It was on June 1 and 2 on the Biscarosse shooting range in the Landes, the Air Force experimented with the first shots against drones from a maneuvering helicopter. The fight against drones offers a new lease of life to military helicopters. In France, the reconversion of devices has begun.
The war in the Middle East served as a tipping point. In an emergency, French helicopters were engaged in the defense of United Arab Emirates. Tiger attack helicopters from the Army, but also light Fennec helicopters from the Air Force, hit the mark every time against the Iranian Shahed drones. So since helicopters are effective, all models are now converted to anti-drone combat. This week, it was the turn of the Caracal helicopters.
These large helicopters, usually dedicated to logistics, were loaded with port machine guns and proved perfectly suited to this fight. It was even rather easy, judges Lieutenant-Colonel Laurent, in charge of new capabilities for helicopters at the Air Force headquarters: “In reality, it was not that complicated, since we already have a very wide variety of know-how, whether through our contribution to air defense, but also through our daily commitment in external operations, underlines the lieutenant-colonel. And the challenge for the helicopters of the Air Force and the Space Force in particular was to adapt these firing capabilities which were either focused on air-ground fire support in external operations, or focused on threats which were a small little different, but still quite similar in the context of air defense. And the challenge was to be able to relatively easily adapt these capabilities in the face of drones. »
For the helicopters to serve as a shield, it was nevertheless necessary to modernize part of the fleet by equipping it with a link 16, the identification system which equips all combat aircraft. HAS” We saw in the Middle East that there were a lot of aircraft flying in the same airspace. There are allied aircraft, but also threats that must be identified, possibly destroyed, continues the lieutenant-colonel. And for that, fratricidal fire must be avoided at all costs. We made a very big effort on link capacity 16, for which our helicopters were not equipped until now, in particular the Fennec helicopter that we hired. In 48 hours, we were able to equip these helicopters with this new capacity to be able to integrate them as best as possible into this system. »
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The fight against drones, who does what?
The fight against drones is a multi-layered defense, underlines Lieutenant-Colonel Laurent: from top to bottom, everyone in their place: “Apart from already on the ground a detection device which will be in charge of detecting the threat as early as possible when it arrives. And then, it’s a whole device that will leave the fighter plane, which flies far away and has increased detection capabilities. The Reaper will really be between the Rafale and the helicopter. It is an element that has characteristics of its own. In particular, it has persistence because it is able to fly for a long time. He is able to fly high, explains Lieutenant-Colonel Laurent. At the low end of the spectrum, there is the helicopter near the coast, which will have identification capabilities and the ability to get closer through its flight envelope, which is closer to the drone. Today, we have put in place a whole spectrum of capabilities and we are still adapting them to be as effective as possible. And the challenge is not to have a helicopter that is exclusively capable of dealing with this threat, but to be able to use all of the capabilities that we have at our disposal to be able to deal with them. »
A real alternative to very expensive surface-to-air missiles, helicopters prove that they have not said their last word; it is also one of the revelations of the drone revolution.
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