Selex Galileo organized a press meeting on its UAS capabilities and products in its facilities at Ronchi Dei Legionari, Trieste Italy where Defence Turkey participated in.

Gianfranco Terrando, Senior Vice President Air Systems, UAS and Simulators, Furio Bozzola, Vice President UAS and Simulator Business Area, Fabrizio Boggiani, Vice President Marketing & Sales Air Systems, UAS & Simulators Fabio Pauluzzo, Head of UAS and Carlo Siardi, Head of UAS and Simulation Business Development informed the press members about its UAS and Simulator capabilities, strategic markets and business evolution Falco, Falco Evo and SkyISTAR UAS mission systems.

The Falco EVO is a persistent surveillance Unmanned Aerial System (UAS), designed and manufactured by SELEX Galileo to supply Command and Control net-centres with real-time data and multi-spectral images/streaming of the operational scenario and target cueing.

The Falco EVO system builds on the operationally proven Falco system, more than doubling its payload x endurance ratio with the introduction of extended wings and boom to ensure longer endurance and an increased payload capacity. This expands the spectrum of tactical missions the UAS can perform, offering greater flexibility to our customers.

Falco EVO, which is also available as an upgrade package for the current Falco baseline, allows for multiple payloads up to 100 kg, features a 12.5m wing span, has a MTOW of 620 kg, and an endurance exceeding 18 hours. Falco EVO’s specific characteristics of deployability, payload flexibility, mission endurance and reduced logistic footprint represent a true and effective system solution, providing valuable stand-off targets detection, tracking and identification in ground, littoral and maritime environments.

The first Falco EVO flight campaign began with the maiden flight in July and was completed in September. The second campaign, including testing of the fully automatic modes, is ongoing. The Falco EVO will undergo the final phase of its flight trials in March-April next year. The hardware baseline of the EVO configuration can already be considered ready for the production phase, it was consolidated after the first campaign. We do expect some adjustments/refinements on the software based on data gathered during the second and third campaigns.

The Falco UAS, designed and manufactured by Selex Galileo at the Ronchidei Legionari site in Italy, is a tactical UAS designed to supply command and control net-centers with a tactical overview of the operational scenario and target cueing in real time. FALCO System was validated after very successful trials lasting 15 months which were carried out in three different continents (Africa, Europe, Asia), under the most diverse climatic and operational conditions. Falco is currently in service. Valuable in-field operational experience, quieter operation in the pipeline, robust WBDL in the pipeline as well, multiple sensor packages (possibility to integrate in-house sensors but also third party ones) Falco has been sold to 4 different international customers. It is in the inventory of 2 nations. A new contract is expected to be signed within 2013. Selex is continuing to win business in areas of the Globe where our competitors are not able to sell due to market restrictions and/or their political situation. North Africa and Middle East are key areas of the company.

The Mirach 100/5 is the standard high-performance, reusable, multi-threat target, in use with worldwide Armed Forces to train and qualify major weapon systems. Mirach 100/5 delivers reliability and manoeuvrability, making it the most complete multi-role target drone system on the market. Certified by the Italian Joint Forces in 1998 and continuously upgraded since, the Mirach 100/5 System has been in use by the Armed Forces of the UK, Italy, France and Spain, as well as operated for the benefit of the Armed Forces of U.S.A., Germany, Greece, India and other NATO and International customers.

SelexGalileo’s mini-micro capability was brought inside the company with the acquisition of UTRI. It has a very dynamic group of engineers that are working on the evolution of the technology and emerging requirements of miniaturization and enhanced performance. On this aspect, Selex is currently working closely with the Italian armed forces, its launch customer for some of its systems, to better understand end users requirements and concepts of operations. The mini/micro UAS family of Selex Galileo covers ASIO-B, Crex –B, Skyball –B and Drako.

Selex Galileo’s simulation business is a unique business that only partially falls in the ISTAR domain. It has established expertise in this business area and it is currently concentrating its efforts on enlarging its customer base and developing products that will meet new customer’s requirements. Selex is also currently developing new concepts on low cost simulator and will be able to market our offer in a short time. This will leverage on its existing simulation capabilities to develop a dual-use multiplatform simulator.