TAI joins with Cassidian for Talarion UAS programme

The agreement was signed during an official ceremony at the 10th International Defence Industry Fair (IDEF) held in Istanbul in the presence of Murad Bayar,Undersecretary for Defence Industries and German deputy defence minister Thomas Kossendey.

Talarion is the European programme for a next-generation Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) advanced Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) to fulfil the requirements initially placed by France, Germany and Spain for future unmanned long endurance surveillance and reconnaissance missions. The novel aspect of this approach is a modular design and the integration of the UAV in a networkenabled operations scenario.

Turkey has always advocated to participate in this major European programme with the Undersecretariat for Defence Industries (SSM) agreeing significant investment and integration in the Talarion prototype programme team by major companies of the Turkish industry led by TAI.

The prototype will be the first development standard following an interactive design approach. First flight of the prototype is scheduled for 2014. To achieve this goal, Cassidian has created a dedicated co-located plateau phase with engineers from France, Spain, Turkey and Germany including main suppliers.
Around 160 engineers are working in the Talarion plateau.

Being the first Unmanned Aerial System that will operate within civil airspace, Talarion can be used for a variety of security missions amongst others such as anti-piracy, drug control and border protection.