The Dassault LOGIDUC – sometimes spelled Logiduc in French and LogiDuc in English – (''Logique de Développement d'UCAV'', French for "Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle development solution") was an autonomous industrial program launched in 1999 by the French aircraft manufacturer

Dassault Aviation Dassault Aviation SA () is a French Aerospace manufacturer, manufacturer of military aircraft and business jets. It was founded in 1929 by Marcel Dassault, Marcel Bloch as Société des Avions Marcel Bloch or "MB". After World War II, Marc ...

in view to develop its

UAV An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...

design capacities. This French programme eventually led to the creation of the Dassault-Sagem Tactical UAV company and to the European "combat drone" project

nEUROn A neuron, neurone, or nerve cell is an electrically excitable cell that communicates with other cells via specialized connections called synapses. The neuron is the main component of nervous tissue in all animals except sponges and placozoa. N ...

. The LOGIDUC program consisted of a series of three stealth aerial vehicles, from scale 1/100 to 1/1, in view to collect data required by the production of a fighter-sized stealth UCLAV type supporting the

Dassault Rafale The Dassault Rafale (, literally meaning "gust of wind", and "burst of fire" in a more military sense) is a French twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter aircraft designed and built by Dassault Aviation. Equipped with a wide ran ...

in the 2010s and to design autonomous stealth fighters primary used by the French Air Force circa 2025. The two first vehicles, AVE-D and AVE-C, are scale model 1/100 (50kg) and 1/10 (500kg) stealth "tactical drones" (UAV), while the final version was to be a full-scale (5,000kg) prototype stealth "combat drone" (UCAV). Each vehicle was given an owl name as "Duc" ("duke") is the French name of a nocturnal

bird of prey Birds of prey or predatory birds, also known as raptors, are hypercarnivorous bird species that actively hunt and feed on other vertebrates (mainly mammals, reptiles and other smaller birds). In addition to speed and strength, these predators h ...

species known in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

as ''Otus'' aka

Scops owl Scops owls are typical owls in family Strigidae belonging to the genus ''Otus'' and are restricted to the Old World. ''Otus'' is the largest genus of owls with 59 species. Scops owls are colored in various brownish hues, sometimes with a lighter ...

. ''Petit Duc'' ("small duke") stands for

scops owl Scops owls are typical owls in family Strigidae belonging to the genus ''Otus'' and are restricted to the Old World. ''Otus'' is the largest genus of owls with 59 species. Scops owls are colored in various brownish hues, sometimes with a lighter ...

, ''Moyen Duc'' ("medium duke") stands for

long-eared owl The long-eared owl (''Asio otus''), also known as the northern long-eared owlOlsen, P.D. & Marks, J.S. (2019). ''Northern Long-eared Owl (Asio otus)''. In: del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook o ...

and ''Grand Duc'' ("large duke") is

eagle owl The American (North and South America) horned owls and the Old World eagle-owls make up the genus ''Bubo'', at least as traditionally described. The genus name ''Bubo'' is Latin for the Eurasian eagle-owl. This genus contains 19 species that ar ...

. Other Dassault aircraft with bird names are the

Dassault MD 315 Flamant The Dassault MD 315 Flamant is a French light twin-engined transport airplane built shortly after World War II by Dassault Aviation for the French Air Force. Design and development Design work on a twin-engined light transport started in 1946 wi ...

(

flamingo Flamingos or flamingoes are a type of Wader, wading bird in the Family (biology), family Phoenicopteridae, which is the only extant family in the order Phoenicopteriformes. There are four flamingo species distributed throughout the Americas ...

), the

Dassault Falcon The Dassault Falcon is a family of business jets, manufactured by Dassault Aviation. July 2017 saw the 2,500th Falcon delivered – a Falcon 900LX – since the first Falcon 20 was handed over to a customer in 1965. The fleet has accumula ...

(

falcon Falcons () are birds of prey in the genus ''Falco'', which includes about 40 species. Falcons are widely distributed on all continents of the world except Antarctica, though closely related raptors did occur there in the Eocene. Adult falcons ...

) family and the

Dassault Hirondelle The Dassault M.D.320 Hirondelle was a French 14-seat utility transport aircraft of the 1960s, designed and built by Dassault Aviation, in prototype form only. Design and development In 1967 the French Air Force, investigating replacement aircra ...

(

swallow The swallows, martins, and saw-wings, or Hirundinidae, are a family of passerine songbirds found around the world on all continents, including occasionally in Antarctica. Highly adapted to aerial feeding, they have a distinctive appearance. The ...

). LOGIDUC was a 3-step program with the following aims: * Petit Duc: :Mastering stealth aircraft design. :Confronting stealth aircraft to modern air-to-air combat systems. :Confronting stealth aircraft to modern ground-to-air combat systems. * Moyen Duc: :Experimenting unstable yaw aircraft control methods. * Grand Duc: :Acquiring full mission system representativity. :Acquiring composite pack airborne control. :Acquiring collaborative flight with drones and aircraft. :Acquiring live air-to-ground weapon release. The Petit Duc and Moyen Duc both reached the flying stage; the Grand Duc was cancelled in 2003 and replaced by the

European project.

References

Dassault UAV
(Dassault's official website)

(French Senate's official website) * ttp://www.senat.fr/rap/r05-215/r05-2151.pdf Full report: Drones role in the armies (Senators Maryse Bergé-Lavigne & Philippe Nogrix, Feb.22 2006)(French Senate's official website)]
AVE-D Petit Duc prototype manufacturer
(Aviation Design's official website)
Dassault's Logiduc programme
(European-Security's official website)
The European technology demonstrator nEUROn, February 9, 2006, French Defence Ministry

Dassault-Sagem tactical UAV company creation

Media links

* video
AVE-D Petit Duc test flight, 2000
(Aviation Design/Dassault Aviation) * video
AVE-C Moyen Duc flight (also AVE-D Petit Duc escorting a Rafale), January 2004
(Pascal Fellous/Dassault Aviation) * video
AVE-C, AVE-D & nEUROn design and flight, Dassault Activities
(Dassault Aviation) * video
nEUROn (AVE Grand Duc vers.) promotional featurette, June 11, 2005
{dead link, date=September 2017 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes (Dassault Aviation) Unmanned aerial vehicles of France Unmanned stealth aircraft Military robots Military projects LOGIDUC

See also

References

Media links