The mega-drone competition in Europe is heating up, and fast.
At the Berlin Air Show yesterday—just as Quantum Systems launched its PULSE P19—European defense tech giant Helsing unveiled a new EW-equipped variant of its drone-fighter-CCA-analog—the CA-1 Electronic Attack (CA-1EA).
The new version of the CA-1 Europa mega drone (first announced last fall) is “specifically designed for electronic warfare” and “jams…hostile ground systems from the air, creating safe corridors for aircraft flying behind it to carry out their missions.” The aircraft—like the OG version—will be built by Helsing subsidiary Grob Aircraft.
The kinetic attack variant of the unmanned fighter will now be known as the CA-1 Kinetic Attack (CA-1KA) (fitting), and the two models are designed to work as part of a swarm (together or with manned platforms like the Eurofighter).
Puddle jumping: Last fall, Helsing took everyone’s favorite tiny little plane concept—otherwise known as CCA—and brought it across the pond.
- The goal of small-ish drone fighters like Anduril’s Fury (YFQ-44A), General Atomics’ Gambit (YFQ-42A), or, indeed, Helsing’s CA-1 Europa is to add oomph to a fighter force without adding the cost of or manpower required for additional manned high-end aircraft (like F-16s or F-35s).
- These smaller, cheaper, autonomous drone-planes can fly alongside pilots and carry out everything from sensing, to kinetic go boom stuff, to—as in CA-1EA’s case—EW attacks. They don’t call ‘em loyal wingmen for nothing.
- It’s worth noting that it’s not only Europeans making European CCAs—last summer, Anduril inked a partnership with German defense giant Rheinmetall to scale up production of its products in Europe, including Fury.
Black box: Details on Helsing’s European CCA variant and its development have stayed pretty under wraps, but here’s what we know:
- According to the company, it’s an “autonomous fighter jet in the three-to-five ton class under development at Helsing and its subsidiary Grob Aircraft.” That’s about 10 tons less than an F-35, FWIW.
- Per Helsing, the mini-fighter will be about 11m long with a 10m wingspan, have a max takeoff weight of 4 tons, and will travel at “high-subsonic” speeds.
- The whole thing will be flown by Helsing’s Centaur AI autonomous combat system, and EW will be powered by Cirra, the company’s “deep learning-based EW system countering adaptive, software-defined IADS emitters.”
- And they’ve got a whole lot of cash money to develop all this fun stuff—the company has officially raised $1.6B-ish in funding, and is reportedly raising another $1.2B at an $18B valuation. With that kind of cash, you can make all the drone-planes you want.
Fraternal twins: Both variants of Europa—CA-1KA and CA-1EA will “share the same airframe, propulsion system, autonomy software suite, and ground control infrastructure.” The only difference is the payload—boom-boom kinetic stuff versus jamming.
- The idea is that keeping things standardized and modular makes the platform easier, cheaper, and quicker to produce at scale.
Helsing says the platform is currently in development, with CA-1KA set to fly in early 2027. Per the company, Initial Operating Capacity (IOC) for the kinetic variant is planned for 2029, and IOC for CA-1EA is set for 2031.
Now that competition’s heating up—what’s the German equivalent of popcorn?