![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/U145AIRBUSA.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAt ILA 2026 in Berlin, Airbus Helicopters has unveiled the U-145, an unmanned variant of its H-145 helicopter. The announcement had been previewed on the eve of the show through an official press release.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A full-scale mock-up of the aircraft is on display at the show (pictured). A first flight \u2014 with a safety pilot on board \u2014 is scheduled for late 2026, with entry into service expected in the early 2030s. Matthieu Louvot, CEO of Airbus Helicopters, indicated that the development of the U-145’s multi-mission capabilities will proceed in partnership with specialists in autonomous operations, with the broader aim of consolidating the European UAV ecosystem.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The U-145 is the 2nd crewed helicopter that Airbus has converted to an unmanned configuration, following the VSR-700 \u2014 derived from the CABRI G-2 by H\u00e9licopt\u00e8res Guimbal and ordered by the French Navy (Marine Nationale). Compared to the piloted H-145, the U-145 eliminates the physical cockpit and integrates a nose door that opens in 2 sections, along with a dedicated cargo floor. The standard rear opening and 2 lateral sliding doors are retained. Autonomous decision-making is enabled by artificial intelligence solutions.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The platform has a maximum take-off weight (MTOW) of 3,800 kg, a payload capacity exceeding 1,200 kg, and a range of 400 nautical miles. The U-145 is designed as a mission-agnostic platform, primarily intended for high-volume cargo transport in both civil and military applications. Its modular architecture supports additional roles: emergency management, firefighting, MEDEVAC, armed scout, surveillance, and drone mothership for Air Launched Effects (ALE) \u2014 the latter being an area in which Airbus is collaborating with MBDA.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
On the ALE and combat capability front, the mock-up was displayed with 18 ALE launchers per side, housed within the cargo bay and configured to deploy through the lateral doors. The ALEs are being developed by MBDA Germany; a full technical treatment will appear in the complete ILA reportage in the next issue of RID. In addition to the ALE launchers, the aircraft carries 4 STRILA 2 interceptor drones by Quantum Systems, mounted on a pylon beneath a small stub wing on the left side of the helicopter.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
On the other side of the Atlantic, Airbus US Space & Defense is proposing a dedicated variant to the US Marine Corps (USMC): the MQ-72C, developed in partnership with Shield AI, L3Harris, and Parry Labs. This is a fully autonomous variant of the LAKOTA UH-72B, tailored to US customer requirements.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The H-145 family currently numbers over 1,800 aircraft in service across military and civil missions, accumulating more than 8.5 million flight hours.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/U145AIRBUSB.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/U145AIRBUSC.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/U145AIRBUSD.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Follow us on Telegram<\/a>, Facebook<\/a> and X<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At ILA 2026 in Berlin, Airbus Helicopters has unveiled the U-145, an unmanned variant of its H-145 helicopter.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13021],"tags":[4616,24407,24405,24406,24409,13115,24005,4039,24408,23298,4387],"class_list":["post-34260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-airbus","tag-airbus","tag-ale","tag-berlino","tag-elicotteri","tag-h-145","tag-helicopter","tag-ila-2026","tag-mbda","tag-non-polotati","tag-u-145","tag-unmanned"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34260","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=34260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}