The Dassault nEUROn, the European Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle (UCAV) demonstrator, completed its first flight in French Istres on Dec. 1, achieving a major milestone in the nEUROn program. Now more flight-testing will follow, with flights in Italy and Sweden by 2014. nEUROn is the first large size stealth platform designed in Europe. It is a demonstrator optimized and intended for the testing of various key technologies and will not enter serial production. The demonstrator program has three stated goals: — To maintain and develop the skills of the participating European aerospace companies' design offices, which will not see any other new fighter programs before 2030 now that the Rafale, Eurofighter and Gripen projects are all complete or well underway. — To investigate and validate technologies that will be needed by 2015 to design next-generation combat aircraft. —To validate an innovative cooperation process by establishing a European industry team responsible for developing next-generation combat aircraft. — SG
