Delair
French commercial drone and defence UAV company co-developing Damocles loitering munitions with KNDS.
Last refreshed: 29 May 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Timeline for Delair
France scraps two drones for mass buys
Drones: Industry & Defence- What is the Delair Damocles drone?
- Damocles is a loitering munition developed by Delair in partnership with KNDS (Krauss-Maffei Wegmann + Nexter). It targets the European market for small tactical loitering munitions, positioned to benefit from France's April 2026 redirection of EUR 600 million away from Patroller and Eurodrone.Source: Lowdown drones-industry-defence Update 10
- What drones does Delair make?
- Delair makes fixed-wing surveillance UAVs (UX11, DT18) for commercial and military reconnaissance, and is developing the Damocles loitering munition with KNDS for European defence markets.Source: Lowdown drones-industry-defence
- Where is Delair based and who owns it?
- Delair is a French company headquartered in Toulouse, founded in 2011. It operates as an independent company with KNDS as its primary defence programme partner.Source: Lowdown drones-industry-defence
Background
Delair is a Toulouse-based French fixed-wing drone company specialising in long-endurance tactical surveillance and, increasingly, loitering-munition systems. Founded in 2011, Delair built its commercial reputation on the UX11 and DT18 fixed-wing platforms used for infrastructure inspection, precision agriculture, and military reconnaissance, before pivoting toward defence applications in response to Ukraine-driven demand.
Delair's primary defence project is the Damocles loitering munition, developed in partnership with KNDS (Krauss-Maffei Wegmann + Nexter). Damocles targets the growing European market for small, tactical loitering munitions following France's April 2026 cancellation of both the Patroller and Eurodrone programmes and redirection of approximately EUR 600 million toward smaller platforms. KNDS's procurement relationships with the French DGA and the German Bundeswehr give Delair a route to two of Europe's largest defence budgets without requiring an independent prime contractor position.
Delair's significance is its positioning as a commercially viable European mid-tier between large primes and Ukrainian combat-drone exporters — a gap that the EU AGILE programme and the Bundeswehr's multi-company drone awards are designed to address.