{"id":32747,"date":"2026-06-08T21:26:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T21:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/32747\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T21:26:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T21:26:15","slug":"airbus-unveils-u145-autonomous-helicopter-drone-for-cargo-supply-ops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/32747\/","title":{"rendered":"Airbus unveils U145 autonomous helicopter drone for cargo supply ops"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BELFAST \u2014 Airbus has launched a new autonomous drone dubbed U145, based on the company\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/tag\/h145m\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">H145<\/a> civil and military helicopter.<\/p>\n<p>A full-scale mock up of the uncrewed aircraft, designed primarily for cargo supply missions, will be on display at this week\u2019s Berlin Air Show, said the manufacturer in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.airbus.com\/en\/newsroom\/press-releases\/2026-06-airbus-introduces-uncrewed-version-of-the-h145-the-u145\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">statement today<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The manufacturer added that a first flight with a safety pilot onboard is slated for the end of this year, with entry into service expected at the start of 2030.<\/p>\n<p>Fitted with a \u201cspecialized\u201d sensor suite and AI, the fully autonomous platform is the second crewed rotorcraft from the Airbus product line to be converted into a drone, behind the VSR700, evolved from the Cabri G2 light helicopter.<\/p>\n<p>Matthieu Louvot, CEO of Airbus Helicopters, said in the statement, that the firm will partner with \u201cleading autonomous mission partners,\u201d to develop U145 multi-mission capabilities.<\/p>\n<p>An Airbus spokesperson told Breaking Defense today that the autonomous drone has not been specifically developed for any single, outstanding national or European acquisition.<\/p>\n<p>The aircraft will feature a number of changes from the H145 to support cargo missions, such as a nose door, complete with a foldable loading table and a dedicated cargo floor.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Other military roles for the drone include armed scouting, surveillance, crewed-uncrewed teaming as well as acting as a \u201cmothership\u201d for air-launched effects, according to the European prime.<\/p>\n<p>As noted, as part of an offer to the US Marine Corp, the US division of Airbus Defence and Space is currently collaborating on the development of the MQ-72C fully autonomous drone with Shield AI, L3 Harris and Parry Lab.<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, Airbus is two years into the service\u2019s Aerial Logistics Connector Middle Tier of Acquisition (MTA) Rapid Prototyping <a href=\"https:\/\/shield.ai\/airbus-and-lakota-connector-partners-successfully-execute-fourth-autonomous-flight-test-period\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Program<\/a>, designed to showcase how aircraft prototypes can demonstrate new capabilities through a range of experimental activities.<\/p>\n<p>Company figures indicate that over 1,800 H145 family helicopters are in service covering military, parapublic and civil missions, collectively logging more than 8.5 million flight hours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BELFAST \u2014 Airbus has launched a new autonomous drone dubbed U145, based on the company\u2019s H145 civil and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13021],"tags":[15403,4616,796,73,2817,23286,13115,23284,23464,23465],"class_list":["post-32747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-airbus","tag-air-force","tag-airbus","tag-drones","tag-europe","tag-global","tag-h145","tag-helicopter","tag-ila-berlin-2026","tag-shield-ai","tag-usmc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}