A French Rafale flew a drone that went hunting for an air-defense radar. Dassault Aviation and Harmattan AI said in a 13 July press release that a Rafale F4 conducted its first joint operation with a drone carrying NAMIB, a new electronic reconnaissance system built to find enemy air defenses, according to Defense Express.
There is an unresolved question underneath. Which Rafale variant Ukraine gets is not settled, and the aircraft may be secondhand F3Rs that would need upgrading to the F4 standard. NAMIB was demonstrated on an F4.
During the trials, the drone located a simulated hostile radar station several dozen kilometers away, passed the coordinates to the Rafale pilot, and the pilot ran a simulated strike.
Six and half months from start to first flight
NAMIB is a joint development by Dassault and Harmattan AI. Its specifications have not been disclosed. It can be integrated on different types of drones, such as quadcopters, long-range fixed-wing platforms, and others.
Development started in January 2026. The first joint operation flew on 13 July. That is roughly six and a half months.
The project sits inside a strategic partnership the two companies announced in the same month, under which Dassault integrates Harmattan AI’s combat artificial intelligence into the Rafale with an eye toward the F5 standard.
The drone-control demonstration is arguably the more significant half of the announcement: a fighter pilot directing an unmanned aircraft as part of a strike package is the architecture every major air force is now building toward.
Ukraine has been killing Russian radars hard way
Ukraine has been dismantling Russian air defense with drones, one radar at a time.
Ukraine’s General Staff reported 24 radar systems damaged in Crimea alone between March and May 2026, and 25 air defense systems hit in April, including components of the Tor, Buk, Osa, Pantsir, S-300, and S-400 systems.
A company commander with the 413th Unmanned Systems Regiment told Euromaidan Press that in some sectors the Russians are “losing the concept” of layered air defense as the layers get picked off, opening blind spots.
That campaign is working, but it is slow. The Lasar’s Group operation earlier this month killed a Buk-M3 with strike drones first, and only then did the Air Force fly into the corridor that opened.
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