{"id":3565,"date":"2016-01-13T17:34:45","date_gmt":"2016-01-13T17:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/box5917.temp.domains\/~iriacom\/\/news\/?p=3565"},"modified":"2016-08-13T09:30:19","modified_gmt":"2016-08-13T09:30:19","slug":"german-military-to-buy-drones-from-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/german-military-to-buy-drones-from-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"German military to buy drones from Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Berlin eyes IAI\u2019s Eitan unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, which has a range of 4,600 miles and can stay airborne for 70 hours<\/strong><\/p>\n

German military has expressed interest in buying Israeli-made unmanned reconnaissance airplanes, the Cologne-based newspaper ‘K\u00f6lner Stadt-Anzeiger’\u00a0reported<\/a><\/span> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday announced<\/a><\/span> plans for the army to lease Heron TP drones from Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) rather than buy Predator B drones from U.S. defense contractor General Atomics.<\/p>\n

The German military is eyeing Israel Aerospace Industries\u2019 Eitan (\u201cSteadfast\u201d) drone, also known as the Heron, which has a range of over 7,400 kilometers (4,600 miles), more than four times the distance between Israel and Iran. It can also remain airborne for more than 70 hours.<\/p>\n

The purchase would serve a temporary need until 2025, when Germany, Italy and France expect to complete development of a joint drone.<\/p>\n

The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are to be stationed in Israel and will cost about 580 million euros.<\/p>\n

The lease of three to five Heron TPs will cost roughly \u20ac600 million (US $650 million), with\u00a0the deployment’s start\u00a0scheduled for 2018, government sources disclosed. The contract is to be concluded by the end of year 2016.<\/p>\n

Apparently, the UAVs are to be stationed initially in Israel for training purposes, but a relocation to an air base in northern Germany is planned in the long run. However, in case of problems with the registration, a deployment in Israel seems to \u00a0be possible.<\/p>\n

“This is about drones that can be armed, that will be standard in the future,” von der Leyen told<\/a><\/span> reporters. “It is important for the protection of soldiers,” she said, adding she would provide more information once the contracts had been agreed.<\/p>\n

According to the publication, the Bundeswehr is interested in procuring the “Heron TP”-model drone for reconnaissance missions. However, the Air Force also said the model would be able to carry out air strikes.<\/p>\n

Germany already has three earlier versions of the Heron reconnaissance drone which are deployed in Afghanistan. They are maintained by Airbus and cannot be armed.<\/p>\n

Israel is the world\u2019s largest exporter of drones, with more than half of them going to Europe, according to a 2013 report in the Guardian. The trade of drones was worth $4.6 billion in the 8-year period <\/a><\/span>from 2005-2013, according to the report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Berlin eyes IAI\u2019s Eitan unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, which has a range of 4,600 miles and can stay […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,1],"tags":[6,43,357,53,26,5,235],"class_list":["post-3565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-defense","tag-drone","tag-europe","tag-germany","tag-israel","tag-military","tag-technology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/IAI-Israel-Heron-drone.jpg?fit=603%2C324&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-Vv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3565"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3565\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3567,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3565\/revisions\/3567"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}