In February 2022, a Black Hawk helicopter took off, sailed and landed all alone for half an hour without anyone on board. What then seemed like a futuristic demonstration is now quickly becoming a new category of military aircraft.
The end of one era and the beginning of another. Europe has been pursuing the dream of a large sixth-generation fighter capable of competing with the American and Chinese programs for years, but the FCAS lockout has once again highlighted the enormous political, industrial and budgetary difficulties that accompany this type of project.
While the future of the European fighter jet is blurred between disputes over intellectual property, the distribution of work and rising costs, Airbus has taken advantage of the Berlin air show to submit a proposal much more aligned with the real trends that are transforming current battlefields: a autonomous aircraft, without cabin and designed to operate alongside drones. The contrast is striking because while the great symbol of European air power seems stagnant, the company is betting on technologies that are already demonstrating their value in conflicts such as the one in Ukraine.
A helicopter without pilots or cabin. The new U145 is based on the successful H145 helicoptera platform with more than 1,800 examples in service and more than 8.5 million flight hours accumulated worldwide. However, Airbus has completely removed the cabinso that the aircraft cannot be piloted by humans under any circumstances. Instead, it incorporates autonomous systems, artificial intelligence and a set of sensors that will manage the flight independently.
The company plans to carry out a first flight with a safety pilot before the end of 2026 and begin entering service at the beginning of the next decade. The philosophy is simple: take advantage of an already proven platform, with a consolidated logistics chain and known maintenance costs, to accelerate the leap towards autonomous operations without having to develop a completely new aircraft from scratch.
From transport helicopter to autonomous aerial truck. The U145 has been conceived primarily as a logistics platform capable of operating in dangerous environments where sending human crews poses an increasing risk. With a maximum takeoff weight of 3,800 kilograms and a load capacity close to 1,200 kilogramsincorporates a large folding front door, a folding loading platform and a reinforced floor to facilitate the transport of supplies.
Airbus imagines it supplying advanced units, carrying out emergency missions, supporting operations in remote areas or acting in scenarios where the threat of drones, missiles or electronic warfare makes the use of conventional helicopters increasingly difficult. It is a vision that fits with the conclusions that many armed forces are extracting from Ukraine: Logistics has become one of the priority objectives of the modern battlefield.
The real bet: mothership. However, the most revealing feature of the project is not its autonomy or its cargo capacity, but the role that Airbus reserves for it in the future. The U145 is being developed to perform as mother platform capable of transporting and launching drones for reconnaissance, surveillance, attack or loitering munitions. Airbus is already working on this concept together with MBDA, one of the main European missile manufacturers, within the ecosystem of the called “launched effects”.
The idea is to use relatively cheap and expendable aircraft to deploy swarms of autonomous systems on the battlefield. In other words, while Europe discusses how to build a sophisticated sixth-generation fighter, Airbus is betting on an architecture where an increasing part of the combat will be carried out. by drones launched from autonomous platforms that do not even need pilots.
Ukraine as a laboratory. The appearance of U145 cannot be understood without observing what is happening in Ukraine. There the drones have completely transformed the way to fight, from reconnaissance missions to the destruction of armored vehicles, anti-aircraft systems and logistics centers. The conflict has shown that relatively inexpensive platforms can generate disproportionate strategic effects and that pilot survival in highly contested environments is increasingly complicated.
Airbus, in fact, is not the only company that has reached this conclusion. Similar projects appear in the United States like the MQ-72C derived from Lakota, the U-Hawk based on the Black Hawk or Boeing’s plans to evolve the Chinook into autonomous configurations. The difference is that Europe seemed focused on chasing the next big fighter plane while the rest of the world explored new ways to automate warfare.
European strategic autonomy takes another path. There is no doubt, although Airbus insist In that the U145 does not respond to any specific national program, its appearance coincides with a moment in which Europe seeks to reduce its technological and military dependence on the United States. The autonomous helicopter fits perfectly into this strategy because it takes advantage of a European platform, is integrated into a European industrial ecosystem and allows develop own capabilities in one of the most promising sectors of current defense.
The implicit message is difficult to ignore: the great European fighter may be increasingly further away to materialize, but the continental industry continues to look for ways to maintain its military relevance. And while sixth-generation projects are consumed by endless negotiations, Airbus appears to have identified an alternative path much closer to the reality of future conflicts: autonomous aircraft, without a cabin, connected in a network and capable of deploying combat drones where sending a pilot no longer makes sense.
Image | Airbus
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