The first flight of the demonstrator VSR700 was carried out on November 8, 2019 by Airbus. The military programming law (2019 – 2025) provides for the first deliveries from 2028. However, the institutional communication maintained by the French Navy ensures that the Navy Aerial Drone System (SDAM) will equip the Defense and Intervention Frigates (FDI) and the Overseas Patrollers (POM) from 2023 then the Ocean Patrollers (PO) from 2024. Will the progress of the program be requested during the examination of the review clause of the military programming law, that is to say in 2021?
The programme SDAM has been in preparation since the beginning of 2005 under the supervision of the DGA and through several upstream study programs (D2AD, IND and SERVAL) aimed at bringing out the different technological bricks necessary for the implementation of a rotary wing drone from a vessel at sea with an intrinsic capacity to take off and land, with or without the supervision of an operator.
With this in mind, a drone Camcopter S-100 of the Austrian industrialist Schiebel was tested at sea aboard the frigate Montcalm in 2008. A first operational experiment was carried out by a team from the Center for Practical Experiments and Reception of Naval Aeronautics (CEPA/10S) with the same drone on board the offshore patrol vesselAdroit (2011 – 2015) in order to evaluate the contribution that can be made by a remote sensor for the benefit of fisheries policing missions, maritime surveillance, the fight against illegal immigration and against piracy. A Camcopter S-100 was acquired by the French Navy in 2012. It was lost at sea but replaced by the industrialist, the investigation having shown its responsibility in the accident.
A second phase of the experiment was announced at the end of 2016 to begin in 2017, this time focused on the possible contributions of the same remote sensor that is the rotary wing drone to amphibious operations carried out from a Projection and Command Building (BPC). A second Camcopter S-100 carrier of an AIS was acquired and received at the end of November 2018 as part of the New Operational Capabilities market (NCO) and reinforced the system. THE Camcopter S-100 was tried with this in mind to participate in establishing the maritime situation in the operational environment of the BPC Dixmude carrier of the two drones then to ensure the identification of possible landings of the landing craft on board and, finally, to ensure the monitoring and support of the disembarked troops.
The transition from the experimental phases to the launch of the program SDAM with a mature solution meeting the specifications of the French Navy is ensured by a future capacity development contract notified to Airbus Helicopters et Naval group on December 29, 2017. The manufacturers had 45 months under the contract to present an operational solution. The future drone named later VSR700 is designed from the helicopter Cabri G2 designed by Hélicoptères Guimbal which was previously chosen by Airbus Helicopters on October 20, 2016 when his proposal for the French Navy was named Orca.
Le VSR700 is 6,2 meters long, its rotor has a diameter of 7,2 meters and the whole thing is 2,3 meters high. With a maximum takeoff weight of 700 kg, it will be able to carry 150 kg of payloads including an electro-optical sensor, an AIS receiver and a maritime surveillance radar. Thus equipped, it will have a maximum autonomy of eight hours at a distance of 100 nautical miles (185,2 km) around the carrying vessel, that is to say the maximum range of radio links. It will support a maximum speed of 185 km/h, will have a cruising speed of 165 km/h and will have a ceiling of 6000 meters.
The optionally piloted demonstrator developed from a Cabri G2 modified carried out autonomous flights from May 2017 with an on-board operator in order to ensure the safety of the tests. The first unpiloted and fully autonomous flight was carried out by the demonstrator in 2018.
The prototype left the hangar in 2019. It benefits from a fairing with improved aerodynamic lines and a compartment to accommodate payloads. It successfully completed its first fully autonomous flights on November 8, 2019. These consisted of takeoff and landing operations with flights lasting up to 10 minutes. The aircraft, in the name of safety, was held by 30 meter cables. The prototype was prepared with the aim of conducting free flight and gradually but completely opening its flight envelope. The industrialists were pleased with the good performance of the program schedule, which augured a final result that met expectations and the meeting requested by the terms of the market.
The purpose of the contract notified on December 29, 2017 is the embarkation of a demonstrator system of the SDAM aboard a FREMM and an Amphibious Helicopter Carrier (PHA, new name for BPC on January 1, 2019) in 2021 from which the prototype must be able to carry out takeoffs and landings in complete autonomy, without the intervention of an operator.
The operational meeting is combined with the programmatic arrangement of the military programming law (2019 – 2025). As part of the Mercator plan 2030, the Chief of Staff of the French Navy, Admiral Christophe Prazuck declared that he wanted 900 to 1200 drones in all segments including one drone for each boat by 2030.
Admiral Christophe Prazuck even specified that it would be for a small boat, a small drone and for a large boat, a large drone. He also declared that each of the fifteen first-rate frigates would benefit from a SDAM and that the system would be ready to receive the first FDI in 2023. More broadly, the specifications of the six POM to be received between 2023 and 2025 required the ability to operate a 700 kg aerial drone, in this case a SDAM. same the future PO based in mainland France (Brest and Toulon) should also be equipped with SDAM without forgetting the three PHA a total of 34 buildings.
The military programming law (2019 – 2025) includes a delivery objective of fifteen SDAM from 2028, the previous programming aimed for the year 2023 to begin deliveries. It is clear that “systems” are mentioned without specifying the number of vectors and charges available. It would be a matter of understanding that each SDAM would be provided with all the charges mentioned but that each system would only include a single vector.
There is therefore a world of difference between the start of the experiment at the sea of SDAM from 2021 which corresponds to the launch of the program and the delivery of the first system in 2028. It would be hoped that the examination of the review clause of the military programming law in 2021 would make it possible to bring forward the order of the first systems, at best, to 2026. A period of experimentation at sea would make the system more mature, but five years for this purpose seems excessive. This would also amount to admitting that the POM will remain without any air means until 2028 at worst, 2026 at best. The FDI will be able to count, for their part, on the refocusing of the fleet of NH90 NFH Caïman Marine for the sole benefit of first-rate frigates thanks to the rental of an interim fleet of helicopters to replace the Alouette IIIs and part of the AS.365 Dolphin.
Also, the programmatic target of fifteen SDAM seems a long way from the 34 buildings that should benefit from this new operational capacity. Even with operational technical availability, it will be a question of choosing which buildings to fill, without forgetting that some of them are not based in mainland France and therefore that detachments will have to be created overseas without it being possible to move from one point to another on the planet according to boardings.
This big gap in the program SDAM will require a necessary clarification of the priorities of the Navy's resources strategy regarding the desire attributed to it to acquire perhaps three NH90 NFH Caïman Marine additional, to benefit from the launch of the program HIL whose first deliveries will take place in 2026 for the Navy with a target of 49 machines and therefore the target of the program SDAM which seems too low in view of the declared ambitions.
