An efficient European cooperation scheme

In accordance with the guidelines defined by the French DGA, Dassault Aviation has entrusted about 50% of the work value to European partners, elected after a scrutinized evaluation based on:

  • Experience and excellence: the objective of this project was not to create new technological capabilities everywhere in Europe, but to take the full benefit of the already existing technological niches.
  • Competitiveness: this project had the ambition to find new ways for costs reduction. Each partner, in addition to their technical excellences, was invited to apply for the most efficient “value for money”.
  • State budget allocation: it was a condition imposed by the French DGA that each country having the ambition to participate to the nEUROn programme shall contribute to its financing. For more flexibility, no constraint in term of “geographical return” was assigned to this project, as already dealt with at governmental level.

Related industrial team

The industrial team of the nEUROn programme is composed of 6 companies.

Dassault Aviation (France)

in addition to being the design authority, has taken care of the general design and architecture of the system, the flight control system, the implementation of low observable devices, the final assembly, the systems integration on the “global integration tests rig”, the ground tests, and the flight tests,

Alenia Aermacchi (now Leonardo, Italy)

has contributed to the project with a new concept of internal weapon bay (“Smart Integrated Weapon Bay” – SIWB), an internal EO/IR sensor, the bay doors and their operating mechanisms, the electrical power and distribution system, and the air data system,

SAAB (Sweden)

was entrusted with the general design of the main fuselage, the landing gear doors, the avionics and the fuel system,

EADS-CASA (now Airbus Defence & Space, Spain)

brought its experience for the wings, the ground station, and the data link integration,

Hellenic Aerospace Industry – HAI (Greece)

was responsible for the rear fuselage, the exhaust pipe, and the supply of racks of the “global integration tests rig”,

RUAG (Switzerland)

was taking care of the low speed wind tunnel tests, and the weapon interfaces between the aircraft and the armaments.