Daher's EyePulse MALE Drone Completes First Flight: French Defense
Daher Completes Maiden Flight of EyePulse MALE Drone Demonstrator
Daher has successfully completed the first flight of its EyePulse medium altitude, long endurance (MALE) drone demonstrator on December 2, 2025, marking a significant milestone in France’s accelerated push toward sovereign unmanned systems. The rapid-prototype platform, developed in collaboration with Thales, was built in response to a French defense procurement call from the Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA) aimed at expediting the development of long-endurance unmanned options.
The demonstration showcased the platform’s full autonomous capabilities, including a fully automated flight profile culminating in an autonomous landing sequence—a critical operational requirement activated by a DGA delegation present at the Tarbes flight test facility.
What sets EyePulse apart is Daher’s development methodology. The company adapted its proven TBM single-engine turboprop platform and integrated Thales’s ScaleFlyt avionics suite, ground control station, and command-and-control data links. This approach compressed the development timeline to under six months, demonstrating how leveraging certified aircraft architectures and existing industrial infrastructure can dramatically shorten acquisition cycles.
The program emerges within a broader French strategy to address delays affecting European MALE development. Following the Paris Air Show 2025, the DGA announced plans to support local companies in producing teleoperated MALE demonstrators by 2026. This initiative reflects France’s determination to field faster, lower-cost, ITAR-free unmanned systems amid continued Eurodrone delays and European operator migration toward imported platforms such as the MQ-9 Reaper.
Industry analysts note the EyePulse demonstrator exemplifies a strategic shift toward modular, agile architectures capable of rapid industrialization and mission adaptation. The emergence of parallel initiatives, including the Turgis & Gaillard Aarok, indicates France is pursuing a diversified approach to MALE development—prioritizing speed to capability and operational flexibility over traditional, lengthy procurement cycles.
For Daher, the successful demonstration reinforces the competitive advantages of leveraging existing platforms and industrial partnerships. The achievement positions the company as a key player in France’s sovereign unmanned systems landscape and validates the rapid-prototype methodology for addressing urgent defense requirements.
Source ID: SRCE-2025-1764673246239-1055