Tempest | the UK's Next Generation Fighter | Updates & Discussions

[Ultima Thule]

Such as what?

Typhoon is basically a UK design, Harrier, etc etc @undertakerwwefan

 

[Yongpeng Sun-Tastaufen]

Typhoon is basically a UK design, Harrier, etc etc @undertakerwwefan

Typhoon is German design British radar. Anyway, Britain today is not Britain of the past. Much weaker. Cannot make a plane by itself.

 

[Ultima Thule]

Typhoon is German design British radar. Anyway, Britain today is not Britain of the past. Much weaker. Cannot make a plane by itself.

look at this you shit head, @undertakerwwefan German design rejected by the consortium of EF-2000 in early in the development phase @undertakerwwefan Typhoon was developed UK design called EAP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Aerospace_EAP

 

[Yongpeng Sun-Tastaufen]

look at this you shit head, @undertakerwwefan German design rejected by the consortium of EF-2000 in early in the development phase @undertakerwwefan Typhoon was developed UK design called EAP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Aerospace_EAP
View attachment 493904

True, but Britain still can't develop a plane by itself. Especially not a 5th gen plane. Britain today has many non whites. Lots of money spent on welfare. Britain today is not Britain 30 years ago.

 

[Ultima Thule]

True, but Britain still can't develop a plane by itself. Especially not a 5th gen plane. Britain today has many non whites. Lots of money spent on welfare. Britain today is not Britain 30 years ago.

welfare is good, military development takes lots of money and sucks @undertakerwwefan Uk is fully capable to develop 5th/6th gen jets alone but development with other EU countries is to reduce the development costs @undertakerwwefan

 

[Ali_Baba]

True, but Britain still can't develop a plane by itself. Especially not a 5th gen plane. Britain today has many non whites. Lots of money spent on welfare. Britain today is not Britain 30 years ago.

How can someone who has posted 4,766 messages on this forum talk such utter crap ? Are all your message full of so much sh*t ???

 

[Great Brahmin]

Good for British Military . But I am sure this one will be costly as well like Other British projects.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

How can someone who has posted 4,766 messages on this forum talk such utter crap ? Are all your message full of so much sh*t ???

He is a ...

 

[Persian Gulf 1906]

i think they hacked into iranian military computers and stole our design plans for qaher 313!

/s

 

[Wolfhunter]

Replacement for rapid reaction Typhoons as part of the U.K's Modernising Defence Programme.

 

[Wolfhunter]

i think they hacked into iranian military computers and stole our design plans for qaher 313!

/s

I think Iran should shut their gob and return nazanin zaghari-ratcliffe.

 

[Wolfhunter]

Fake. Britain has no money nor expertise to develop a plane by itself.

Oh look a Canadian talking about money?

As for the United Kingdom's history of aerospace, google is your friend. Now be a good boy a salute to the her majesty Queen Elizabeth Windsor II.

 

[Persian Gulf 1906]

I think Iran should shut their gob and return nazanin zaghari-ratcliffe.

I'm impressed you managed to spell her name correctly, you knuckle draggers are improving every day

 

[Ali_Baba]

Storm Warning! Will Tempest follow Typhoon and Tornado?

The Farnborough Air Show provided a platform for the launch of Britain’s new Combat Air Strategy, and for the unveiling of a model of a brand-new, next-generation fighter concept – dubbed Tempest. Together these represented a bold statement of intent for next generation British air power, and for the UK to remain a world-leader in the combat air sector.
On the first day of the Farnborough air show (16 July 2018) British Prime Minister Theresa May formally announced the publication of the UK’s Combat Air Strategy. She said that the government and the Royal Air Force’s Rapid Capability Office would join with BAE Systems, Leonardo, MBDA and Rolls Royce in funding the next phase of the Future Combat Air System Technology Initiative (FCAS-TI), laying the groundwork for a programme to develop a successor to the RAF’s Eurofighter Typhoons.
The inclusion of the RAF in the team is interesting, as there are still some in the service who believe that the Combat Air Strategy is being driven by industrial and economic and not military requirements. Among them are a number of senior officers who believe that the RAF should simply procure whatever the USAF buys, in an effort to ensure not just interoperability but full ‘harmonisation’. Others realise that the UK must look beyond the F-35 if it is to continue to deliver superlative capabilities in the air and space domains into the future, and if it is to ensure operational success.
This Joint Venture team is known as ‘Team Tempest’ – though neither the entity nor the name is new, having been revealed in April when the UK Ministry of Defence revealed plans to conduct a future test campaign using a low-cost unmanned combat air system (UCAS) demonstrator.
The Prime Minister said that what she called a “ground-breaking partnership” would deliver over £2 billion pounds of investment up to 2025, investing in new technologies, supporting cutting edge innovation, collaborating internationally and initiating a programme intended to deliver next generation capability.
The announcement was seen as an attempt to demonstrate that Britain plans to remain a ‘Tier One’ military and industrial power after Brexit, and to ensure the preservation of the UK’s organic, autonomous, sovereign aircraft and combat system design and production capabilities. Andrew Kennedy, head of strategy at BAE Systems Military Air & Information said that it served as a signal to potential partners, and to the investment community, pointing out to investors that “the UK Combat Air sector is a growth sector, that we are going to sustain for many years into the future.” He said that he hoped that it would inspire current employees, and also the software and aeronautical engineers of the future.
The PM said that the announcement confirmed the Government’s commitment to maintaining Britain’s world-class air power capabilities, and that it would help to secure the long-term future of the UK’s Combat Air industry – boosting an industrial sector which generates billions in revenue for the British economy and supports thousands of jobs in every part of the UK.
Later the same day, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson formally launched the Government’s Combat Air Strategy and added flesh to the bare bones of the PM’s description of the importance of the Combat Air sector. Williamson said that the sector supported more than 18,000 UK jobs, with a turnover in excess of £6bn a year and accounting for more than 80% of UK defence exports over the last ten years. More recently, the UK’s Defence Security Organisation (DSO) revealed that the British defence industry had secured export orders valued at £9 Billion ($11.59 billion) in 2017, with the military air sector accounting for 91% of Britain’s defense exports.
Military aircraft and military aerospace have often provided an excellent return on UK Government investment. The export success of the Hawk jet trainer aircraft is a good example of this. More than 1,000 aircraft have been built or are on order, and Hawk aircraft exports had generated a return of £11.5 billion for the UK Government by 2013 – after an initial investment of just £900 million. The Typhoon programme is expected to generate a return of £28.2 billion from an initial Government investment of £15.2 billion, demonstrating a very significant return for the UK Government.
“The British defence industry is a huge contributor to UK prosperity, creating thousands of jobs in a thriving advanced manufacturing sector and generating a UK sovereign capability that is the best in the world,” Williamson averred. "We have been a world leader in the combat air sector for a century, with skills and technology that are the envy of the world. Today we show that we are determined to make sure it stays that way."
As well as launching the Combat Air Strategy, Williamson also unveiled a full-scale model of what the mainstream media dubbed “the UK’s new fighter aircraft,” as part of the Future Combat Air System Technology Initiative (FCAS-TI). Though this was the first public appearance of this particular FCAS configuration, a BAE Systems illustration of the aircraft had been published by Aviation Week to illustrate a piece by the magazine’s defence editor, Tony Osborne. Astonishingly, another full scale mock up had been exhibited (to invited guests only) in a marquee at the Royal International Air Tattoo at Fairford the weekend before the Farnborough announcement.
But the models and illustrations do not signal the launch of a new aircraft development programme.
Not yet, anyway!
For now FCAS remains FCAS-TI, a Technology Initiative that is intended to help the UK to get ready to develop a next generation combat aircraft, with a full launch still some way in the future, and dependent on Team Tempest finding partners.
Unmanned element
For some years, there seemed to be a consensus that the era of manned combat aircraft was drawing to a close, and that unmanned aircraft – some remotely piloted, but some autonomous, would take over their roles. The Labour government’s 2005 Defence Industrial Strategy, stated that: “Current plans do not envisage the UK needing to design and build a future generation of manned fast jet aircraft beyond the Typhoon and F-35.” That view is no longer so widely held, with operational experience demonstrating the value of having not only a ‘man in the loop’, but for that man to also be ‘on the scene’. The human pilot can using his eyes to get better situational awareness than is sometimes possible using the imagery gathered by narrow field of view video sensors, and many believe that it would not currently be possible to build a control system to replicate the sensing and processing ability of trained aircrew. Bandwidth limitations can make it difficult to download all of the ‘take’ from an unmanned aircraft’s sensors, while jamming and spoofing can disrupt signals to and from a UAV, including GPS data. The Russian military has already used GPS jamming to effectively block some US UAV operations over Syria.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Steven Hillier, the RAF’s Chief of Air Staff believed that unmanned aircraft will play a greater role in the future, but also thinks that there will be “an increased emphasis on precision and being able to do that at the greatest range you can,” and that “so far no-one has come up with a technical solution that is able to replace the manned combat aircraft” in controlling airspace and providing precision effect. He does not rule out technology eventually allowing UAVs to undertake these roles in “fifty years time,” but says that: “you can’t see it at the moment.”
It is not just the technological limitations of UAVs that have driven the UK towards making a manned platform the central element of FCAS. Sometimes societal factors, including RoE, will drive you towards being manned, not technology.
Michael Christie, BAE Systems Strategy Director for Air said that rules of engagement and social acceptability may be the most important factor, and many legal, moral and ethical issues
Continue to surround the use of unmanned platforms. The precision available by using manned aircraft can also be a crucial factor. Air Chief Marshal Hillier emphasized the importance of precision in allowing the UK to wage warfare in the way that it does – which he characterized as being highly disciplined and highly responsible, and with a very clear definition of what is the legal use of force. “And most of those who oppose us aren’t. I want to continue to wage warfare in our way, and not theirs,” he observed.
It should, however, be emphasised that the manned or optionally manned platform is just one element of the overall Future Combat Air System, and that unmanned systems will also play a vital role. The manned FCAS aircraft will act as a ‘force multiplier’, operating with a range of unmanned systems (from the high-flying Phasa 35 pseudo-satellite to the LANCA ‘loyal wingman’), and with a range of other platforms and assets across the air, land, sea, space and cyber domains.
Confusingly, the FCAS acronym and Future Combat Air System name are also used to describe the Anglo-French unmanned combat aircraft demonstrator programme that was launched in November 2014 with a formal two-year feasibility study. This was followed by a further 12-month study phase initiated in 2017. At Farnborough the RAF’s Air Commodore Linc Taylor, Senior Responsible Owner of the FCAS project and head of the RAF’s Rapid Capability Office,referred to the “really strong work that we are doing with France at the moment,” presumably referring to this UCAV project.
The Tempest described?
In an increasingly complex and uncertain world, future combat air systems will need to operate in the most contested, congested and complex environments, where speed and agility are essential, yet as well as being highly capable, flexible, upgradeable, and connected they will have to be affordable, and this has driven the ‘system of systems’ approach, with a manned FCAS combat aircraft representing just one system within the whole.
Moreover the FCAS configuration revealed at Farnborough is itself understood to represent just one of a range of concepts explored by Team Tempest. Charles Woodburn, the chief executive of BAE Systems described the model as being representative only of a “direction of travel,” while Gavin Williamson called it “a glimpse into what the future could look like.”
Clive Morrison, BAE Systems Air Sector operational requirements manager said at Farnborough that “what comes out of the concept work may or may not look like the aircraft on show here.”
Only ten days before Farnborough, during briefings to trade journalists, BAE Systems showed a Powerpoint slide showing a ‘spread’ of four quite different vehicles from its Concept Study. These ranged from a relatively small, single-engined lightweight fighter optimised to operate in the air policing role in lower-threat environments, to a larger machine intended for highly contested environments. The latter, Michael Christie, BAE Systems Strategy Director for Air, conceded, was “something that looks a little bit like something from Star Wars!” The spread of vehicles also included an aircraft that looked like a scaled-up F-35, with longer-span wings, and an air defence optimized machine more reminiscent of the YF-23.
The configuration highlighted at Farnborough was a large, twin-engined aircraft bearing some resemblance to the BAE Replica – a Low Observable (stealthy) design study which fed into the UK’s Future Offensive Air System (FOAS) programme, and probably into the later Taranis UCAV. A full scale RCS model was built and tested, demonstrating the UK’s LO design and manufacturing capabilities and perhaps serving as an ‘entry ticket’ to the highest tier of the US F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme. The reappearance of the Replica RCS model in 2014 may have been connected with preliminary work on the FCAS programme.
The Tempest mock-up shared some design features with other LO aircraft, including a planform reminiscent of the F-117A with a sawtooth trailing edge (as used on the F-117A and B-2A), trapezoidal twin tails like those of the YF-23, and intakes that are similar to those used by the F-35 and the Chinese Shenyang J-20.
But it is unclear as to whether the eventual FCAS manned platform will incorporate the same degree of all aspect low observability as aircraft like the F-22 and F-35, or whether it will be a more balanced and slightly less stealthy design. “That is a question that we are still asking ourselves,” Clive Morrison said. “Clearly, within the survivability equation, signature control is part of that equation, but effectiveness, efficiency and delivering the capability is dependent on many factors, and part of the Team Tempest remit is to look at the operational analysis, the operational requirements and the concepts that will deliver that into the future. We will look at the threat (that is difficult – that crystal ball out to 2040 is probably a little furry and fuzzy). Do we at this moment in time believe that stealth (or more accurately signature control) is a factor in the equation for the design of a next generation combat aircraft? Absolutely! Will it be the dominant factor? We don’t know, so we’re going to ask ourselves those questions, try to understand the environment, look at the operational requirements and look at concepts that meet it in the most affordable and efficient way. There is not an answer today, that’s why we’re doing this work.”
It is expected that the aircraft will be relatively large (closer to the F-22 than to the F-35), its size driven by the requirement for a large internal payload bay, to accomodate weapons, sensors or additional fuel, while still having sufficient performance and agility to survive the most challenging combat environments.
It has been clear for some time that any FCAS manned/optionally-manned platform would be larger than the F-35 (“F-22 sized or bigger”, said one RAF officer familiar with the project), which is perceived as being too small, too short-ranged and with an inadequate internal payload for future requirements.
“We have a view on where the payload/range/performance should be. We have a framework but whether that will be right for tomorrow we don’t know,” Clive Morrison, operational requirements manager for BAE Systems’ Military Air & Information business unit, said.
“We have some baseline assumptions and they are not far off from where the Typhoon is today in terms of aerodynamic performance. We would hope to improve on some of those, but in other areas we may be able to back off and give ourselves more flexibility on the conceptual designs because other elements of the system will be able to deliver that capability without necessarily having to go all the way to having that aerodynamic performance. But that’s why we’re doing the work to understand.
“A lot will depend on the effectors, the weapons. Will they bring and confer a level of performance and functionality which means that we may be able to back off from the overall aircraft performance? We’ve pitched it not far off from where aerodynamic performance is today, but we fully expect that through our processes of understanding the environment and the operational analysis and the concepts that may change our minds about how we deliver that. I’m very aware that we are often accused of fighting yesterday’s wars in terms of how we develop the next set of combat aircraft capability, we’re trying not to do that, but rather to understand where those key discriminators are.”
The new aircraft is large enough to be easily upgradeable with low observable conformal fuel tanks and/or weapons packs, large modular sensors (perhaps including a long range oblique photography system) and even a podded Directed Energy Weapon.
Directed energy weapons, using concentrated bursts of laser, microwave or particle beam energy, would probably be used for self-defence and perhaps for within visual range combat.
The aircraft will be capable of deploying and managing swarming munitions to operate successfully within Anti-Access Area Denial environments. These mini-UAVs will use artificial intelligence and machine learning to hit their targets.
The customisable virtual cockpit will feature advanced human machine interfaces including eye tracking and gesture based controls, allowing intuitive mission management functionality, including the command and control of other systems, including UAVs.
The aircraft will be equipped with a range of sensors, fully integrated at the subsystem level, in order to detect, identify, locate, and engage threats. These sensors will include radar and radio frequency, active and passive electro-optical sensors and advanced electronic support measures. Distributed sensors from other elements within the FCAS system of systems will further add to the picture! System intelligence promises to allow a transition from simply gathering massive amounts of data to presenting information that the user can utilize in a timeframe that will give ‘information advantage’ in the battlespace.
The aircraft will incorporate an advanced, lightweight ‘adaptive’ propulsion system, developed by Rolls Royce using new technologies that the Derby company will be exploring during the next eight years, though it will still be a gas turbine, which remains unmatched from a power density perspective. The new engine will be designed using advanced tools and methods in order to leverage advanced computational designs. The eventual FCAS powerplant will incorporate embedded starter-generators that eliminate the need for conventional accessory gearboxes, using magnets that are fused to the shaft of the engine, converting kinetic energy to electrical energy and generating electrical power from the heart of the engine.
It will also make extensive use of advanced materials including ceramics, composite materials, and metal matrix materials with reinforced titanium to confer a step-change in thrust-to-weight ratio. Conrad Banks, Rolls Royce’s Chief Engineer for Future Defence Programmes estimated that by using composite fibre reinforcement of titanium, a compressor ‘wheel’ could be produced at half the current weight, because the strength increase is so great.
Additive layer manufacturing, 3D manufacturing with advanced materials, promises to allow the introduction of cooling structures that would previously have been impossible further reducing the weight, and further increasing the efficiency of the gas turbine.
Because they will be located behind potentially quite convuluted intakes (in order to remove the line of sight from the gas turbine) the new engines will feature distortion-tolerant fan systems. They will also feature a fully-integrated thermal management system, perhaps using a variable bypass to reduce specific fuel consumption, and perhaps using large ducts or pipes on the side of the engine to deliver bleed cooling air for the vehicle and for the gas turbine.
For many years, many air power professionals have confidently predicted that there was no future for manned combat aircraft, and that there would be no requirement for manned fighters beyond the F-35. But the consensus has shifted away from that view, and many now believe that a range of factors, including bandwidth constraints, enemy jamming, rules of engagement, and societal pressures will demand a continuing role for the human pilot in many scenarios.
But the Tempest will also support ‘scalable autonomy’ to provide a number of unmanned modes as well as a range of pilot decision aids for when the aircraft is being flown ‘manned’.
There is less emphasis on platform design for Tempest than on systems. Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Hillier, the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) said: “Rather than building a platform and working out the systems within it, the weapons we might use with it, we are taking that information, that data, that systems integration, weapons, and we are starting with that, and then building the platform around it. So it’s a genuine system approach, and that’s not just the platform’s systems, it’s offboard systems, it’s space, it’s cyber, it’s swarming UAV technology, and bringing all these things together. That’s what our future capabilities will look like.”
“We need affordable high technology. For generations we have been presented with a choice between having this high tech, leading edge high technology (but it will cost you) or you can have lower technology, at a lesser price and therefore you’ll be able to have more volume. I simply don’t accept being put in that position. In the commercial sector you get high technology and you get it cheaper than the previous generation. I want that in military aerospace. I want more affordable, cheaper and higher technology at the same time – and that will allow me to generate greater mass. I think that is a key issue, we’ve gradually been having less and less mass. That causes capability problems, and it doesn’t give our adversaries as many dilemmas if you’ve got very few platforms, and it gives us longer term problems about sustaining a force with very small numbers.”
To facilitate this kind of affordable high technology approach the Tempest will feature next-generation ‘plug and play’ systems architectures that allow for the easy integration of new algorithms and hardware, developed under the so-called Pyramid project. Air Commodore Linc Taylor, head of the RAF’s RCO said that a spiral strategy would be employed to allow existing technologies to be leveraged. “We will re-use what’s good enough already,” he said, adding that this would particularly include mission data reprogramming.
It is expected that Tempest will incorporate many technologies from the Typhoon.
“Many of those technologies that will be embodied will first see their service through the Typhoon,” said Charles Woodburn, the chief executive of BAE Systems. “Upgrades of the avionics, upgrades in the weapons systems, upgrades in the radar will be deployed through the Typhoon.”
The Chief of the Air Staff is keen to get new technology into service more quickly than has been possible in the past, and using some Typhoon systems promises to facilitate this. Hillier “We’ve rather started to get it into our DNA that these things must take a long time,” Sir Stephen observed. “With Typhoon the first documents were signed in 1986, and now here we are, three decades later and the platform is brilliant, but that’s an awful long time. And if you look at the pace that the threats are evolving, we need to do our technology evolution much more quickly.”
Hillier is also keen to ensure that the new aircraft will have significant capability at its in service date, rather than taking delivery of early versions with more limited combat potential. “We have got used to platforms being at their best rather late in their service lives. Where Tornado, for instance, going out of RAF service next year, is at a superb level of capability. I want to get to that level much more quickly in the evolution of our new platforms. So we need the flexibility and the agility to bring platforms to the maximum perfection quicker and then incrementally grow them all the time.”
Industry will be expected to deliver and support the new aircraft at a significantly lower cost than aircraft like Typhoon, in order to allow the procurement of significantly larger numbers of aircraft. BAE Systems, in particular, recognises the need to back away from the trend of increasing cost and lengthening timescales for new combat aircraft programmes.
Streamlining procurement and manufacturing processes is a key ambition for Team Tempest, with the resulting time savings promising a commensurate reduction in cost. BAE Systems is also heavily focused on reducing costs of ownership and through life costs, inspired, in part by the significant savings produced by the TyTAN Typhoon Total Availability support contract.
Not starting with a clean sheet of paper when it comes to avionics and systems, but instead leveraging technology from Typhoon and other platforms will also play an important part in this cost reduction. “We intend to spiral, as well as looking at new technological capabilities,” Linc Taylor emphasised. There will be new technologies as well, and exploring these is a key part of Team Tempest’s remit.
In order to ensure that Tempest has the required performance, and to achieve a low unit production cost, BAE Systems intends to exploit its advanced manufacturing capabilities, including robotic and cobotic assembly, and additive layer manufacturing, enthusiastically embracing new manufacturing processes. Adapting the robotics used in manufacturing to re-fuel, re-arm, role-fit, and repair the aircraft will reduce support costs. Exoskeletons and wearable displays may be used in manufacturing and in-sercvice engineering support, while artificial intelligence and data analytics will be used in vehicle health monitoring and for mission data.
Whatever Tempest eventually looks like, what is clear is that the aircraft is intended to replace the Typhoon from 2035-2040, and to complement the F-35. FCAS may even threaten F-35 numbers, with some analysts and programme insiders suggesting that F-35 numbers could be capped at the presently ordered 48 aircraft, or at the 66 aircraft for which serial numbers have reportedly been reserved, with FCAS replacing the remaining 72-90 aircraft that would complete Britain’s once-planned buy of 138 aircraft. A ‘commitment’ to purchase these aircraft has, in recent years, increasingly been expressed as an ‘aspiration’.
“This language is interesting,” one analyst told me. “I am committed to sleeping with Scarlett Johansson, and that is very much my plan, but practical circumstances make that most unlikely. The MoD’s aspiration to procure 138 Joint Strike Fighters looks much the same!”
Procuring the Tempest to meet the FCAS requirement instead of buying more F-35s promises to strengthen the UK’s role as a global leader in the combat air sector. It should also protect key skills and jobs across the UK industrial base, and will result in the creation of new Intellectual Property that BAE Systems will own and be able to exploit in the future, perhaps ‘buying’ the UK a seat on the next major US programme. The F-35 programme does represent great business for the UK, thanks to the workshare gained by being the sole Tier One partner in the development phase, but it does not provide a long term future for UK industry, with relatively little creation of new IP that could be transferred on to other programmes.
No-one seems keen to ‘rock’ the F-35 programme ‘boat’, however. The RAF remains adamant that its plan remains one that will see it buying 138 aeroplanes, while Clive Morrison, the BAE Systems Military Air & Information business unit's operational requirements manager said that: “We do not see this as a competitor to the F-35, we see this as a complementary capability.” He said that Team Tempest was looking at what sort of capabilities and technologies would be required to replace Typhoon in the post-2040 time period.
Nor are FCAS and the Tempest intended to compete with planned US programmes, but rather to complement those. The UK expects to continue close operational co-operation and collaboration with the USA, and a high degree of interoperability will therefore be vital.
The launch of the programme represented what the MoD called “a powerful demonstration of the UK’s world leading technical capability and industrial expertise.” But even with an in service date in the 2035 timeframe, progress will need to be rapid.
Team Tempest is due to deliver a business case by the end of the year, and engagement with potential partners is beginning immediately. Initial conclusions on international partners are expected by next summer. Early decisions on how to acquire the capability will be confirmed by the end of 2020, before final investment decisions are made by 2025.
Air Vice Marshal Simon ‘Rocky’ Rochelle, the RAF's Chief of Staff Capability, acknowledged the aggressive timeline: “It’s a ridiculous timescale... it’s breaking acquisition paradigms…. We cannot be slow. We must accelerate, develop and spiral all the way through.”
Air Commodore Linc Taylor, who as head of the RAF’s rapid capabilities office the is the senior Royal Air Force officer responsible for the project, said that: “This project is accelerating.” Taylor said that two sizeable contracts were due to be signed in the coming weeks.
Though the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Defence each highlighted the “over £2 billion pounds” of investment in the Tempest programme up to 2025 this is understood not to be ‘new money’.
The Financial Times quoted Air Commodore Taylor, head of the RAF’s rapid capabilities office (and as such the senior Royal Air Force officer responsible for the project) as saying that the ten-year, £2 Bn allocation was “not new money”. Instead, it represented funding originally allocated as part of the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review, which sought to deliver a Future Combat Air System Technology Initiative (FCAS-TI).
The Financial Times said that the sum had never previously been quantified and said that its sources had been surprised by the scale of the investment.
It is unclear as to where this funding will come from – and in particular whether the £2 Bn is inclusive of funding from the industrial partners on the project, or whether the 50% of project funding that is to come from industry is additional.
Activities will span 50-60 FCAS national technology demonstrations, including work on low-observability, advanced sensors, propulsion and future cockpit design, all contained within the existing FCAS TI technology initiative. Some of the 50-60 demonstrations will have joint Government/Industry funding, and others may be sole-funded either by Government or by industry.
It has been averred that the requirement for a new British fighter programme arose after the UK was excluded from the European Airbus FCAS project, following the UK’s 2016 Brexit referendum, after which Airbus established a new partnership with Dassault Aviation SA.
But on 9 October 2017, when answering a written question as to what steps were being taken to ensure that the UK has the capacity to manufacture (a) parts for and (b) whole manned and unmanned fighter aircraft, Harriett Baldwin, then a Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Ministry of Defence, confirmed that the Government had launched the Future Combat Air System Technology Initiative (FCAS TI) as part of the 2015 SDSR as a means of “sustaining our design engineering capacity and skills, ensuring that the UK continues to be at the cutting edge of combat air technology.”
“The Ministry of Defence is considering our future combat air capability requirements and the best approach to delivering the UK's operational needs as well as maintaining our leading role in the combat air sector. This will involve detailed consideration of the industrial, prosperity, international and financial implications as well as a clear military requirement,” she wrote, demonstrating that FCAS was underway long before Brexit (supposedly) threatened UK participation in any pan-European project.

Partnerships
Though Team Tempest is predominantly a UK entity, it does include the Anglo-French MBDA and a division of the Anglo-Italian Leonardo. And while the Tempest has been designed to meet a UK requirement, and though it embodies UK capabilities, Team Tempest is energetically inviting international participation and is busy relationship-building.
Andrew Kennedy, head of strategy at BAE Systems Military Air & Information described the Combat Air Strategy as a “statement of intent by the Government to international partners to say that the UK is in the game, and we want to go out and look for international partners.” Kennedy said that “coming up with a construct that has mutual benefit to all the partners was the absolutely fundamental element in what Team Tempest would be trying to do.” Engaging with partners at the earliest possible stage would ensure that the resulting system would meet all requirements.
On the Government side, the Secretary of State said that the Tempest rollout and launch of the Combat Air Strategy showed our allies that we are “open to working together to protect the skies in an increasingly threatening future.”
“We want new partners as well,” Williamson said. "We want to put our world-class skills at the disposal of our friends, by embracing the high-end skills that they also offer and can bring to the table."
“Our approach hinges on international collaboration,” he continued.
“My question to potential partners in the room today is simple, how can you work with us, and how can we work with you?”
Although the RAF has ‘taken ownership’ of the Tempest, its commander, Chief of the Air Staff, ACM Sir Stephen Hillier, has said that: “The UK is fully open to international partnership,” which he described as being “an entirely fitting way for the RAF to enter its second century.”
Industry is even more committed to pursuing a collaborative approach, with partners. Though clearly proud of the part it has played in the Joint Strike Fighter programme (producing 15% of every F-35 built, by value) and though BAE Systems Chris Boardman has emphasized the company’s ability to lead the development future combat air systems, he has also said that “leadership does not mean that we will tell everyone what to do,” and has signaled the company’s eagerness to share technology and to achieve real partnering, not least to achieve the widest possible market access.
“We have been leading Typhoon and F-35 and growing capability while others talk about what they need to do,” Boardman observed.
BAE Systems Strategy Director for Air, Michael Christie, said that: “The partnership is a reality of today's defence market. It is very rare for major capital programmes to be undertaken on their own and it's very rare for somebody to develop something and just sell it.” Britain had the capability to develop Tempest alone, he said, but emphasised that it made sense to develop the aircraft with partners as this would help to ensure future sales.
It is likely that existing Typhoon partner nations and customers (and any future customers – such as Belgium) might be able to make significant contributions to the programme.
The Secretary of State said that partners in FCAS could be “nations around the world, including ones that we haven’t worked with before.”
Many analysts have suggested that the most likely partners could be Sweden, Turkey (with BAE already working with TAI on Turkey’s indigenous future fighter project, the TAI TFX) and perhaps Japan and South Korea. Others see considerable potential for the involvement of less technologically advanced and less industrialised but developing nations like India or cash-rich Saudi Arabia.
But perhaps the most surprising partners in FCAS could come from an unexpected direction.
Responding to the unveiling of the Tempest concept, Airbus said that it was “encouraged to see the UK government’s financial commitment to the project, which supports the goal of sovereign European defence capability. A Future Combat Air System is of utmost importance to Europe’s armed forces and therefore we look forward to continuing collaborative discussions in this area with all relevant European players."
Airbus had previously called for greater collaboration between European nations, and had spoken of potentially incorporating the UK into the Franco-German FCAS project that was launched in July 2017. France is expected to lead the design of this programme, with Airbus acting as integrator, and it had been thought that the UK would only be invited to join after the requirements had been set, and the design largely frozen. Some have questioned whether Tempest/FCAS gives Germany and Airbus a potential alternative to partnering with France and Dassault.
Volker Paltzo, CEO of the Eurofighter consortium, speaking at the Farnborough Airshow, said that it was his “firm conviction that Europe will converge on one future fighter solution.” Paltzo said that he believed that the UK Tempest and Franco-German Système de Combat Aérien Futur/Future Combat Air System (SCAF/FCAS) programmes would be eventually merge, with a single platform going into production and reaching frontline service.
Air Vice-Marshal Simon Rochelle said that Britain was having discussions with potential partner countries, including Sweden and Japan, but did not rule out the UK project eventually being merged with the Franco-German programme.
The Team Tempest partners signed a new heads of agreement at Farnborough to advance the activity.
This followed the placing of a 12-month contract by the Ministry of Defence on 3 July, with BAE Systems. The so-called TIZARD contract funded continued work on future Combat Air concepts, associated requirements and their key technologies that define next generation combat air capabilities.
These were TRL 0-3 activities that are crucial for UK National Sovereignty and are compliant with SDSR2015 direction. Technology Readiness Levels 0-3 cover TRL1 (Scientific research begins to be evaluated for military applications), TRL2 (Invention begins. Once basic principles are observed, practical applications can be postulated), TRL3 (Analytical and laboratory study to validate predictions of separate (unintegrated) and/or unrepresentative components).
The TIZARD contract followed four months after the revelation that BAE Systems was one of four UK companies exploring the technologies that would need to be matured in order to field an ambitious FCAS concept.

 

[Wolfhunter]

Storm Warning! Will Tempest follow Typhoon and Tornado?

The Farnborough Air Show provided a platform for the launch of Britain’s new Combat Air Strategy, and for the unveiling of a model of a brand-new, next-generation fighter concept – dubbed Tempest. Together these represented a bold statement of intent for next generation British air power, and for the UK to remain a world-leader in the combat air sector.
On the first day of the Farnborough air show (16 July 2018) British Prime Minister Theresa May formally announced the publication of the UK’s Combat Air Strategy. She said that the government and the Royal Air Force’s Rapid Capability Office would join with BAE Systems, Leonardo, MBDA and Rolls Royce in funding the next phase of the Future Combat Air System Technology Initiative (FCAS-TI), laying the groundwork for a programme to develop a successor to the RAF’s Eurofighter Typhoons.
The inclusion of the RAF in the team is interesting, as there are still some in the service who believe that the Combat Air Strategy is being driven by industrial and economic and not military requirements. Among them are a number of senior officers who believe that the RAF should simply procure whatever the USAF buys, in an effort to ensure not just interoperability but full ‘harmonisation’. Others realise that the UK must look beyond the F-35 if it is to continue to deliver superlative capabilities in the air and space domains into the future, and if it is to ensure operational success.
This Joint Venture team is known as ‘Team Tempest’ – though neither the entity nor the name is new, having been revealed in April when the UK Ministry of Defence revealed plans to conduct a future test campaign using a low-cost unmanned combat air system (UCAS) demonstrator.
The Prime Minister said that what she called a “ground-breaking partnership” would deliver over £2 billion pounds of investment up to 2025, investing in new technologies, supporting cutting edge innovation, collaborating internationally and initiating a programme intended to deliver next generation capability.
The announcement was seen as an attempt to demonstrate that Britain plans to remain a ‘Tier One’ military and industrial power after Brexit, and to ensure the preservation of the UK’s organic, autonomous, sovereign aircraft and combat system design and production capabilities. Andrew Kennedy, head of strategy at BAE Systems Military Air & Information said that it served as a signal to potential partners, and to the investment community, pointing out to investors that “the UK Combat Air sector is a growth sector, that we are going to sustain for many years into the future.” He said that he hoped that it would inspire current employees, and also the software and aeronautical engineers of the future.
The PM said that the announcement confirmed the Government’s commitment to maintaining Britain’s world-class air power capabilities, and that it would help to secure the long-term future of the UK’s Combat Air industry – boosting an industrial sector which generates billions in revenue for the British economy and supports thousands of jobs in every part of the UK.
Later the same day, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson formally launched the Government’s Combat Air Strategy and added flesh to the bare bones of the PM’s description of the importance of the Combat Air sector. Williamson said that the sector supported more than 18,000 UK jobs, with a turnover in excess of £6bn a year and accounting for more than 80% of UK defence exports over the last ten years. More recently, the UK’s Defence Security Organisation (DSO) revealed that the British defence industry had secured export orders valued at £9 Billion ($11.59 billion) in 2017, with the military air sector accounting for 91% of Britain’s defense exports.
Military aircraft and military aerospace have often provided an excellent return on UK Government investment. The export success of the Hawk jet trainer aircraft is a good example of this. More than 1,000 aircraft have been built or are on order, and Hawk aircraft exports had generated a return of £11.5 billion for the UK Government by 2013 – after an initial investment of just £900 million. The Typhoon programme is expected to generate a return of £28.2 billion from an initial Government investment of £15.2 billion, demonstrating a very significant return for the UK Government.
“The British defence industry is a huge contributor to UK prosperity, creating thousands of jobs in a thriving advanced manufacturing sector and generating a UK sovereign capability that is the best in the world,” Williamson averred. "We have been a world leader in the combat air sector for a century, with skills and technology that are the envy of the world. Today we show that we are determined to make sure it stays that way."
As well as launching the Combat Air Strategy, Williamson also unveiled a full-scale model of what the mainstream media dubbed “the UK’s new fighter aircraft,” as part of the Future Combat Air System Technology Initiative (FCAS-TI). Though this was the first public appearance of this particular FCAS configuration, a BAE Systems illustration of the aircraft had been published by Aviation Week to illustrate a piece by the magazine’s defence editor, Tony Osborne. Astonishingly, another full scale mock up had been exhibited (to invited guests only) in a marquee at the Royal International Air Tattoo at Fairford the weekend before the Farnborough announcement.
But the models and illustrations do not signal the launch of a new aircraft development programme.
Not yet, anyway!
For now FCAS remains FCAS-TI, a Technology Initiative that is intended to help the UK to get ready to develop a next generation combat aircraft, with a full launch still some way in the future, and dependent on Team Tempest finding partners.
Unmanned element
For some years, there seemed to be a consensus that the era of manned combat aircraft was drawing to a close, and that unmanned aircraft – some remotely piloted, but some autonomous, would take over their roles. The Labour government’s 2005 Defence Industrial Strategy, stated that: “Current plans do not envisage the UK needing to design and build a future generation of manned fast jet aircraft beyond the Typhoon and F-35.” That view is no longer so widely held, with operational experience demonstrating the value of having not only a ‘man in the loop’, but for that man to also be ‘on the scene’. The human pilot can using his eyes to get better situational awareness than is sometimes possible using the imagery gathered by narrow field of view video sensors, and many believe that it would not currently be possible to build a control system to replicate the sensing and processing ability of trained aircrew. Bandwidth limitations can make it difficult to download all of the ‘take’ from an unmanned aircraft’s sensors, while jamming and spoofing can disrupt signals to and from a UAV, including GPS data. The Russian military has already used GPS jamming to effectively block some US UAV operations over Syria.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Steven Hillier, the RAF’s Chief of Air Staff believed that unmanned aircraft will play a greater role in the future, but also thinks that there will be “an increased emphasis on precision and being able to do that at the greatest range you can,” and that “so far no-one has come up with a technical solution that is able to replace the manned combat aircraft” in controlling airspace and providing precision effect. He does not rule out technology eventually allowing UAVs to undertake these roles in “fifty years time,” but says that: “you can’t see it at the moment.”
It is not just the technological limitations of UAVs that have driven the UK towards making a manned platform the central element of FCAS. Sometimes societal factors, including RoE, will drive you towards being manned, not technology.
Michael Christie, BAE Systems Strategy Director for Air said that rules of engagement and social acceptability may be the most important factor, and many legal, moral and ethical issues
Continue to surround the use of unmanned platforms. The precision available by using manned aircraft can also be a crucial factor. Air Chief Marshal Hillier emphasized the importance of precision in allowing the UK to wage warfare in the way that it does – which he characterized as being highly disciplined and highly responsible, and with a very clear definition of what is the legal use of force. “And most of those who oppose us aren’t. I want to continue to wage warfare in our way, and not theirs,” he observed.
It should, however, be emphasised that the manned or optionally manned platform is just one element of the overall Future Combat Air System, and that unmanned systems will also play a vital role. The manned FCAS aircraft will act as a ‘force multiplier’, operating with a range of unmanned systems (from the high-flying Phasa 35 pseudo-satellite to the LANCA ‘loyal wingman’), and with a range of other platforms and assets across the air, land, sea, space and cyber domains.
Confusingly, the FCAS acronym and Future Combat Air System name are also used to describe the Anglo-French unmanned combat aircraft demonstrator programme that was launched in November 2014 with a formal two-year feasibility study. This was followed by a further 12-month study phase initiated in 2017. At Farnborough the RAF’s Air Commodore Linc Taylor, Senior Responsible Owner of the FCAS project and head of the RAF’s Rapid Capability Office,referred to the “really strong work that we are doing with France at the moment,” presumably referring to this UCAV project.
The Tempest described?
In an increasingly complex and uncertain world, future combat air systems will need to operate in the most contested, congested and complex environments, where speed and agility are essential, yet as well as being highly capable, flexible, upgradeable, and connected they will have to be affordable, and this has driven the ‘system of systems’ approach, with a manned FCAS combat aircraft representing just one system within the whole.
Moreover the FCAS configuration revealed at Farnborough is itself understood to represent just one of a range of concepts explored by Team Tempest. Charles Woodburn, the chief executive of BAE Systems described the model as being representative only of a “direction of travel,” while Gavin Williamson called it “a glimpse into what the future could look like.”
Clive Morrison, BAE Systems Air Sector operational requirements manager said at Farnborough that “what comes out of the concept work may or may not look like the aircraft on show here.”
Only ten days before Farnborough, during briefings to trade journalists, BAE Systems showed a Powerpoint slide showing a ‘spread’ of four quite different vehicles from its Concept Study. These ranged from a relatively small, single-engined lightweight fighter optimised to operate in the air policing role in lower-threat environments, to a larger machine intended for highly contested environments. The latter, Michael Christie, BAE Systems Strategy Director for Air, conceded, was “something that looks a little bit like something from Star Wars!” The spread of vehicles also included an aircraft that looked like a scaled-up F-35, with longer-span wings, and an air defence optimized machine more reminiscent of the YF-23.
The configuration highlighted at Farnborough was a large, twin-engined aircraft bearing some resemblance to the BAE Replica – a Low Observable (stealthy) design study which fed into the UK’s Future Offensive Air System (FOAS) programme, and probably into the later Taranis UCAV. A full scale RCS model was built and tested, demonstrating the UK’s LO design and manufacturing capabilities and perhaps serving as an ‘entry ticket’ to the highest tier of the US F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme. The reappearance of the Replica RCS model in 2014 may have been connected with preliminary work on the FCAS programme.
The Tempest mock-up shared some design features with other LO aircraft, including a planform reminiscent of the F-117A with a sawtooth trailing edge (as used on the F-117A and B-2A), trapezoidal twin tails like those of the YF-23, and intakes that are similar to those used by the F-35 and the Chinese Shenyang J-20.
But it is unclear as to whether the eventual FCAS manned platform will incorporate the same degree of all aspect low observability as aircraft like the F-22 and F-35, or whether it will be a more balanced and slightly less stealthy design. “That is a question that we are still asking ourselves,” Clive Morrison said. “Clearly, within the survivability equation, signature control is part of that equation, but effectiveness, efficiency and delivering the capability is dependent on many factors, and part of the Team Tempest remit is to look at the operational analysis, the operational requirements and the concepts that will deliver that into the future. We will look at the threat (that is difficult – that crystal ball out to 2040 is probably a little furry and fuzzy). Do we at this moment in time believe that stealth (or more accurately signature control) is a factor in the equation for the design of a next generation combat aircraft? Absolutely! Will it be the dominant factor? We don’t know, so we’re going to ask ourselves those questions, try to understand the environment, look at the operational requirements and look at concepts that meet it in the most affordable and efficient way. There is not an answer today, that’s why we’re doing this work.”
It is expected that the aircraft will be relatively large (closer to the F-22 than to the F-35), its size driven by the requirement for a large internal payload bay, to accomodate weapons, sensors or additional fuel, while still having sufficient performance and agility to survive the most challenging combat environments.
It has been clear for some time that any FCAS manned/optionally-manned platform would be larger than the F-35 (“F-22 sized or bigger”, said one RAF officer familiar with the project), which is perceived as being too small, too short-ranged and with an inadequate internal payload for future requirements.
“We have a view on where the payload/range/performance should be. We have a framework but whether that will be right for tomorrow we don’t know,” Clive Morrison, operational requirements manager for BAE Systems’ Military Air & Information business unit, said.
“We have some baseline assumptions and they are not far off from where the Typhoon is today in terms of aerodynamic performance. We would hope to improve on some of those, but in other areas we may be able to back off and give ourselves more flexibility on the conceptual designs because other elements of the system will be able to deliver that capability without necessarily having to go all the way to having that aerodynamic performance. But that’s why we’re doing the work to understand.
“A lot will depend on the effectors, the weapons. Will they bring and confer a level of performance and functionality which means that we may be able to back off from the overall aircraft performance? We’ve pitched it not far off from where aerodynamic performance is today, but we fully expect that through our processes of understanding the environment and the operational analysis and the concepts that may change our minds about how we deliver that. I’m very aware that we are often accused of fighting yesterday’s wars in terms of how we develop the next set of combat aircraft capability, we’re trying not to do that, but rather to understand where those key discriminators are.”
The new aircraft is large enough to be easily upgradeable with low observable conformal fuel tanks and/or weapons packs, large modular sensors (perhaps including a long range oblique photography system) and even a podded Directed Energy Weapon.
Directed energy weapons, using concentrated bursts of laser, microwave or particle beam energy, would probably be used for self-defence and perhaps for within visual range combat.
The aircraft will be capable of deploying and managing swarming munitions to operate successfully within Anti-Access Area Denial environments. These mini-UAVs will use artificial intelligence and machine learning to hit their targets.
The customisable virtual cockpit will feature advanced human machine interfaces including eye tracking and gesture based controls, allowing intuitive mission management functionality, including the command and control of other systems, including UAVs.
The aircraft will be equipped with a range of sensors, fully integrated at the subsystem level, in order to detect, identify, locate, and engage threats. These sensors will include radar and radio frequency, active and passive electro-optical sensors and advanced electronic support measures. Distributed sensors from other elements within the FCAS system of systems will further add to the picture! System intelligence promises to allow a transition from simply gathering massive amounts of data to presenting information that the user can utilize in a timeframe that will give ‘information advantage’ in the battlespace.
The aircraft will incorporate an advanced, lightweight ‘adaptive’ propulsion system, developed by Rolls Royce using new technologies that the Derby company will be exploring during the next eight years, though it will still be a gas turbine, which remains unmatched from a power density perspective. The new engine will be designed using advanced tools and methods in order to leverage advanced computational designs. The eventual FCAS powerplant will incorporate embedded starter-generators that eliminate the need for conventional accessory gearboxes, using magnets that are fused to the shaft of the engine, converting kinetic energy to electrical energy and generating electrical power from the heart of the engine.
It will also make extensive use of advanced materials including ceramics, composite materials, and metal matrix materials with reinforced titanium to confer a step-change in thrust-to-weight ratio. Conrad Banks, Rolls Royce’s Chief Engineer for Future Defence Programmes estimated that by using composite fibre reinforcement of titanium, a compressor ‘wheel’ could be produced at half the current weight, because the strength increase is so great.
Additive layer manufacturing, 3D manufacturing with advanced materials, promises to allow the introduction of cooling structures that would previously have been impossible further reducing the weight, and further increasing the efficiency of the gas turbine.
Because they will be located behind potentially quite convuluted intakes (in order to remove the line of sight from the gas turbine) the new engines will feature distortion-tolerant fan systems. They will also feature a fully-integrated thermal management system, perhaps using a variable bypass to reduce specific fuel consumption, and perhaps using large ducts or pipes on the side of the engine to deliver bleed cooling air for the vehicle and for the gas turbine.
For many years, many air power professionals have confidently predicted that there was no future for manned combat aircraft, and that there would be no requirement for manned fighters beyond the F-35. But the consensus has shifted away from that view, and many now believe that a range of factors, including bandwidth constraints, enemy jamming, rules of engagement, and societal pressures will demand a continuing role for the human pilot in many scenarios.
But the Tempest will also support ‘scalable autonomy’ to provide a number of unmanned modes as well as a range of pilot decision aids for when the aircraft is being flown ‘manned’.
There is less emphasis on platform design for Tempest than on systems. Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Hillier, the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) said: “Rather than building a platform and working out the systems within it, the weapons we might use with it, we are taking that information, that data, that systems integration, weapons, and we are starting with that, and then building the platform around it. So it’s a genuine system approach, and that’s not just the platform’s systems, it’s offboard systems, it’s space, it’s cyber, it’s swarming UAV technology, and bringing all these things together. That’s what our future capabilities will look like.”
“We need affordable high technology. For generations we have been presented with a choice between having this high tech, leading edge high technology (but it will cost you) or you can have lower technology, at a lesser price and therefore you’ll be able to have more volume. I simply don’t accept being put in that position. In the commercial sector you get high technology and you get it cheaper than the previous generation. I want that in military aerospace. I want more affordable, cheaper and higher technology at the same time – and that will allow me to generate greater mass. I think that is a key issue, we’ve gradually been having less and less mass. That causes capability problems, and it doesn’t give our adversaries as many dilemmas if you’ve got very few platforms, and it gives us longer term problems about sustaining a force with very small numbers.”
To facilitate this kind of affordable high technology approach the Tempest will feature next-generation ‘plug and play’ systems architectures that allow for the easy integration of new algorithms and hardware, developed under the so-called Pyramid project. Air Commodore Linc Taylor, head of the RAF’s RCO said that a spiral strategy would be employed to allow existing technologies to be leveraged. “We will re-use what’s good enough already,” he said, adding that this would particularly include mission data reprogramming.
It is expected that Tempest will incorporate many technologies from the Typhoon.
“Many of those technologies that will be embodied will first see their service through the Typhoon,” said Charles Woodburn, the chief executive of BAE Systems. “Upgrades of the avionics, upgrades in the weapons systems, upgrades in the radar will be deployed through the Typhoon.”
The Chief of the Air Staff is keen to get new technology into service more quickly than has been possible in the past, and using some Typhoon systems promises to facilitate this. Hillier “We’ve rather started to get it into our DNA that these things must take a long time,” Sir Stephen observed. “With Typhoon the first documents were signed in 1986, and now here we are, three decades later and the platform is brilliant, but that’s an awful long time. And if you look at the pace that the threats are evolving, we need to do our technology evolution much more quickly.”
Hillier is also keen to ensure that the new aircraft will have significant capability at its in service date, rather than taking delivery of early versions with more limited combat potential. “We have got used to platforms being at their best rather late in their service lives. Where Tornado, for instance, going out of RAF service next year, is at a superb level of capability. I want to get to that level much more quickly in the evolution of our new platforms. So we need the flexibility and the agility to bring platforms to the maximum perfection quicker and then incrementally grow them all the time.”
Industry will be expected to deliver and support the new aircraft at a significantly lower cost than aircraft like Typhoon, in order to allow the procurement of significantly larger numbers of aircraft. BAE Systems, in particular, recognises the need to back away from the trend of increasing cost and lengthening timescales for new combat aircraft programmes.
Streamlining procurement and manufacturing processes is a key ambition for Team Tempest, with the resulting time savings promising a commensurate reduction in cost. BAE Systems is also heavily focused on reducing costs of ownership and through life costs, inspired, in part by the significant savings produced by the TyTAN Typhoon Total Availability support contract.
Not starting with a clean sheet of paper when it comes to avionics and systems, but instead leveraging technology from Typhoon and other platforms will also play an important part in this cost reduction. “We intend to spiral, as well as looking at new technological capabilities,” Linc Taylor emphasised. There will be new technologies as well, and exploring these is a key part of Team Tempest’s remit.
In order to ensure that Tempest has the required performance, and to achieve a low unit production cost, BAE Systems intends to exploit its advanced manufacturing capabilities, including robotic and cobotic assembly, and additive layer manufacturing, enthusiastically embracing new manufacturing processes. Adapting the robotics used in manufacturing to re-fuel, re-arm, role-fit, and repair the aircraft will reduce support costs. Exoskeletons and wearable displays may be used in manufacturing and in-sercvice engineering support, while artificial intelligence and data analytics will be used in vehicle health monitoring and for mission data.
Whatever Tempest eventually looks like, what is clear is that the aircraft is intended to replace the Typhoon from 2035-2040, and to complement the F-35. FCAS may even threaten F-35 numbers, with some analysts and programme insiders suggesting that F-35 numbers could be capped at the presently ordered 48 aircraft, or at the 66 aircraft for which serial numbers have reportedly been reserved, with FCAS replacing the remaining 72-90 aircraft that would complete Britain’s once-planned buy of 138 aircraft. A ‘commitment’ to purchase these aircraft has, in recent years, increasingly been expressed as an ‘aspiration’.
“This language is interesting,” one analyst told me. “I am committed to sleeping with Scarlett Johansson, and that is very much my plan, but practical circumstances make that most unlikely. The MoD’s aspiration to procure 138 Joint Strike Fighters looks much the same!”
Procuring the Tempest to meet the FCAS requirement instead of buying more F-35s promises to strengthen the UK’s role as a global leader in the combat air sector. It should also protect key skills and jobs across the UK industrial base, and will result in the creation of new Intellectual Property that BAE Systems will own and be able to exploit in the future, perhaps ‘buying’ the UK a seat on the next major US programme. The F-35 programme does represent great business for the UK, thanks to the workshare gained by being the sole Tier One partner in the development phase, but it does not provide a long term future for UK industry, with relatively little creation of new IP that could be transferred on to other programmes.
No-one seems keen to ‘rock’ the F-35 programme ‘boat’, however. The RAF remains adamant that its plan remains one that will see it buying 138 aeroplanes, while Clive Morrison, the BAE Systems Military Air & Information business unit's operational requirements manager said that: “We do not see this as a competitor to the F-35, we see this as a complementary capability.” He said that Team Tempest was looking at what sort of capabilities and technologies would be required to replace Typhoon in the post-2040 time period.
Nor are FCAS and the Tempest intended to compete with planned US programmes, but rather to complement those. The UK expects to continue close operational co-operation and collaboration with the USA, and a high degree of interoperability will therefore be vital.
The launch of the programme represented what the MoD called “a powerful demonstration of the UK’s world leading technical capability and industrial expertise.” But even with an in service date in the 2035 timeframe, progress will need to be rapid.
Team Tempest is due to deliver a business case by the end of the year, and engagement with potential partners is beginning immediately. Initial conclusions on international partners are expected by next summer. Early decisions on how to acquire the capability will be confirmed by the end of 2020, before final investment decisions are made by 2025.
Air Vice Marshal Simon ‘Rocky’ Rochelle, the RAF's Chief of Staff Capability, acknowledged the aggressive timeline: “It’s a ridiculous timescale... it’s breaking acquisition paradigms…. We cannot be slow. We must accelerate, develop and spiral all the way through.”
Air Commodore Linc Taylor, who as head of the RAF’s rapid capabilities office the is the senior Royal Air Force officer responsible for the project, said that: “This project is accelerating.” Taylor said that two sizeable contracts were due to be signed in the coming weeks.
Though the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Defence each highlighted the “over £2 billion pounds” of investment in the Tempest programme up to 2025 this is understood not to be ‘new money’.
The Financial Times quoted Air Commodore Taylor, head of the RAF’s rapid capabilities office (and as such the senior Royal Air Force officer responsible for the project) as saying that the ten-year, £2 Bn allocation was “not new money”. Instead, it represented funding originally allocated as part of the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review, which sought to deliver a Future Combat Air System Technology Initiative (FCAS-TI).
The Financial Times said that the sum had never previously been quantified and said that its sources had been surprised by the scale of the investment.
It is unclear as to where this funding will come from – and in particular whether the £2 Bn is inclusive of funding from the industrial partners on the project, or whether the 50% of project funding that is to come from industry is additional.
Activities will span 50-60 FCAS national technology demonstrations, including work on low-observability, advanced sensors, propulsion and future cockpit design, all contained within the existing FCAS TI technology initiative. Some of the 50-60 demonstrations will have joint Government/Industry funding, and others may be sole-funded either by Government or by industry.
It has been averred that the requirement for a new British fighter programme arose after the UK was excluded from the European Airbus FCAS project, following the UK’s 2016 Brexit referendum, after which Airbus established a new partnership with Dassault Aviation SA.
But on 9 October 2017, when answering a written question as to what steps were being taken to ensure that the UK has the capacity to manufacture (a) parts for and (b) whole manned and unmanned fighter aircraft, Harriett Baldwin, then a Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Ministry of Defence, confirmed that the Government had launched the Future Combat Air System Technology Initiative (FCAS TI) as part of the 2015 SDSR as a means of “sustaining our design engineering capacity and skills, ensuring that the UK continues to be at the cutting edge of combat air technology.”
“The Ministry of Defence is considering our future combat air capability requirements and the best approach to delivering the UK's operational needs as well as maintaining our leading role in the combat air sector. This will involve detailed consideration of the industrial, prosperity, international and financial implications as well as a clear military requirement,” she wrote, demonstrating that FCAS was underway long before Brexit (supposedly) threatened UK participation in any pan-European project.

Partnerships
Though Team Tempest is predominantly a UK entity, it does include the Anglo-French MBDA and a division of the Anglo-Italian Leonardo. And while the Tempest has been designed to meet a UK requirement, and though it embodies UK capabilities, Team Tempest is energetically inviting international participation and is busy relationship-building.
Andrew Kennedy, head of strategy at BAE Systems Military Air & Information described the Combat Air Strategy as a “statement of intent by the Government to international partners to say that the UK is in the game, and we want to go out and look for international partners.” Kennedy said that “coming up with a construct that has mutual benefit to all the partners was the absolutely fundamental element in what Team Tempest would be trying to do.” Engaging with partners at the earliest possible stage would ensure that the resulting system would meet all requirements.
On the Government side, the Secretary of State said that the Tempest rollout and launch of the Combat Air Strategy showed our allies that we are “open to working together to protect the skies in an increasingly threatening future.”
“We want new partners as well,” Williamson said. "We want to put our world-class skills at the disposal of our friends, by embracing the high-end skills that they also offer and can bring to the table."
“Our approach hinges on international collaboration,” he continued.
“My question to potential partners in the room today is simple, how can you work with us, and how can we work with you?”
Although the RAF has ‘taken ownership’ of the Tempest, its commander, Chief of the Air Staff, ACM Sir Stephen Hillier, has said that: “The UK is fully open to international partnership,” which he described as being “an entirely fitting way for the RAF to enter its second century.”
Industry is even more committed to pursuing a collaborative approach, with partners. Though clearly proud of the part it has played in the Joint Strike Fighter programme (producing 15% of every F-35 built, by value) and though BAE Systems Chris Boardman has emphasized the company’s ability to lead the development future combat air systems, he has also said that “leadership does not mean that we will tell everyone what to do,” and has signaled the company’s eagerness to share technology and to achieve real partnering, not least to achieve the widest possible market access.
“We have been leading Typhoon and F-35 and growing capability while others talk about what they need to do,” Boardman observed.
BAE Systems Strategy Director for Air, Michael Christie, said that: “The partnership is a reality of today's defence market. It is very rare for major capital programmes to be undertaken on their own and it's very rare for somebody to develop something and just sell it.” Britain had the capability to develop Tempest alone, he said, but emphasised that it made sense to develop the aircraft with partners as this would help to ensure future sales.
It is likely that existing Typhoon partner nations and customers (and any future customers – such as Belgium) might be able to make significant contributions to the programme.
The Secretary of State said that partners in FCAS could be “nations around the world, including ones that we haven’t worked with before.”
Many analysts have suggested that the most likely partners could be Sweden, Turkey (with BAE already working with TAI on Turkey’s indigenous future fighter project, the TAI TFX) and perhaps Japan and South Korea. Others see considerable potential for the involvement of less technologically advanced and less industrialised but developing nations like India or cash-rich Saudi Arabia.
But perhaps the most surprising partners in FCAS could come from an unexpected direction.
Responding to the unveiling of the Tempest concept, Airbus said that it was “encouraged to see the UK government’s financial commitment to the project, which supports the goal of sovereign European defence capability. A Future Combat Air System is of utmost importance to Europe’s armed forces and therefore we look forward to continuing collaborative discussions in this area with all relevant European players."
Airbus had previously called for greater collaboration between European nations, and had spoken of potentially incorporating the UK into the Franco-German FCAS project that was launched in July 2017. France is expected to lead the design of this programme, with Airbus acting as integrator, and it had been thought that the UK would only be invited to join after the requirements had been set, and the design largely frozen. Some have questioned whether Tempest/FCAS gives Germany and Airbus a potential alternative to partnering with France and Dassault.
Volker Paltzo, CEO of the Eurofighter consortium, speaking at the Farnborough Airshow, said that it was his “firm conviction that Europe will converge on one future fighter solution.” Paltzo said that he believed that the UK Tempest and Franco-German Système de Combat Aérien Futur/Future Combat Air System (SCAF/FCAS) programmes would be eventually merge, with a single platform going into production and reaching frontline service.
Air Vice-Marshal Simon Rochelle said that Britain was having discussions with potential partner countries, including Sweden and Japan, but did not rule out the UK project eventually being merged with the Franco-German programme.
The Team Tempest partners signed a new heads of agreement at Farnborough to advance the activity.
This followed the placing of a 12-month contract by the Ministry of Defence on 3 July, with BAE Systems. The so-called TIZARD contract funded continued work on future Combat Air concepts, associated requirements and their key technologies that define next generation combat air capabilities.
These were TRL 0-3 activities that are crucial for UK National Sovereignty and are compliant with SDSR2015 direction. Technology Readiness Levels 0-3 cover TRL1 (Scientific research begins to be evaluated for military applications), TRL2 (Invention begins. Once basic principles are observed, practical applications can be postulated), TRL3 (Analytical and laboratory study to validate predictions of separate (unintegrated) and/or unrepresentative components).
The TIZARD contract followed four months after the revelation that BAE Systems was one of four UK companies exploring the technologies that would need to be matured in order to field an ambitious FCAS concept.

Oh my god my eyes are bleeding, please learn to format your posts!