A Eurofighter Typhoon has test-fired a low-cost precision weapon designed to counter uncrewed aerial systems, according to BAE Systems.
The trial, conducted from the company’s flight test facility in Warton, Lancashire, saw a Royal Air Force Typhoon test aircraft launch an APKWS laser-guided munition against a ground target at a UK range, the company said.
The APKWS guidance kit, manufactured by BAE Systems in the United States, converts unguided rockets into precision weapons and is already in service on a range of platforms including F-16s, A-10s and rotary-wing aircraft, according to the company.
BAE Systems said the trial is intended to explore how lower-cost weapons could be integrated onto Typhoon, particularly for countering drone threats where more expensive missiles may be disproportionate.
“This trial with the APKWS laser-guidance kit on Typhoon demonstrates a game-changing capability and a cost-effective solution that would enhance Typhoon’s already impressive range of weapons capabilities,” said Richard Hamilton, Managing Director of Air Operations at BAE Systems’ Air sector.
The company said the activity, carried out with support from the RAF, will inform future integration work and forms part of a broader package of upgrades planned for the aircraft.
Typhoon already carries a range of air-to-air and air-to-surface weapons including Meteor, Storm Shadow and Brimstone, and is undergoing further enhancements including the ECRS Mk2 radar and additional weapons integration.
According to the company, the APKWS system is capable of both air-to-surface and air-to-air engagements and has been used operationally for several years. The recent trial is expected to be followed by further testing, including against aerial targets.
Seems like a good idea BUT a £100 million aircraft to bring down a drone?.
Would you rather the drone gets closer before being engaged? This allows them to down the drone before they’re anywhere near their targets
Or you could upgrade the beechcrafts or cheaper airframe instead of burning off airframe life on a front line jet.
I meant a Beechcraft Texan II, or just buy some Beechcraft Wolverines that can be as a training aircraft inbetween
Those aircraft don’t have the speed or sensors to cover a large area of airspace, we would be better off with jet trainers/light fighters like the M-346 or T-50. They have the speed an sensors necessary without the costs of a Typhoon or F-35.
There’s hardly any risk to the jet, that doesn’t seem like a fair comparison. You might as well complain about the £200M Sky Sabre fire group, or £500M Fylingdales.
And to think we are retiring the perfect aircraft for this role in the Hawk…hope it’s replacement is looked at for this role.
You could fit APKWS to M346, I would have thought.
No radar on Hawk so would be pilots eyeballs only
Could do a podded IRST though, from the scope video the MoD occasionally publish they seem to do a lot of the targeting using the t-pods.
Would hope a cheaper option, drone related and more appropriate would become operational.
Or a billion pound destroyer.
They don’t usually kamikaze the plane into the drone, mate.
Hmmm…
Design a UCAV from the ground up for mid-air impacts, encase sensors in cages and thick covers, have FOD gratings over the engine intakes. Do we have an idea for the cheapest ever cost per intercept?
Introducing a new aircraft type into service is going to cost a hell of a lot more than 100M. Even a Tucano type aircraft or a jet trainer
Also the running costs, the people who support the aircraft, and its vulnerability on the ground as a £100 million target. It feels like we are moving ever-closer to drones like the Airbus ‘Bird of Prey’ interceptor… missile armed drones designed to intercept enemy drones.
Maybe someone will adapt the windracer. I know they are testing the Malloy drone with the APKWS rocket.
The idiocy of not doing this sooner is unbelievable.
No urgency in UK Defence – so we’ve wasted a huge costly munitions pile in the Med and now ‘looking’ at this.
Stable
Door
Horse
Bolted
This kind of idiocy makes us more vulnerable as it has been obvious for three years that low cost mid spec is the way fowards.
Indeed this has been available for years, seems like testing should have been done long before now.
Indeed. Ukraine war is going on for years.
Bae’s paying for it all. Rachel is not contributing one penny.
Who’s paying for the RAF typhoon,.pilot and air crew that did the test?
That’s sunk cost
Not entirely true, it’s resource that could have been used elsewhere and so it’s money put into the project. Not a whole load but it’s not nothing.
It’s useful but in the end the all up cost of putting a typhoon in the air for 1 hour is about 45,000 pounds. You need a cheaper platform that can deliver the cheap effector.
Its an interesting Paradigm because it shows that in the end the driver away from the cheap plentiful attrition platform was human costs… when you can only train a few hundred pilots you need them to have the most effective aircraft imaginable, quality wins when the human cost limits both sides…but it never really answered the question asked by quantity ( when you omnipresent you win…. Sherman and T34 vs panther and tiger, the Royal Navy vs every other navy for 100 years) as soon as an effective way was developed to remove the human cost from quantity we start to see that quantity win over quantity.. the west really needs to relearn quantity matters.. turning up matters.
Why the heck do you think the west is taking the lead on unmanned combat aircraft?? Jeesh.
Yes because an unmanned aircraft can replace a ship… in your head maybe.
Whatever replaces Hawk needs one or two of the squadrons to act as specialist combat trainers/light combat air. We use the Typhoons for practically all of the initial ACM training at the moment and training new pilots eats up a lot of the frontline air time. We just need a few of the aircraft upgraded with an IRST and targeting and the hardpoints to take APKWS and ASRAAM and that would sort a lot of the issues with defending UK territory against the high volume, low difficulty drone attacks we have at the moment.
Or a beast mode for the UCAVs, that would work too.
It doesn’t cost 45k for an additional flying hour. Again, most of those costs are fixed and already sunk. Expanding the utility of an in service aircraft can be cost effective Vs how quickly you could spend the weapons integration budget on a handful of conventional ata missiles. Of course cheaper counter drone solutions are required but it doesn’t prevent this investment making sense
I think the Hydra 70 with kit Akws kit is being installed on the Apache.
And add it to the F35Bs and Apaches too? I think there are already more basic versions of this that are fired from the back of ute like vehicle?
If I remember they integrating APKWS on the British Apache.
And the French Naval Group have the Multi Purpose Launch System (MPLS) that can that can Martlet/Mistral and 68/70mm for ships. Would the RN look at something like this for a CIWS/counter drone mount? Its been mentioned previously that a SEA-Thales jv could potentially adapt the Ancilia decoy launcher to have Martlet and Starstreak on the same or similar mount for CIWS. And maybe add in rockets? France has the Sandural mount that does this with Mistral.
*that can fire
**sorry, i meant Safran (NGDS) Next Generation Dagaie System combining Decoy and Mistral.
Anyone competent would have added this system to the arsenal years ago. It has so many uses that saves on expensive overkill.
Must be a slow UKDJ day guys. 😊 The system involved has a range of about three miles. I was just questioning the concern of having a Typhoon etal that close to a potential threat. For those who jumped to say I was complaining I refer you to my first phrase. “seems like a good idea”.
I mentioned this exact system several weeks back. The Yanks have been using it operationally for a while.
I get the point about using a big expensive jet, but in a combat zone we won’t have the luxury of having a bunch of planes sitting around waiting for drones to turn up. We will have a bunch of planes. i.e. Typhoon or F35 that will get tooled up according to the incoming threat. It’s one thing to have a bunch of bombs hanging around doing nothing but a completely different thing having a bunch of planes that are still not cheap, even if they are cheaper sitting around doing nothing.
What is there about this combination that makes it suitable for a fighter, where Marlet isn’t used? Does it have its own hardpoint or is there a multi missile launcher?