of the Neuron demonstrator to Dassault Aviation in May 2011.

During 2005, Turkey formally applied to take part in the EADS MALE medium-altitude long-endurance UAV programme and the Dassault-led Neuron programme.

An attitude and heading reference system (AHRS) will be supplied by the LITEF, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman to the Neuron UCAV. The LCR-100 Gyrocompass AHRS is a north-finding attitude and heading reference system based on a fibre-optic gyro and micro-electromechanical (MEMS) accelerometers.

Design and appearance

The Neuron is of similar appearance to the AVE-C which is the second prototype of the Dassault Petit Duc and which has high-manoeuvrability unstable yaw aircraft control. Like the Ave-C, the Neuron has no tail fin and a swept W-shaped wing design

The system will incorporate highly advanced avionics, stealth and network-centric technologies. Simulations and flight tests will demonstrate the capability of flight in controlled airspaces and the operation of the Neuron in a network-centric battlefield environment.

The air vehicle fuselage length and the wingspan are approximately 10m. The empty weight of the air vehicle is around 4,500kg and with a full payload the weight will be about 6,000kg. The air vehicle has tricycle-type landing gear for runway take-off and landing.

Neuron will have the capability to carry two laser guided 250kg (550lb) bombs in two weapon bays. The air vehicle is expected to have an endurance of several hours and high subsonic speed i.e. a maximum speed of Mach 0.7 to Mach 0.8.

"The UCAV will be able to launch precision-guided munitions from an internal weapons bay."

The unmanned Neuron will be controlled from ground-based stations and from control stations in combat aircraft such as the French Rafale or the Swedish Gripen.

In June 2005, Thales was selected to develop the datalink system for Neuron. The system will connect the ground control station with the UCAV by a high-rate Nato standard STANAG 7085 datalink and a low-rate datalink: The high-rate datalink will allow secure transmission of application data (video, imagery and radar) and air vehicle command and control data. The low-rate datalink will use secure technologies and a different frequency band to ensure data integrity.

Neuron engines

The air vehicle will be powered by two Adour mk951 jet engines from the Rolls Royce and Turbomeca joint venture RRTM. The Adour mk951 is already fitted on BAE Systems Hawk 128 aircraft. The air intake is in a flush dorsal position above the nose.

The engine features a new fan and combustor and is also equipped with full authority digital engine control (FADEC) which reduces the workload of the pilot by performing automated operations.

Performance

The maximum speed of the aircraft varies between Mach 0.7 and 0.8. Neuron weighs around 4,500kg and its maximum take-off weight 6,000kg.

Programme Milestones

The nEUROn programme was launched in 2003.

The main contract was notified to the prime contractor in 2006, the industrial partnership contracts were signed concurrently.

The first flight of the technological demonstrator is planned for mid-2012, in Istres (France).

Demonstrations flights

The scenarios to be validated through the demonstration flights will be as follows:

·         insertion in the test range airspace,

·         air-to-ground subsonic mission,

·         detection, localisation, and autonomous reconnaissance of ground targets without being detected (“to see without being seen”),

·         air-to-surface weapon release from an internal bay.

 Programme status

By mid-year 2011, the status of the nEUROn programme is the following:

a) The different parts of the airframe have been manufactured and are delivered to Dassault Aviation in Istres facilities (France):

·         the main fuselage by SAAB,

·         the rear fuselage and the exhaust nozzle by HAI,

·         the wings by EADS-CASA,

·         the bay doors by Alenia,

·         the weapon interface by RUAG,

·         the structural parts contributing to the low observability by Dassault Aviation factories of Argenteuil and Biarritz.

b) The final assembly and the final layout of the piping, electrical wiring and equipment installation, including the engine and the landing gears, are under final stages in the Dassault Aviation facilities, in Istres.

c) The software integration in the various electronic equipments is in progress on the “global integration tests rig” in Istres.

Programme organisation

The programme of the nEUROn technological demonstrator is organised as follows:

·         a single executive agency, the French DGA which awarded a main contract to the prime contractor and manages the project,

·         a single prime contractor, Dassault Aviation company, which is in charge of the main contract implementation.

Ever since the beginning of the programme, the French authorities have clearly stated their will that the UCAV technological demonstrator project should contribute to the build-up of a European defence identity by fully opening it to cooperation. As such, about half of the tasks are entrusted to non-French industrial partners.

In terms of management, this organisation guarantees the best efficiency in a full partnership approach and cooperative relations between the various actors, as well as an improved budgetary control.

An efficient european cooperation scheme

In accordance with the guidelines defined by the French DGA, Dassault Aviation has entrusted about 50% of the work value to European partners, elected after a scrutinized evaluation based on:

·         experience and excellence:
The objective of this project is not to create new technological capabilities everywhere in Europe, but to take the full benefit of the already existing technological niches.

·         competitiveness: 
This project has the ambition to find new ways for costs reduction. Each partner, in addition to their technical excellences, is invited to apply for the most efficient "value for money".

·         state budget allocation:
It is a condition imposed by the French DGA that each country having the ambition to participate to the nEUROn programme shall contribute to its financing. For more flexibility, no constraint in term of "geographical return" is assigned to this project, as already dealt with at governmental level.

The industrial team of the nEUROn programme is composed of:

·         Dassault Aviation (France), in addition to being the design authority, takes care of the general design and architecture of the system, the flight control system, the implementation of low observable devices, the final assembly, the systems integration on the “global integration tests rig”, the ground tests, and the flight tests,

·         Alenia (Italy) contributes to the project with a new concept of internal weapon bay (“Smart Integrated Weapon Bay” - SIWB), an internal EO/IR sensor, the bay doors and their operating mechanisms, the electrical power and distribution system, and the air data system,

·         SAAB (Sweden), is entrusted with the general design of the main fuselage, the landing gear doors, the avionics and the fuel system,

·         EADS-CASA (Spain) brings its experience for the wings, the ground station, and the data link integration,

·         Hellenic Aerospace Industry - HAI (Greece) is responsible for the rear fuselage, the exhaust pipe, and the supply of racks of the “global integration tests rig”,

·         RUAG (Switzerland) is taking care of the low speed wind tunnel tests, and the weapon interfaces between the aircraft and the armaments.

Innovative industrial solutions

The nEUROn is the first large size stealth platform designed in Europe.

Building on the experience gained from recent projects, for the first time in a military project, the nEUROn is designed and developed within the frame of a completely integrated “Product Lifecycle Management” (PLM) environment, through a “virtual plateau”, allowing Dassault Aviation and its partners, located in the different countries, to simultaneously work together on the same design data base, independently from the location where the design activities are currently performed.

All the teams involved from the very beginning of the programme know them each other very well, thanks to the development tasks jointly performed in the design office implemented inside the Dassault Aviation facilities of St-Could, as well as with the daily use of distant collaborative tools provided with the “virtual plateau”.

Today, the same teams still work together close to the aircraft, or on the “global integration tests rig”.

This specific and innovative organisation allows to achieve a perfect tempo to rapidly solve any technical events occurring during the development phase of the programme.

These advantages, associated to a highly flexible, pro-active and incentive management process, efficiently contribute to focus towards the next major milestone: the first flight of the nEUROn demonstrator.

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US Warship Moves To Syrian Coast as Tensions Mount

by Paul Joseph Watson
The aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush has moved to the Syrian coast amidst reports that a no fly zone is about to be imposed over the country as the U.S. Embassy in Damascus orders its citizens to leave “immediately,” while France has proposed a formal NATO military intervention.

“Probably the most damning evidence that the “western world” is about to do the unthinkable and invade Syria, and in the process force Iran to retaliate, is the weekly naval update from Stratfor, which always has some very interesting if always controversial view on geopolitics, where we find that for the first time in many months, CVN 77 George H.W. Bush has left its traditional theater of operations just off the Straits of Hormuz, a critical choke point, where it traditionally accompanies the Stennis, and has parked… right next to Syria,” reports Zero Hedge.

Publicly, officials are claiming that the George H.W. Bush carrier strike group is “on its way home” after being located in the Middle East for the past five months, but a specific date for the warship’s return has not been given.
According to a report in the Virginian-Pilot, the aircraft carrier will “conduct a range of operations and help maintain maritime security,” before it heads home.
As we reported yesterday, European sources quoted in Kuwait’s al Rai daily suggest that Arab states are set to impose a no fly zone over the country with the aid of Turkish jet fighters and U.S. logistical support. In modern parlence the term “no fly zone” is a euphemism for a bombing campaign, as we saw with Libya.
Although France has expressed its opposition to a no fly zone, foreign minister Alain Juppe met with Syrian National Council leader Burhan Ghalioun in Paris yesterday to assure him that NATO powers are looking at using “international troops” to “create a secure zone for civilians” by means of “humanitarian corridors, or humanitarian zones”.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Tensions also escalated yesterday after the U.S. Embassy in Damascus urged its citizens to leave Syria “immediately,” while Turkey’s foreign ministry told its citizens to avoid traveling through the country on their return home from Saudi Arabia.
“The U.S. Embassy continues to urge U.S. citizens in Syria to depart immediately while commercial transportation is available,” said a statement issued to the American community in Syria Wednesday and posted on the Embassy’s website. “The number of airlines serving Syria has decreased significantly since the summer, while many of those airlines remaining have reduced their number of flights.”
The Obama administration quietly pulled Ambassador Robert Ford from the country last month and has indicated he will not return.
Attacking Syria could represent an end run around creating a justification for a military assault on Iran for Israel and the United States because Iran has vowed to defend its ally. However, China and Russia have aggressively opposed any action, with Russia last week moving its warships into Syrian territorial waters – a tactic designed to discourage any NATO-led attack.
Polls have shown that the majority of Americans oppose military intervention in Syria, with just 12 per cent favoring any kind of conflict.

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.

The man behind Turkey's strategic depth
By Caleb Lauer 8.6.2010

ISTANBUL - As current Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu describes it, Turkey was a "wing state" of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) during the Cold War, at the edge, protecting the core. The only NATO country, besides Norway, to border the Soviet Union, Turkey was the first place the Truman Doctrine of containing communism was put into practice. This Western allegiance and its military character suited Turkish state elites and so, for 44 years, in exchange for money and arms, Turkey guarded itself and the southeast corner of Europe from the red threat.

Then as the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, and Samuel Huntington, Francis Fukuyama and Robert Kaplan were writing their post-Cold War versions of the thoughts of "the father of containment", American advisor, diplomat and political scientist George Kennan, another scholar of international relations, Davutoglu, began to make his own map of the new geopolitical landscape.

From his post as a professor of international relations, Davutoglu argued that Turkey, now freed from the East-West political geography of the Cold War and embedded in the new geography of globalization, should no longer be thought of as an appendage of the West, but rather as a country at the center. He elaborated this idea in his 2001 book Strategic Depth and the title has since become a shorthand description of Davutoglu's "doctrine". The basic idea is that Turkey, a central, pivotal country, must use its unique geography and history to its foreign policy advantage.

Born in 1959 in the central Anatolian city of Konya, Davutoglu was educated in Istanbul and received his doctorate in political science from Bogazici University. In the early 1990s he taught in Malaysia then returned to Beykent and Marmara universities in Istanbul.

Davutoglu's ideas convinced the leadership of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), and when it came to power in 2002 Davutoglu was appointed chief foreign policy adviser to Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In May 2009 he was appointed foreign minister.

Davutoglu did not stand for election and is not a member of parliament, and for eight years he has had the enviable position of being a politically unaccountable politician with the job of turning his personal theory into his country's policy.

If Turkey's strategic advantage is, as Davutoglu says, in its geography and history, then this advantage is certainly deep. Located in both Asia and Europe, Turkey borders the Balkans, the Caucuses and the Middle East. Across the water from its Black Sea, Aegean and Mediterranean coasts, Turkey has 25 coastal neighbors. All traffic into and out of the Black Sea goes through the Turkish Straits. The Tigris and Euphrates rivers begin in Anatolia, and thus Turkey controls the freshwater of Syria and Iraq. At least 12 million Kurds live in Turkey and more than 5 million Kurds live over its border in northern Iraq. Turkic languages and cultures cover the ground between southeastern Europe and northwestern China. And Istanbul, once seat of the caliphate and the Ottoman Empire, ruled Jerusalem, Sarajevo, Mecca, Cairo, Belgrade, Damascus and Baghdad for generations.

Davutoglu has pushed Turkey to use this "strategic depth" to become a key global player and take stakes in the world's, especially the West's, most high-profile issue areas.

With the largest NATO army besides America's, Turkey wants to ensure stability in northern Iraq once the Americans are gone. Turkey is the centerpiece country of the Nabucco natural gas pipeline project, intended to free Europe from reliance on Russian gas. Turkey has sought a reputation for mediating tough disputes: in Bosnia; between Israel and Syria; and between its two friends, Iran and America. (One Turkish writer joked that Turkey should ask Turkey to help improve the currently strained relations between itself and Israel.)

Turkish troops are in Afghanistan training the Afghan National Army. Turkey is in the middle of its two-year term on the United Nations Security Council and is a proud member of the Group of 20. Turkey, with Spain, helped establish the Alliance of Civilizations, a UN-supported forum for improving relations between the Muslim world and the West.

Seeking "zero problems with neighbors", Turkey and Syria have lifted visa requirements and Turkey hopes to get a similar deal with Russia this year. Also, Turkey has signed, but not yet ratified, a peace deal with Armenia. Turkey wants to be a full member of the European Union by 2014. If Turkey succeeds, the EU will border Iran, possess huge military resources and see a six-fold increase in its Muslim population. If Turkey fails, it will be difficult for the EU to convince the world that Islamophobia is not a European value.

Though in the thick of major Western concerns - Iraq, Afghanistan, Israeli-Arab peace, energy, Islam, EU - the central goal of all this policy is business: increase trade, attract foreign investment and provide for Turkey's economy. In AKP foreign policy speeches one regularly hears about Turkey's "young and dynamic population" who will need jobs, and whose careers and businesses will have to grow.

Since Turkey was founded in 1923, its foreign policy has been dominated by a concern for keeping the country whole. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, modern Turkey's founder, watched for two generations the great powers conspiring to pick apart the dying Ottoman Empire. Just look at the terms of the Treaty of Sevres (1920) to understand the Turkish fear of foreign plots. Turks from all walks of life still often agree that foreign powers are trying to break up the country; and almost every Turk today has been taught that, "Turkey is surrounded on three sides by the sea, and on four sides by the enemy."

But Turkey has been liberalizing its economy since the 1980s, and in the past decade Turks have succeeded in opening the national interest to more than national security. The AKP is both demilitarizing Turkish politics and privatizing billions of dollars of state assets. Under Davutoglu and the AKP, the new axiom may well be, "Turkey is surrounded on three sides by the sea, and on four sides by markets."

Some call Davutoglu's foreign policy "neo-Ottomanism". And to listen to one AKP member of parliament speak of his "pride" at seeing the Ottoman walls that enclose the old city of Jerusalem, and of the Bascarsi in Sarajevo, it is clear Ottoman nostalgia warms the foreign policy imaginations of at least some in the Turkish government.

Davutoglu has himself said, "... whenever there is a crisis in the Balkans, the victims of those crises, like Bosnians, Albanians and Turks of Bulgaria, they look to Istanbul. We are paying the bill of our history." Still, Davutoglu rejects the label "neo-Ottoman" as an attempt by his opponents to tarnish his foreign policy with connotations of colonialism. His recent decision to renovate all Turkish embassies in a "Turkish style" - which most likely means "Ottoman" - may not help his case.

A specific threat to Davutoglu's credibility is the faltering peace deal with Armenia. Last October in Zurich, in front of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Davutoglu and his Armenian counterpart Edouard Nalbandian signed two sets of groundbreaking protocols that were supposed to lead to full diplomatic relations and an open border.

The whole rapprochement is currently on hold, largely because Azerbaijan is resisting the deal over Armenia's control of Nagorno-Karabakh inside Azerbaijan. The spokesman of the Turkish parliament foreign affairs committee simply said they "didn't know Azerbaijan was going to react that way".

Also, despite Davutoglu calling it a "main fixture" of the country's foreign policy, Turkey's bid to join the EU has stalled. Frustrated with perceived European insincerity, a minority in the AKP is arguing Turkey no longer needs the EU. Interestingly, one reason given is that EU membership would curtail Turkey's foreign policy independence. Davutoglu will have to manage this debate, as well as a more general debate over priorities as the Foreign Ministry realizes its resources may not match its ambitions.

Critics also say Davutoglu and the AKP have "Islamified" Turkish foreign policy. Religion is part of the worldview of the AKP and affects the way it governs. But the accusation of "Islamification" is clearly designed to play on prejudices and scare Western and secular observers. Many liberals and progressives in Turkey dismiss - or willfully ignore - the accusation as a point of principle. These two poles of fear mongering and dismissal have kept much helpful debate from reaching foreign ears.

Ironically, given the accusations of "Islamification", there's no clear moral basis to Davutoglu's foreign policy. This may not be missed by those who like their foreign policy analysis on ice. But treating all parties with "mutual respect" and on a principle of "equality", as Davutoglu advocates, risks being blind to real differences between, for example, Greece and Iran, or Israel and Sudan. This is, at least partially, why many find it easy to wonder whether Turkey is "leaving" the West.

Again, this may not be a problem for those who think George W Bush discredited the whole notion of distinguishing dictators from democrats. The AKP stresses that engagement with its neighbors is not a luxury, and claim they do communicate misgivings privately. But the question remains: will the masses of Turkish voters who keep the AKP in power eventually demand to hear in which terms - ones nobler than economic self-interest - their government describes its goals abroad, and on what grounds it considers a friend to be a friend? After all, "democracy" and "democratization" are the AKP's domestic policy mantras, and the AKP has been very happy to point out America's and the EU's various double standards.

Caleb Lauer is a Canadian freelance journalist based in Istanbul.