EADS appears to be rethinking its push of the Talarion unmannned aircraft, after a prolonged period of unsuccessfully trying to get Germany and other European countries to back its development.
“For the time being we are not pushing the development of Talarion,” says EADS CEO Louis Gallois. Instead, he says, “we have decided to work on technology programmes linked to drones.”
But that does not mean EADS has made its peace with the decision in France and the U.K. to back the BAE Systems/Dassault Aviation Telemos unmanned aircraft for their future medium-extended long-endurance system.
Gallois says there has to be a European programme. “One or two countries cannot afford to develop” such a system alone. “We need to have a wider market,” he says, or else Europe will continue buying U.S. or Israeli systems.
Source: Aviation Week