Looks like two European nations now have unmanned aerial vehicles that are roughly equivalent in performance to currently active US drones such as the X-47B or the RQ-170. Late in 2012 Dassault of France flew its Neuron technology demonstrator, and now BAE Systems of Britain has just released a couple of video clips of its Taranis technology demonstrator. Here's its first flight.
You can see another video clip here, along with more information.
With China also developing stealth drones, and Russia allegedly doing likewise, it looks as if the US lead in the field is slowly being eroded. It'll be interesting to see what happens over the next ten years or so.
Peter
