The Ministry of Defence has issued further clarification on its ongoing market engagement for a next-generation Carrier Strike Airborne Early Warning (AEW) capability, aimed at enhancing the protection of the UK’s Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers and their strike groups.
Published on 22 April 2025, the update to the original tender—first issued on 9 April—adds crucial detail to the scope and intent of the proposed system, while continuing to stress that this is not a formal procurement process.
The engagement seeks innovative solutions to deliver persistent surveillance against air and surface threats, potentially replacing or supplementing the current Crowsnest system.
What’s New?
The MOD has now responded to specific clarification questions from industry, revealing that:
- “The authority expects that the potential solutions could vary greatly with regards to combinations of numbers of platforms, endurance, and sensor performance and do not wish to specify those at present.”
Instead, the goal is to deliver “sufficient time to enact counter-threat measures”—allowing suppliers the flexibility to propose platforms and sensor suites they believe can best achieve this aim.
Additionally, the MOD has confirmed that platforms do not need to be registered on the UK Military Aircraft Register at this stage of engagement:
- “The RN is currently undertaking broad market engagement… Decisions on how any future demonstrations may take place will be made on the results of this market engagement.”
This is a notable shift from previous MOD engagements, suggesting a greater openness to novel solutions—including uncrewed platforms or hybrid options—not yet certified for UK military airspace.
Timelines and Scope
The proposed contract would be worth between £500 million and £1.5 billion, with service entry estimated between 2030 and 2035. The intended duration of the support arrangement is 5.5 years, with a delivery window between January 2027 and May 2032.
As with the earlier notice, the MOD reiterates that:
“This RFI is purely to gain market knowledge and is not the launch of a new procurement.”
Interested parties have until 17:00 on 6 May 2025 to submit responses via the Microsoft Form link provided in the notice.
This clarification reinforces the MOD’s long-term intention to enhance survivability and threat awareness for Carrier Strike Groups. By keeping requirements open-ended, it invites cutting-edge proposals that could shift the future of airborne early warning—potentially away from traditional manned platforms and towards drone-based or hybrid systems capable of persistent, high-endurance operations.
Good to hear they are expecting responses through Microsoft forms rather than through a Group Chat on Signal I guess… or is it.
No plan, beyond some dates (initially 2027, now 2030-35) and talk of a little money, few requirements and no design beyond multiple platforms, endurance and sensors. How do they really expect to deliver anything to the user?
As stated previously an obvious capability gap inbound if Crowsnest is retired.
Since Crowsnest is due to retire in 2029, this potentially leaves the Carriers without any AEW cover for 6 years. Wow, just wow.
It will be interesting to see what comes of this. Someone needs to crack the code on AEW for STOVL carriers, there is a market for it in Queen Elizabeth, Prince of Wales, Trieste, Cavour, Izumo, Kaga, US Navy LHA/LHDs, potentially Canberra, Adelaide, Juan Carlos, etc. It might as well be the British, because no one else seems to be pushing forward on this.
It would be more marketable to a wider base if it doesn’t require a cat and trap refit of course, but then the radar would have to be sensitive and powerful enough to be useful, but small enough to fit on a drone that can take off by itself.
An Osprey solution would be interesting for the US and Japan as they are the only countries that operate them, but the expense and complication of that seems daunting, and it hasn’t happened yet. The only interesting mod to the Osprey that seems to be moving forward is an Electronic Warfare system the Marine Corps is developing called Intrepid Tiger II. the VARS refueling system was cancelled, and I haven’t heard of a serious push for a V-22 AEW system.
Whoever figures a good AEW solution for STOVL ships could have a good cash cow in sales and product support for a long time.
Without aew the carriers are big floating easy targets.
Not sure what’s new here.
The MS Forms that respondents were supposed to fill in already asked about the necessary number of aircraft and the variety of sensors that could be carried, none of that was ever specified.
The only clarification here is in the slightly higher max budget and the ISD, which now fits Airlander or other bespoke solutions more easily.