The Ministry of Defence has published a preliminary market engagement notice under Project VANQUISH, seeking industry views on a new “Fixed Wing Short Take Off and Landing Autonomous Collaborative Platform” (FW STOL ACP) for Royal Navy carriers.
The Find a Tender listing describes the effort as a technical demonstration intended to inform future procurement options for the UK’s “Hybrid Air Wing”.
The notice, identifier 2025/S 000-062294, sets out the requirement in stark terms: “Project VANQUISH seeks to deliver a technical demonstration at sea of an attritable (Tier 2) Fixed Wing Short Take Off and Landing Autonomous Collaborative Platform (FW STOL ACP); nominal target date by the end of 2026, with options for delivery within an 18 month window from the target date also considered.”
The MOD is explicit that the platform must be able to embark and operate autonomously from a Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier. It is to be jet turbine powered, capable of high subsonic speed, and launch and recover from carriers without catapults or arrested recovery systems.
The system is expected to carry a credible payload with sufficient endurance, with a clear exploitation path for roles such as ISR, strike, and air-to-air refuelling.
The RFI highlights that this effort should “complement F-35B Lightning, as part of QEC and its Carrier Air Wing”. Officials also stress that the work must be “aligned with the principles of Maritime Aviation Transformation (MATX) and build on previous trials and demonstrations of ACPs from QEC.”
The estimated contract value is £10 million excluding VAT (£12 million including VAT), with a potential period from April 2026 to December 2027. The MOD notes that successful completion will provide the data and evidence needed to support a prospective procurement of a carrier-capable autonomous strike aircraft in the early 2030s.
The notice makes clear this is not yet a formal procurement. “For the avoidance of doubt, this notice is not informing the market of an imminent procurement. All costs pertaining to the completion of this response are to be borne by the responders.” A formal tender is expected to follow in January 2026.
Industry is invited to respond by 14 November 2025 through an online submission form. Clarification questions must be submitted by 24 October.
Great news. Yet another project. Must be dozens of them by now. Not ordering anything obviously. Just talking about talking about talking about….yawn.
*writes “planning to plan” on whiteboard and goes home*
True, my friend, very true.
I’m considering an FOI on how Sydney Sweeney can be my girlfriend even though I have no money.
Anyone know what happened to that last lot of class A drugs that the Royal Navy seized a while back ?
So the Navy think GA-ASI can adapt Gambit to work without cats and traps? Or perhaps even Avenger-STOL?
I can’t think who else could develop a project over that aggressive a timeframe. Helsing with their new Europa? The BAE ACP concepts? Neither of those have the aerodynamics for STOL carrier operation.
I suspect blown flaps will be involved, and big ones too.
“I suspect blown flaps will be involved, and big ones too”
Boy, you got issues !
I’m racking my brains at the moment trying to work out which innuendo reference you are making, which is not helpful as I’m supposed to be doing ESAT prep!
😁
Goddammit, you made me google it.
Universities look at your internet history, you know!
😂😂😂
I was looking at a drone size comparison chart and the General Atomics MQ-20 Avenger is probably too large for our needs, bigger than Taranis for example. The Sea Avenger variant was designed to operate from a carrier with an arrester wire, so it had a tailhook. Also, it’s very expensive, at about $80 a throw, according to the internet.
That’s $80 million.
Their requirement for a decent payload plus STOL is a very tall order.
I guess that means all the work done to consider putting CATs and TRAPs on them has been skipped!!
IMHO they will live to regret not have CATO BAR on them if a shooting war starts. It will force them close to shore and therefore closer to any Carrier killing threat,
What they need is a tri-plane! 😆
Serious head on !
Time to dust off the plans for the Saunders Roe SR.A/1.
Or perhaps a miniature Martin Seamaster, if greater performance is desired?
I’ve looked at unmanned seaplanes as an idea before, but never jet-powered ones!
I honestly think “We” are missing a trick or two here though. Seaplanes/Amphibs were a great success back in the day, no need for C’s & T’s, they can land anywhere and size is not a limiting factor. I’m sure 80 years on from the SR, tech will have solved many of the issues.
I can see a role for a seaplane fulfilling an ISTAR role, folding to fit in a T26 mission bay and maybe even with internal stowage of Brimstone type weapons. Those are slow enough that the slightly odd turboprop placement and hull shaping wouldn’t affect performance too much.
If you wanted to go faster then maybe the fancy new electric fans would allow a wider range of engine placements? Making the propulsion fully hybrid you could even take off under battery power and open the generator air inlet doors in flight, which would make things easier still WRT water spray.
But I think trying to go much faster, with the requirements of water launch, is not going to be feasible.
Yeh, this is where that crane on the Rivers comes into its own. 😊
This falls into line with a previous prediction of mine that around 50% of aircraft aboard our carriers will be autonomous by 2040. All supply and refuelling should be primarily conducted by FWSTOL APCs as soon as possible, along with anti-submarine and early warning capabilities, which should have a profound impact on manning levels.
A BIG ask, however I am always drawn to using rota tilt wing whatever the yanks look like they will be using. Could we not adapt it for our carriers and other f35b navies?
tbh while it’s not as futuristic looking I’d say a compound helicopter is the way to go: the downwash is more spread out and it can still autorotate if there’s any trouble.
Intriguing.
Procurement, perish the thought, HMT would need to have a nice lie down, and they’ll be gone before any serious money is spent.
In all seriousness, will be interesting if industry can come up with anything.
My bet is a Banshee derivitive for this particular excercise.
With a 10 million budget what are they expecting.
How can a Banshee derivative accompany an F35?
It looks like a toy, do they just double its size and put a bigger jet engine in it?
Banshee drones have been evolving for 40 years, there are twin engined versions that fly at over 400mph so a Derivitive (solely for this excersise) might just be a logical step. The RN tested one of these a few years ago from memory but not sure which model.
I think the key here is “Blown Flaps”.
(christ, I’ll never go to heven !)
Go big enough (say, Trent engined) and we’d have a pretty decent Vulcan replacement.
Not a patch on 4-engine Tempest, however ;).
No, I think this is a genuine attempt at a deployable system, or at least looking for alternatives to chopping up the carriers. There are lots of STOL UCAVs, and a heck of a lot of jet-powered high subsonic ones, we just need a clever enough design to bridge between the two.
I think I might have got just the Ideal combination.
How about we use a Jet engined, remote controlled, Hovering, Hoover with Blown Flaps ?
It ticks most of the boxes I think.
You are obsessed with blown flaps…. So very old.😂
I looked up the Gambit you mentioned earlier.
What’s wrong with that?
Was there not something similar a few years ago? Project Mosquito? Also got canned before there was any danger of procurement happening, as apparently there was plenty of ‘existing alternatives ‘ that surprisingly also weren’t purchased.
Hi PC.
Yes, which was part of the RCOs Project Lanca.
It’s hard to get excited by any of this as we know where it’s ended up over the last 2 decades.
Maybe one day!
” ..inform future procurement options…”
Keep your bingo card handy for this one……
Tick…
I’ve just Googled and found “what killed Mosquito and what next for the UKs loyal wingman”
The website is “Morson projects”
The explanation given by the Air Commodore in charge of the RCO is an absolute peach.
Plenty of material for your card there.
The obvious candidate would be the Turkish Bayraktar Kızılelma, which has an MTOW of 6000kg, of which the payload is 1500kg. It’s been designed to operate from their LHD without catapults. Obviously as a tanker, that’s a very small amount of fuel, but it’s one of the very few options out there.
The most sensible thing would be to add arrestor gear to the carriers, which would instantly increase their flexibility, even without adding catapults. It would enable cross decking when necessary with both French and American carriers, since both Rafales and Super Hornets could potentially take off from the ski jump, albeit at a reduced takeoff weight. It would potentially also enable heavier UAVs like the MQ-25 Stingray to cross deck. Adding arrestor gear would be a fairly cheap way to dramatically improve capability, at a relatively modest cost.
Hello Ed, I read this as being able to be re-fueled rather than to re-fuel. In which case your suggestion sounds good.
Sounds like something a harrier could’ve done or be convereted for.
Stop that right away Frank.😁
£10M will get a PowerPoint slide or two. No chance any real capability in 20 years, let alone a demo in 24 months
QE class are a white elephant. Too large for ASW carriwr qith fighters to defend task group. No cats & traps to host a secent strike capability.
Need EMALS and Arrestors if we are serious.
Oh, look! It’s another super-duper drone that’ll fix everything.
The RN made a huge mistake with the QE2-class, a mistake that will last decades to come.
A couple of cats and traps would solve a lot of problems.
Umm why the mistake.. every other medium size navy is going the same way.. it’s only china and the US which are going cats and traps.. France has cats and traps but as a medium size navy has screwed itself over trying to keep in that game.. the french carrier is great but their enemy simply has to wait until it’s in bits…and they have exactly no carrier…