MILAN — Drone tactics emerging from the war in Ukraine have inspired other European countries to intensify their military-experimentation campaigns, with a new crop of testing facilities designed to test the small aircraft in war-like conditions.
Estonia inaugurated its first drone training center, located in the western part of the Baltic country, last week. The facility is meant to enhance the unmanned systems training of the Estonian Defense Forces and NATO allied units.
“The experience from the war in Ukraine shows that drones and unmanned systems are crucial in modern combat – developing Estonia’s defense capabilities requires that we elevate our drone training,” Estonia’s Defense League quoted Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur as saying.
The site, which cost roughly €5 million ($5.7 million) and was financed by Luxembourg, covers 1,300 square meters and includes classrooms, storage, equipment maintenance areas as well as accommodations, according to Estonian public broadcaster ERR.
It will seek to integrate and draw from Ukraine’s wartime expertise in drone warfare as well as NATO’s to offer key infrastructure for national forces and industry players.
An increasing number of European states are following similar steps in attempts to trial drones in real-world scenarios to test their performance and reliability.
Obstacles to be expected in actual conflict include bad weather and enemy jamming of control signals, for example.
Earlier this month, Denmark announced the creation of a new drone centre at the Hans Christian Andersen airport in Odense to serve as a training site for the Danish military.
The airport already has another testing facility. Dubbed the UAS Denmark Test Center and launched in 2013, it focuses on training personnel in beyond-visual-line-of-sight, or BVLOS, flight zones.
In March, the Danish government said it would dedicate $110 million to the new section, building on lessons from the Ukraine war. By 2026, approximately 100 Danish drone operators are expected to be training there, as reported AFP.
In another example, ZenaTech, a company headquartered in Canada that specializes in artificial intelligence, announced in January that it was setting up a BVLOS drone trial facility in Turkey.
“The facility will serve as a product testing site for the company’s subsidiary ZenaDrone 1000 model drones designed for the U.S. defense branches and NATO – it will be fully set up and operational during the first quarter of 2025,” ZenaTech said in a statement.
As part of Finland’s recently published national drone strategy, the country will seek to prioritize investments in drone infrastructure, specifically large-scale laboratories and open-air test sites. The document cites Finnish Arctic conditions as a unique and challenging testing environment.
In 2024, the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, known as Eurocontrol, conducted a survey of 31 civil and military test centers across member states to report on their capabilities and the challenges.
A majority of the respondents were from the European UAS Test Centres Alliance, which comprises 35 organizations from over 17 countries, that seek to enhance and support the development of the drone ecosystem and leverage synergies between the different sites.
The three main operational concerns faced by the facilities were listed as airspace integration, technical reliability, and privacy. The non-operational ones included flight approval by authorities and funding.
Elisabeth Gosselin-Malo is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. She covers a wide range of topics related to military procurement and international security, and specializes in reporting on the aviation sector. She is based in Milan, Italy.
