Canada considers buying used drone called ‘gutted’, ‘horror without end’
German aircraft lacks many key elements to fly
Transport Canada wants to purchase a drone to conduct surveillance missions in the Arctic, but the department says it is premature to say whether it will buy a used German military aircraft linked with Canada — one some analysts say is almost worthless.
German government officials recently confirmed they are looking to sell Canada a second-hand drone that has cost Germany more than $823 million, even though the pilotless aircraft is lacking many core components it needs to fly.
A German Defence Ministry reply to lawmakers from the country’s opposition Left Party, dated Sept. 19 and obtained by The Associated Press, stated that Germany has decided to “begin concrete negotiations with Canada for the sale of the Euro Hawk aircraft, two ground stations and possibly certain spare parts.”
The government response added that Germany isn’t currently in talks with any other country or organization about the sale of the drone.
In a statement Monday, Germany’s defence ministry confirmed talks with Canada were planned, but declined to comment on a possible sales price or date.
Department of National Defence sources say neither the Canadian military or department is interested in the drone, however; sources told Postmedia the interested agency is Transport Canada.
The agency would not confirm its interest. “In 20162017, as part of its technical assessment, the government sought information from suppliers to better understand the technology and the solutions available,” Transport Canada spokeswoman MarieAnyk Côté said in an email to Postmedia. “We look forward to sharing more information on this project as it progresses, but it is still premature to speculate which remotely piloted aircraft system will be purchased.”
In 2015, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat approved $39.5 million in funding for a technical assessment and a system that meets Canada’s needs. “We have identified options within this range,” added Côté.
The department wants a drone to boost its National Aerial Surveillance Program, to detect oil spills, survey ice and marine habitats and monitor activity on the oceans in Canada’s north.
Germany ordered the Euro Hawk, a variant of the Northrop Grumman Global Hawk, in 2000 to use for long-distance reconnaissance. But it later cancelled the order because of skyrocketing costs and revelations that the prototype wouldn’t be certified to fly in Europe. Then-German defence minister Thomas de Maiziere acknowledged in 2013 that the drone was a writeoff, telling lawmakers it was better to have a “horrible end than a horror without end.”
According to the government’s latest response to Left Party lawmakers, the drone has already been “demilitarized.” This entailed the removal of American-made radio equipment, the GPS receiver and aerials, as well as all encryption and the flight control system. Rather than laboriously delete individual software components, technicians chose to perform a “hardware uninstallation” — removing all hard drives containing sensitive U.S.made software.
“The question is what a buyer would do with such a gutted aircraft,” said Thomas Wiegold, a German journalist who runs the defence website Augen Geradeaus. “Without GPS navigation and in particular without flight control systems, the drone would hardly be able to fly.”
Andrej Hunko, one of the Left Party lawmakers who submitted questions to the government, said the drone now only has “scrap value.”
The Canadian Forces has its own project to purchase a fleet of new armed drones. The military hopes to receive the aircraft by 2021 and have the fleet fully operational by 2023, although it is still open to question on whether those dates can be reached. The cost of such a purchase would be more than $1 billion.
There are a limited number of armed drones on the market that fit Canada’s needs but in the past the Canadian military has expressed interest in buying U.S.-built Predators.