Tel Aviv: Germany has decided to purchase another three Heron TP UAVs from Israel. The plan awaits approval of the German parliament. The additional Heron TP will be equipped with advanced payloads and will be fitted to be armed with Israeli made weapon systems. This planned acquisition will expand Germany’s operational Heron TP fleet to eight systems, up from the current five, and comes with upgraded capabilities.
The total package for the new drones—including operating expenses, spare parts, and training—will cost approximately €930 million, extending the Heron fleet until at least 2034. Parliamentary budget approval is expected before the end of the month. According to the German defence ministry’s plan six Heron TP UAV will be stationed in the Jagel Air Base of the German air force, and two will remain in Israel at the Israeli air force Tel Nof air base for joint training.
German units have already deployed Heron TP in missions such as Baltic Sentry for protecting NATO underwater infrastructure. The new planned contract will be based as before on a cooperation between Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) that manufactures the Heron TP and Airbus DS Airborne Solutions in Bremen.
The IAI Heron TP is a multi-role, advanced, long range Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) UAV for strategic missions. It is equipped with automatic taxi-takeoff and landing systems (ATOL), satellite communication (SATCOM) for extended range, fully redundant avionics and more. The Heron TP was designed as a multi-mission platform to address local and international customers’ needs and to perform a variety of strategic missions, including intelligence gathering, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance, using various payloads, with a high level of reliability.
The Heron-TP IS 14 metres long, has a wing span of 26 metres and a max t/o weight of 5670 kg. It can carry a payload weighing 2700 kg. The maximum ceiling is 45.000 feet, maximum speed is 220 knots and the endurance is 30 hours.
-The writer is an Israel-based freelance journalist. The views expressed are of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Raksha Anirveda
