Minister for Defence Procurement Jeremy Quin said that the money will help launch the next phase in designing and delivering the “world-leading future combat air system”.

Quin said:

“We have launched the next phase of our programme to design and deliver Tempest and I am proud to say that, over the next four years, we will invest more than £2bn as Government into a world-leading future combat air system to keep us and our allies safe alongside us, leveraging additional investment from our first rate international and industrial partners.”

Another excerpt from the speech is shown below.

“There’s a third and final aspect to Tempest that I wish to highlight today. It is not merely about strengthening our industry but bolstering our international ties. This programme gives us a chance to work with like-minded allies to share technology, experience and R&D costs. To enhance our understanding and interoperability. And to build something that is world beating. We’ve already made significant progress with our partners Sweden and Italy. Partners who bring credible industries and great strength-in-depth design, manufacture and sensor technologies.

And we’re now exploring the important corporate opportunities with Japan. Each partner will bring a host of benefits and expertise to the table. I’ve already touched on ‘digitising’ the industry – Saab, the industry lead for our partner Sweden, have done some great work in this field. Through digital testing of their Gripen-E, they have drastically reduced the hours and cost it would have taken to test a physical system; they’re now calling it the world’s most cost-effective fighter jet. I’m sure we’ll be looking to learn a lot from them about the huge benefits that can be delivered by this kind of digital simulation.

Combine the technical experience of Sweden with our long-standing Combat Air partnership with Italy which has gone from strength-to-strength with Eurofighter and F-35, and potentially the world-leading manufacturing technologies being developed by Japan, on top of the world-beating qualities that I have explained the UK has to offer, and that really is a winning formula. And we’re open to other partners coming on board

Thirty years ago, the UK and its western allies appeared unchallenged in the air domain. Today our adversaries have caught up. But a major national and international endeavour is now underway. Working with industry and with our international allies, we are aiming high. A state-of-the-art system fit for tomorrow’s world. A system that matches our ambition to invest in high-tech skills, jobs and businesses. And a system that will ensure, decades from now, whenever the next conflict arises, we will stay in control of the air, winning the air-fight and protecting our peace and prosperity for generations to come.”

You can read the full speech here.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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153 COMMENTS

  1. Is that the same £2b that was announced by Gavin Williamson in July 2018 or is it the next installment?

    If it is the next installment then things are really developing for Team Tempest with Sweden and Italy signing onto the project on the 21 December 2020 (not entirely sure of to what level though).

    Cheers CR

      • That was my first thought, then I had a burst of optimism. If I’m still being optimistic the new statement does say ‘more than’ and I guess the companies are burning through the original £2b so the government will need to be thinking about the next installment…

        Cheers CR

        • Yes ‘more’ was probably said in the fashion of the Beadle in Oliver Twist. If it is an extra 2bn and we end up having to cancel….will it have cost us more than the TSR2? Awaiting incoming!

          • We reached four posts before someone mentioned that particular four letter word!!

            Honestly H, what on earth has a large, twin engine Delta winged strike aircraft, with a large internal Bomb bay from the 1960’s got to do with Tempest …. Oh wait s minute!

            Joking aside, come on chaps, glass half full, we are quite capable of doing this…

          • Our industry and people are capable of doing this. I am not sure our Government is capable of doing this (Or doing pretty much anything to be honest).

            I can see this getting cancelled just as it is ready to go into production.

          • Or doing pretty much anything to be honest

            Apart from vaccinate people and show the EU how to do it. And lead the world in supporting the private sector to find a way out of Covid. Perhaps my response is too narrow.

            Lots of other good stuff, but let us focus on the lesser bad stuff or cock ups.

          • Well said. Doom is the four letter word of choice around here. TSR2 was a fine (even beautiful) response to the wrong requirement. I think Tempest is much more likely to succeed since the requirement is not solely a U.K. one.

          • They need to get a prototype out and get it flying to make this real. Else too easy to cancel. It could be several prototypes with different version but good to have something real despite all that digital testing. You need to test out the manufacturing process to make something too.

          • AND…the P1154 and the HS681 and Nimrod and Skybolt and….those were the days Off you go guys!

          • … and Avro 730 which looks fiendishly like Skylon so maybe there are comebacks available in this sector. Indeed Tempest might already be considered one.

          • Skybolt was American.

            Nimrods wings would not fit – if you are trying to blame the government for that you are desperate.

            Its naive to think that the P1154 would ever have been successful. Navy and air force could not agree on the specification, navy wanted inteceptor and RAF wanted strike. Then would the range and payload have been sufficient. It seems perverse looking back but in the end the navy did not want it, preferring to have Phantoms. That choice doomed it… It was left to Labour to cancel it.

            Again in hindsight the lift fan would have been a better design choice. But at least the P1127 was built out of it.

          • Oooooh. I thought I was having a bit of fun with my fellow posters but maybe not. Have a nice day.

          • You are not allowed to have fun on this forum unless you prefix it with ‘this is for fun’. So here goes, ‘this is fun’…the present government are a ‘crowd of incompetent arse-heads that couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery ?

          • Just a point of order….you can’t organise a piss up in a brewery any more, it’s against the law. It would be more appropriate to say they could not organise social distancing in the middle of an empty field with six people or less.

          • Oooh that is where you are wrong. They would be very skilled at organising a piss up in a Brewery, then claim it on expenses. – this is also for fun

          • Nice command of Anglo Saxon language there H but a test for you based on a recent story. Who would you rather have a pint/drink with?….. Boris or Sir Keir, Liz Truss or Diane Abbot etc You have to choose.

          • Just as well that I am teetotal these days! Have you ever been door-stepped by a politician….presumably not, otherwise you wouldn’t suggest being trapped in a bar with one!

          • Going to be interesting to see how far this goes before it is cancelled, and how much money down the drain. Realistically none of the big countries will order them and that means economy of scale is non-existent and if it does get ordered, the unit cost will be nuts making very few platforms.

            Our best hope is the European project falls apart, which seems likely with politics, and Germany decides to opt for our solution over whatever the French and don’t just go US.

          • Could we not get Korea (south) turkey(bae been working with) or other Asian countries to come in as minor partners? Surely Taiwan is looking to spend some of their big bucks? How about Saudi or Middle Eastern buyers

          • Taiwan will buy US as they are scared for their existence and won’t do anything to compromise their relationship with the US. Turkey would put is into trouble with the US, so can discount them. Saudi/Middle East would be a token purchase at best and come at great cost to the tax payer, as happened with euro fighter.

          • Wouldn’t want Turkey. They are getting very cosy with both China and Russia. Taiwan is focussing on it’s own, indigenous, project

          • Germany is the only country I could think of that could potentially buy more than 20-30 jets and would consider going with anything other than domestic/ US.

    • The very same, it’s also likely the same £1-2 billion for the FOAS that then when on to become the DPOC in 2010 and now it’s the FCAS. The great thing is when you don’t have any money just magic beans you can run around setting aside billions for any four letter acronym you like.

    • I read, as I hope you do, it said 2 billion over 4 years. Plus developing ties with other nations.

      Indeed “more” than 2 billion.

    • 2000 engineers working on it so loaded cost of £200m a year for labour, double it for equipment and facilities say 400m per year.

      2 billion gets us from here to 2025 main gate

    • Never understood this British obsession with TSR2, P1154, HS681. What market was there exactly?

      Fairey Delta 2 on the other hand…

  2. I was enthralled until the term ‘world beating’ reared its ugly head. Proof of the pudding is in the eating….will it be creme brulee or spotted dick…. lets wait and see rather than brag about something that has yet to be realised!

    • Yeah the hyperbole is kind of pointless I’d have thought, I doubt anyone in defence buys into it. Seems the business types still lap it up so we’re stuck with it.

    • World beating in 1986 maybe but it’s an F22 40 years later with a slightly bigger boot and a better in car stereo.

      • Martin, Tempest is a generational leap on from the F22, in all areas.

        Construction, propulsion, avionics …
        All a world apart from the 30 year old F22 design.

        • Nah, tempest is a power point presentation for an F22 with updated electronics and engines and a big box under the fuselage. It’s got tail fins and it’s Low observable. If it was truly going to be 6th gen then it needs to be tailless with kinetic performance better than Mach 3. Building a manned fighter at this stage is insane, at best this thing would not get into the air before 2040 by which time it will look like the swordfish trying to escape the Me262.

          • This is what upsets me with all the “were rubbish” don’t fly Union Jack, every military is better than ours, oh forgot, we should still be saying sorry for empire rubbish! Come on guys! Bit of optimism!

      • Martin you really don’t know that, which means its just a self defeatist institutionally British thought about ourselves you are repeating. I know there is a lot of evidence to support such negativity but lets at least wait for some evidence in this case, otherwise we will never be able to escape this innate pessimism and it will just be sell perpetuating… or should I say more self perpetuating as it seems so endemic in recent decades.

        • It’s not self defeating, get your union jacks out and wave them just wave them at Taranis if you can see it. Every manned fighter program of the last 40 years starts off with the opening, this time it will be different and we will use computer aided design and blah blah blah so we can get a Ferrari for the price of a Skoda then 30 years later we end up with half the numbers and we pay Ferrari prices for skodas. For the same budget we can be operating hundreds maybe even thousands of UAS verses a few dozen manned fighters. We lead the world in AI and are on the cutting edge of UAS systems so why mess around with tempest, what can it do that an F35 A or E variant could not? In today’s prices 4.5 and 5th gen aircraft cost £40 billion just for R@D before you build a single plane, where is that kind of money going to come from? How many squaddies need to go out without proper body armour so warton can keep going and the RAF top brass can feel secure there is “proper” pilot work to do. The latest scam is the “optionally manned” which acknowledges that flying an aircraft will soon be too dangerous in most high threat environments but causes us to spend billions making something safe enough for a human to fly in on Low value missions when we can knock hundreds of unarmed systems like skyborg for next to nothing.

          • That’s just not true…look at…um well..yes …um…. just…ohhh look is that superman.

          • Martin. You should know better talking sense does not usually go down well in the UKDJ comments section ?????

    • Hang on some of us love spotted dick at least as mush as Creme Brulee or Burnt Custard as it was originally known in medieval times before the French got hold of it. Lets hope our present plan doesn’t go that way as well in the end.

  3. I wonder what these phases are? Are they design concepts, tech concepts or just writing down what everyone might want.

    Anyhows, it is good to see the project moving forward, but if the MoD want to get these aircraft to the RAF by the mid 2030s then prototypes need to be built in the next 5-7 years.Basically get a move on.

    • Hi Ron,

      Yeh, there was a burst of equipment trials being announced a year or so ago but it has gone very quiet. I wonder if the programme has slowed due to Covid restrictions!

      Cheers CR

    • Indeed I have literally just read that the Franco German effort is supposed to have a demonstrator by 2025 even though the inservice dat is close to 2040. I will be interested to see what takes to the air come 2025 in either effort. One big advantage Monday is that Saab have worked wonders both there and in the US in progressing complex fighter proposals of late computaionally so I am glad that they are on our side.

  4. Another £2 Billion ? So that’s £4 Billion now ? How many would £4 Billion buy if they were already built ? How much more before we actually see one ? How much did the two Carriers cost ? Will it ever even get off the ground ? …. so many questions.

  5. We should go for a design that doesn’t have vertical fins. Use some of the tech found in the BAE Magma and Taranis. Also, go for a blended wing body, to store more fuel such as hydrogen.

    So much needs to be done to truly call the Tempest a 6th gen jet. A flying triangle, (think of a F117 without the fins) would be the right step forward. Every single design sketch I have seen of the FA/xx has been this kind of design. And focus on a high power to weight ratio so we can outperform any other jet. We could have it all. Range, internal missile bay, speed, acceleration, climbing to the moon, and possibly Mach 3 with the right engines and flying in the stratosphere. Russians are already planning a mach 3 fighter (mig-41).

    We need serious investment and a fast acceleration in research, talent, factories and political resolve to pull this off.

    • Maybe let the clever people at BAE decide the aerodynamics. And why on earth would we need a fighter to fly at mach 3? The fighters we have today hardly ever hit top speeds. I bet you can count on one hand the number of RAF Typhoon pilots that have flown at M2.

      • I thought RR was working on some fancy engines that could to Mach 4 or did I dream that up. Probably the latter..
        If it makes the project achievable they should use updated EJ200’s with the 25% increase in thrust RR has been promising for the last 10 years.

        • True, my understanding is that RR could use some of the tech from Reaction engines for example the supercooler. RR is a partner with Reaction so that part of tech is understood. If it is usable on a single seat combat aircraft is something I don’t know, but it does seem the possibilities are there.

          • They are experimenting with putting the pre cooler from reaction engines in front of an EJ2000 which would offer a major performance boost. There is talk of this producing hypersonic speeds but it’s unlikely as the system relies on fan blades and their is a limitation to how fast air can move through such an engine.

      • Flying at supersonic speeds is rarely done for a number of reasons during normal peacetime operations, one is cost, another is noise. However, in a full on conflict scenario, it will be predominantly used, as it has significant tactical benefits.

        One of the key requirements for quick reaction alert is time to height. In a conflict this could also be time to a demarcation line to meet an incoming threat. Typhoon is bloody quick in this regard, but the F22 will beat it, due to the higher power to weight ratio. The time it takes an aircraft to reach this line is critical. As that may be the point where an enemy can safely launch stand-off weapons from. Therefore, it’s advantageous if your aircraft has a very high top speed, as it can get to this line a lot sooner. When Typhoons are doing QRA, they regularly go supersonic. You don’t notice it because they predominantly do this over the sea.

        The second is to limit you enemy’s reaction times, especially in air to air combat. If we take the operational concepts that Typhoon uses and then up the speed. There are major benefits in imparting additional energy in to air to air weapons, as it increases their speed thereby reducing the time to the target, but also range. The Typhoon’s close coupled relaxed stability delta design, was chosen for supersonic combat. For example, when it spots an enemy, it will turn and accelerate towards it, once the target is within the weapons envelop, fires, then quickly turns away. This is all done at supersonic speeds. The delta wing helps maintain the speed as it develops lower wave drag at supersonic speeds, thereby allowing the Typhoon to maintain speed and energy when turning. With Meteor and Asraam, the Typhoon will have a distinct advantage against a Su27/33 type opponent. As both missiles out range the comparable missiles carried by the Flanker. Furthermore, the engagement window of these missiles allows the pilot to fire before, his aircraft enters the Flankers engagement window. I can best liken it to epee fencing, you spot an opportunity, lunge in for the attack and then pull back to defend.

        Now, if we speed this up from near Mach 2 to near Mach 3, the process is exactly the same, but things happen a lot quicker. One of the consequences of going faster, is that turning radiuses will get a lot wider, due to the increasing G, but also your speed will bleed off a lot quicker as drag is exponential not linear. Therefore, not only to reach these kinds of speeds but to maintain energy in a very high speed turn, you will need significant amounts of thrust, more so that the current Typhoon’s EJ200s can provide. You would be looking at 20,000lbs dry and around 30,000lbs wet, if not more. Hopefully we will see a marriage between Reaction Engines and Rolls Royce on developing an engine that has this kind of performance. I know RR have been developing the EJ200 and have one with larger diameter core that uses variable cycle augmented technology. They used this technology when they helped develop, with General Electric, the prototype F136 engine for the F35. If this type of development is paired with RE pre-cooler. There will be net gains to the engine’s performance in not only thrust but its fuel burn as well.

        The next issue would be trying to sustain these speeds. A lot of the 4.5 and 5th gen jets can super cruise. This can mean a number of things to different people. Either you still need reheat to accelerate through the transonic zone and then can throttle back to dry once past it, as Typhoon and Rafale do. Or you can accelerate through this zone without touching reheat, which the F22 can do (Typhoon can also do this when flying clean). However, even when flying supersonically using dry thrust, you will burn more fuel trying to maintain the speed, let alone accelerating to a faster speed. This is one of the issues the F22 has, it is not a very efficient aerodynamic shape, so its fuel consumption is pretty high. The YF23 was a lot more efficient shape aerodynamically for high speed flight. Because you burn more fuel when flying supersonically, you are going to have to carry more, so the aircraft will need to be bigger. If you compare the Typhoon and F22 to the YF23. You will see the F22 is quite a bit bigger than a Typhoon, but a YF23 dwarves them both.

        If you compare the top profiles of the F22 and YF23. You’ll notice that the YF23 has a much longer nose, so the wings appear much further back. This was chosen to delay the supersonic cone from striking the wing tips, as long as possible. As you go faster the cone’s angle decreases. Whatever part of the aircraft lies outside the cone, will generate significant amounts of drag, which has to be overcome with engine thrust.

        Twins fins have a number of benefits over a single fin or no fin. As aircraft like the F35 can reach a controlled angle of attack of +75 degrees. The pitch up movement of the fuselage can and does obstruct the airflow from reaching the rudder. Thereby leaving the aircraft without yaw authority. With a twin fin not only are these placed at the edges of the fuselage, but they are also canted outwards. This means they have a better chance of finding some air, which they can use for yaw control. An aircraft without a fin will suffer from what is a called “Dutch Rolling” this is an circular instability around the fore and aft axis, where the aircraft will tend to roll around uncontrollably. The Horten 229 suffered from this problem. Today, aircraft like the B2 with a digital flight control computer linked to inertial rate sensors can detect the movement and counteract it, by using split flaps and differential thrust from its engines. Also, when an aircraft is flying supersonically, the twin fins generate more yaw authority when the air is compressed compared to a single fin, which has to be proportionally larger. Each of the twin fins on a YF23 have the same area as each of a F16’s main wing.

        These canted twin fins are not used solely for yaw control, but can also be used for pitch, roll and as airbrakes. They do have an issue with radar though. To mitigate this issue the fins are canted outwards and inline with the fuselage profile, but are also all moving, so the moving joint is parallel with the fuselage, rather than a fixed fin and rudder where the moving joint is vertical. To allow the fin to move, you will still need a gap, but also to join the fin to the fuselage you will need a pivot. Both of these are a weakness to being detected by radar, especially very high frequency ones. This is probably one of the reasons why the US’s future fighter aircraft has done without them. How the retain yaw authority will be interesting to find out, e.g. split flaps, thrust vectoring, blown flight controls, all of the above?

        I really do hope the aircraft that is shown in the artwork and imagery is not Tempest, but merely a red herring? For me, it has a few aerodynamic issues as well as stealth issues. The main culprit is the twin fin location on top of the fuselage. Placed like that, they will only benefit the yaw authority and used as air brakes. They are also too close to the centre of gravity (CoG), so they will need to be larger than what is optimal. Further, the images shows them heavily shadowed around the base, which means they are not blended to the fuselage, this will create a large radar trap. The fins location does not hide the exhaust, so an IR sensor can see them easier.

        To get rid of this problem, the fins should be mounted a lot further back adjacent to the small tail, either side of the exhaust ala YF23. This will hide the exhaust and reduce the IR signature, but also allow them to be used for pitch and roll control. As they are further back from the CoG, they will have more authority and can be optimised in size. The next issue I have is the length of the nose. It’s better than the F22s, but could be better still, by being a metre or two longer. The new location of the twin fins will balance out the CoG. But it will also increase the achievable speed as well as increase the fuel efficiency by delaying the supersonic cone striking the wing tips too early.

        • A very informative reply mate. Thank-you. And agree with your comments about the YF23. It would have been superior in stealth and supercruise performance over the F22. Typhoon will also probably improve in this area, as the EJ200 has considerable grow potential. Even the in service engines today can produce an extra15% dry and 5% in reheat in a war setting, but this affects engine life. One thing Typhoon certainly isn’t short of is thrust. Something that hindered how the Tornado F3 was operated was a lack of thrust, particularly in the dry power range. ?

          • Yes, totally unlike yours above ?

            I thought only the clever people at BAE can talk and put out ideas?

          • Except, those are real aircraft. And any of that information if you are interested enough is widely available. Plus I met and worked alongside side F3 crews over the years in the Fleet Air Arm, and heard it straight from the horses mouth.

          • Read his last two paragraphs again, Davey is giving his opinion on the design of the aircraft, same thing as George did.

            Heard what exactly from the horses mouth?

          • Are you just looking for an argument? The difference is, DaveyB knows what he is talking about. And has some very valid points, he isn’t simply designing a mach 3 fantasy fighter in his head. And he is correct in saying Tempest will probably not closely resemble the CGI images we have seen to date.

          • Are you just going to carry on belittling people because you think they don’t know what they’re talking about.

            Why not let people shine and have ideas.

            “Maybe let the clever people at BAE decide the aerodynamics”

            Such great informative debate I kneel in awe.

          • I am basing my opinion on experience and knowledge and being a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society amongst others. The USAF really did fcuk up their choice of aircraft when they picked the YF22 over the YF23. Not only that they also played it safe with the engine, going with a development of a tried and tested design, rather than take the risk with the variable cycle engine. I am not saying the F22 is rubbish by any stretch of the imagination, only that the YF23 could have offered them something even greater. A lot of the knowledge is based on past studying, but also on a number of presentations given by the test pilots who flew both aircraft and some by the Northrop designers who also gave a lecture.

            I am one of those weirdos that is bit of a geek in this area, but also used to love getting down and dirty out in the “sticks”.

          • The rumoured crash at Boscombe in the 90’s was suggested to involve an aircraft based on the YF23.
            Maybe the programme went into the black.

          • Use to be really funny watch the Tornados tale-off at Kandahar and compare them to other Nations Jets. In the summer and due to the altitude, the Tornados used to use the full length of the runway, then stay low for about 5 miles before pulling up. By comparison the other Nations tried to outdo each other. The USMC F18s used to take off really short and pull up to a near vertical climb. The french with Mirage 2000s could just about do this, but the Rafales would stay vertical until you lost sight of them.

          • EJ200 would have transformed the Tornados performance, but at the expense of low level fuel consumption. And overall cost, and I imagine a considerable flight test program. And I think EJ200 in the F3 with AMRAAM/ASRAAM might just have threatened the Typhoon project from a cost and political viewpoint.

      • Maybe let the guy put his ideas across on a defence forum without being put down by a boot licker.

        There is loads of people on here with great ideas who don’t work at BAE, take a chill pill and stop licking establishment boot, starting to think you work for the government all you ever do is attack people who criticise the slightest thing.

        • I served in the RN, so yes I did work for the government for 14 years. And have a general understanding of how things work and what they might cost, and why or why not we need a certain capability.

      • Only because of the limitations of the propulsion system, Frank Whittle would recognise almost every bit of an EJ2000. If Tempest is truly 6th Gen then it should have something beyond a turbo jet that makes hyper sonic speed realistic. Otherwise it’s a typhoon is stealthy coatings.

        • You will still need a combination engine, much like Reaction Engine’s Sabre. A low bypass turbofan to get you off the deck and then accelerate you through Mach 1. The turbofan would then convert to a turbojet as these are more efficient past Mach 2. You can push a turbojet to Mach 4 so long as you have a clever intake system. But you really should be looking at a ramjet or scramjet for above Mach 3 and beyond.

          However, ramjets and scramjets are really fickle, if the intake air gets disturbed they can easily flame out or surge. They are best suited for linear acceleration and cruising. If you try to control the thrust like you do with a turbojet with sudden throttle changes, it can have fatal consequences.

      • I’m doubtful of your assumption that Typhoon Pilots have not flown at the upper reaches of the Aircrafts Flight Envelope – it should be a pre – requisite of any Pilots Training.

    • May be it will. But are your schoolboy ideas really founded on any sound basis? Dont you think we have good engineers? Tarantis first flew in 2010, 11 years ago, so whatever it’s worth, it must be well understood by now.

      The Magma has fins.

    • Hydrogen is a complex issue in terms of advantages over disadvantages. It has no real history in jet propulsion and is really slipping out of favour in rocket design in favour of Methane except where old engines are being employed of 2nd/3rd stages where it compares better. The only modern engine that I have seen that is looking to exploit it is the Sabre though I am only beginning to read up on why that might be, if it is beyond the fact that its gestation goes back so far that it simply incorporated the popular fuel of the time and/or alternatives were inherently bad news for the atmosphere (even more a consideration today) when then designs dumped some of it unburnt outside of the bell nozzle. Methane is considered the best compromise because it is not as polluting as Kerosene (or similar) and in modern rocket designs (the Raptor in particular) is all (in theory) consumed by the rocket exhaust as no semi burnt fuel or vapour is ejected by the turbo pumps like the Space Shuttle et al used to do.

      • Wiki has a good piece on Hydrogen fuel and why its not used (at the moment) for commercial flight. It basically boils down to the amount of volume you require to store it. It is much lighter than Kerosene, but pound for pound, Kerosene has a much higher calorific value, i.e. more energy packed more densely. The advantages of using hydrogen is that it is non polluting and is very cheap to produce compared to Kerosene.

        The larger volume it requires for storage would preclude its use on a fighter sized aircraft, unless you can live with the reduced payload and range.

  6. Have we learned nothing, great for the flag flying but can you imagine the damage this program would do to the UK defence budget for the next 30 years, it would make successor submarine program look like peanuts. The 6th gen looks identical to 5th gen and we have a 5th gen aircraft that’s a fairly reasonable purchase cost with a high British manufacturing and designed content. The UK should only build UAS domestically and focus on Taranis and Mosquito. If a manned fighter is needed and we are desperate to maintain manned aircraft building at Warton then do as the Italians and Japanese and get an F35 production line. If Rolls Royce simply must have work then get them on building an adaptive cycle engine or F136 designed for F35 and we can replace Typhoon with F35E/ Taranis/ Mosquito combination.

      • Yes that’s the issue, spend a fortune making it safe for a man that is not needed and end up with 10 of them instead of 100. Skyborg building something not dis similar at $2 million a copy and you don’t have to spend tens of millions training a pilot and keeping their skills up. You can build hundreds and keep them in sheds marked open in case of war.

    • What you are saying, is that the UK should build it’s own 5 gen aircraft first, before thinking about building 6 gen aircraft. So to learn to walk first, before learn to run! You do have a very good point, thank you!

      • … and even more concerning build it to enter service perhaps only 5 years or so before the F35 may need to start being replaced depending upon just how technology develops in the meantime. Fact is even the US is planning (if confusedly one might argue) for what might replace the F35 should it effectively become obsolete in its primary role by the mid thirties. This is why there are programmes there to study up to Mach5 aircraft again because there is no confidence that stealth will be able to protect an aircraft like the F35 by the thirties. Fascinating studying some of the projects that have been cancelled well in the past including the Avro 730 I mention above and even its replacement TSR2, were deemed too susceptible even with the former’s high speed Mach 3+ and the latter’s low altitude mode to avoid detection and destruction by increasingly sophisticated radars and defensive missiles, so stealth was deemed the future. Seems we may be going full circle or more like some sort of compromise between the two aspects. Or maybe no one really knows and are simply trying to anticipate the known unknowns. The 6th Gen or whatever the Tempest becomes (if anything) won’t simply be a rehash of the F35 (or F22) that I am sure and to presume that unmanned platforms alone can replace the F35 would be a very rash decision.

    • You’re right. Its all far too much for the UK. Time to forget about sovereignty and leave the clever stuff to someone else.

      • Lots of the clever bits in the F35 are from the UK, the stealth coatings and lift fan for one and much of the sensor fusion and the helmet had to be taken over by BAE. They did not make us a tier 1 partner and give us 15% of the work share so we could buy a few of them.

    • Why? We where already working on new radar and engines as part of future Typhoon upgrades so a lot of this research and development has already been carried out on other programs and can be integrated into a new airframe.
      The most expensive part will be writing the code to make the new aircraft fly. Apparently things have become more efficient since the code was written for the F35.

      • It could also be put into future F35 variant and UAS. Sticking them in to the new airframe is where it gets expansive and the cluster ****ery begins.

    • Exactly. Tempest should pretty much be military porn to me but I look at it and can’t get past thinking how Brexity this all sounds. I struggle to see how a major product like this can be viable when the F-35 project, which god knows how many nations are participating in, is not good enough for us to complete more than a token order.

  7. Fcuk me the negativity meter is off the scale on this one From the wee wets!. All I can say is thank fcuk our technology and aircraft innovators don’t employ staff with that negative outlook.

    This country is WORLD CLASS ??at innovation technology and development. Combined with the Swedes and Italians we will be able to develop another numero uno amazing platform.

    Good news I say given all the bad that’s come out lately .

    ?????????

  8. And we’re now exploring the important corporate opportunities with Japan

    Perhaps the most significant line in the whole statement? Japan is the front line against China and has to spend big. They were denied the F22 and have been looking at developing their own 5th gen fighter. If Japan does join the project then it raises the prospect of making the whole project financially viable.

      • Is this what you were referring to Levi?

        GKN joins feasibility studies for future fighter jet engines
        “Air combat capabilities are designated by Sweden as a national security interest. Through a joint technology development, the Swedish aviation industry will be able to build and sustain their continuous development of competencies and capabilities in a cost-effective way. GKN Aerospace was contracted in Q1 2020 by FMV to conduct a study on collaboration with Rolls Royce on technology development of the future fighter engine.”

        https://www.aero-mag.com/gkn-aerospace-fighter-jet-engine-development-13072020/

  10. This will only ever succeed if BAE can avoid the problems of the F35 development. Although there have been issues with airframe and stealth coating, the real money pit and the reasons for the delays is the software. Whilst the flight control system sees to be working well,ALIS has failed and its intended replacement isn’t going too well. Integrating weapons is slow and vastly expensive: block4 upgrade alone has hit $14b. It is always worth asking what problems a new piece of equipment is intended to solve. We already have a Mach2 strike fighter in Typhoon and stealth in F35. For all the fancy talk about 6th generation, the real problem Tempest must solve is cost, both to buy and to operate. If it costs more than current aircraft, however whizbang it is ,it will have failed.
    It can be done: the Saab/Boeing T7 was developed in a short time and has by today’s standards a low flyaway price.
    For£2b , I would want a flying functioning prototype before I parted with another penny. Future governments might take the same view so BAE need to get this right.

      • Have you been kicked off STRN/Navy Lookout already Ron5?

        That didn’t take long, I’ve never seen so many ?????????? on an individuals post. Why is that?

  13. I did read the states after f35 are changing from big runs of aircraft that take 10 years to design. Instead use IT make a run of 100 with latest of shelf tech. Then 5 years later do another. This stops them being out of date by time built and means stops China nicking every thing you develop and you can pivot quickly to counter enemy changes. This would mean our program could be bit silly, could just by in to their navy next optionally manned design

  14. Love the way politicians throw figures around like false promises?
    “No cuts” Boris does this about cuts, then cuts.
    The short life cycle of administrations means short term decisions, usually for populist reasons. Historically we see how this changes when there is a change in government. Then sadly any money invested disappears when opposite decisions are made.
    The industry loves this.
    The poor bokkies on the front line end up patching and cannibalising old gear because the politicians change like the weather.
    Then we see examples such as the USMC getting Harrier spares for bargain-basement prices.
    No one it seems has a pair when it comes to calling out politicians, despite warnings from respected and retired military officers as to where short-termism leads.
    Honest guys, I am a cynic, hands up on that one. Believe in fairies?
    I stopped decades ago when TSR2 was cancelled.

  15. When you stop and think about how long it took to develop the F22 and F35, and the costs involved, 2 Billion is a tiny drop in a large ocean that will be required to get anything that comes remotely close to their capabilities built and flying, even in prototype form. This is the usual huge wastage of badly needed funds on projects that never see service that continually leads to cuts in capabilities we badly need. When will we ever learn to, like many countries have to buy fully developed products off the shelf?

    • Saab/Boeing seem to have made a breakthrough in design and build methods. The T7A went from drawing board to first flight in 3 years. The unit cost of the US contract is <$20 m.
      T7A is a trainer but it is a pretty sophisticated one, capable of development into a light fighter.
      It looks as though BAE aim to use similar methods for Tempest. But to succeed, the project needs to avoid overreach: what exactly is it to do that couldn't be done by existing aircraft?

    • I would argue that Generation 6 is going to quite different from generation 5.

      Just because it looks similar to Gen5, it shouldn’t be confused with the convoluted US F22/F35 projects, spanning decades.

      The new generation is all about digital design, coupled with AI assists, new manufacturing techniques and rapid prototyping.

      The Australian loyal wingman programme is a good indication of how fast hardware can be developed, from a mouse click, to wind under the wings in a few years….

      There’s also the persistent rumours of the Americans rapidly developing and flying a Gen6 technology demonstrator as a black programme too.

      A pace of development not seen since WW2!

      BAE systems has been quietly working on manned Tempest for a few years now, the new money allows them to create a fully detailed virtual design and work on the project elements.

      Hopefully a flying technology demonstrator by 2025/6.

      At this point, it really depends who’s in government, it could be a bold move into the future, with British designed and led manned and unmanned technology.

      The alternative, a fall back position to an advanced F35 derivative (or a US Gen6 aircraft) and US designed UCAV’s.

      Either way, they will be using advanced British weapon systems and manned and unmanned together, will provide us with air combat mass we haven’t seen for decades.

      The UK has a rare, once in a generation chance here, to get back into fast jet design and construction business, with the UK front and centre, along with our partners, calling the shots, dictating the pace and taking the lead.

      There’s much to be hopeful about here……

  16. 2bn … Frankly that is a ridiculous amount of money to pay out, when only to “help to launch the next phase in designing and deliver”.

    As for the ‘mock up’, if thats the best looking thing they can come up with, why not just buy aircraft ‘off the shelf’?

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