“…Thales has successfully completed the first flight of a half-scale prototype of its UAS 100 long-range unmanned air system. Developed in partnership with Issoire Aviation and Hionos, and with the support of the French Ministry of the Armed Forces via the Defence Innovation Agency (AID), UAS100 will help meet demand for more cost-effective drone missions with a lower environmental impact. Unmanned air systems have significant commercial potential, with hundreds of thousands of drones due to enter service over the next 10 years. As a result, airspace management and the aerospace ecosystem will become considerably more complex, creating new safety and security challenges and obliging civil aviation authorities to tighten their regulatory demands. To meet these challenges, Thales is proposing a long-range, long-endurance UAS developed with the support of the AID and capable of meeting future flight safety, security and certification requirements. From infrastructure inspection, coastal surveillance, border surveillance and event security to search-and-rescue and military operations, UAS100 will meet mission requirements while operating in full compliance with general aviation regulations. Its flight avionics combine the certified levels of flight safety and security of Thales’s solutions for the aerospace sector with the low weight and compact design needed for integration on board a light UAV.