BAE Systems has provided an update on its progress in developing the UK’s first flying combat air demonstrator in four decades.
According to a recent announcement on LinkedIn, BAE Systems Air stated, “We’re making good progress on the UK’s first flying combat air demonstrator in 40 years.”
This project forms a critical part of testing and proving advanced aerospace technologies that could potentially be integrated into the future Tempest fighter jet.
This ambitious programme, part of the UK’s Tempest project, is seen as a vital step towards developing a sixth-generation combat air system. BAE’s work on the demonstrator aims to test new capabilities that include advanced propulsion, aerodynamics, and stealth technologies.
The demonstrator is intended to fly within the next three years and will provide crucial insights into the technology needed for the Tempest programme.
The BAE Systems announcement highlighted the programme’s role in “testing and proving aerospace technologies that could be used on Tempest,” showcasing the project’s potential to influence future defence capabilities. This flying demonstrator will allow engineers to evaluate various technologies under real-world conditions, contributing to the development of a modern, adaptable combat aircraft.
Let’s hope we see something doing taxi runs soon.
I don’t want to see taxi runs or anyhing else until the first batch is produced. I would prefer the demonstrator to be taken to Aus/Can or the US and tested out in the middle of nowhere. I would also hope that we have a couple of loyal wingmen that can fly and test out the interconnectivity concept at the same time. If I had my way I would not have any future showing of Tempest until the RAF, JSDAF and the IAF get their first operational squadron.
Why?
Even the Chinese demonstrate their new jets before they are fully operational and changes can be seen from the first sighting to in service jets.
It’s not like they’ll be testing the EW systems and radar, the only bits that would actually be secret, at a minor airport in the north of England or wherever they set up the actual production line.
That is a seriously bad idea. It needs to be in the public eye. Nobody needs to see or know the details of the internal gubbins and you can’t tell much about coatings from the outside! Static tests will be done well out of sight in a shed somewhere. I would be suprised if it goes through the usual painful taxi testing regime – that sort of thing [brakes and ground handling] are the sorts of things that digitally model well. It is a milestone for the birth of a new design that is expected. This is so vital to… Read more »
Out of sight. Out of mind, will kill it.
If GCAP is to be a success it needs maximum publicity, with the classified bits remaining as such.
Only film from certain angles if you must, like the B2.
It’s what can be considered a ‘prestige project.’ The British press love a good prestige project to do the dirty on. Overpriced! Outdated! Broken! Waste of Money compared to X number of nurses you could have had instead. The opposition party of the day is right on the bandwagon to cause maximum embarrassment to the Government. Then for a generation Joe Bloggs is on every comment forum about the the project repeating the same old mantras over and over. The project might survive this…hopefully. 😟
Absolutely right. Not only does it need UK public buy in and excitement to make it politically unkillable, we already need to be thinking about exports. I’d want to see the demonstrator flying alongside F-35s in a teaming exercise if at all possible.
We’ve moved on from the days of the F117 where so much was based on its shape that even a glimpse of it would give away its secrets. Now the sneaky hush hush stuff is more to do with electronic systems and computing power. Probably better to have this in the limelight where public support for the spending can be garnered.
The Americans went public with the B21 without giving anything classified away. So can we with Tempest.
The more it’s seen the more focus and hopefully, new sales will ensue. It’s the US, I fear most and the ruthless plane makers lobby, who may either want to take a cut in the Tempest or impose conditions that strangulate international sales beyond the current partners.
I guess it depends on whatever becomes of NGAD, and if that becomes an exportable product. At the moment, I doubt it. Like F22 before it. I don’t see Tempest in the same market as F35. Until we see exactly what role Tempest is designed to fulfil, it’s all just guesswork.
Nothing and nobody challenges the mighty US warplane business, there is just too much money and national pride involved. Tempest will be one of the most advanced warplanes in history with capabilities we could only dream about just twenty years ago. I would be very surprised if the US allowed this plane to make real gains on the international markets unopposed by them in one form or another.
Again. Until we know a lot more about what Tempest will turn our to be. We have no idea how much it will cost or what kind of numbers it will be built in. It looks like a large aircraft, all aspect stealth, so I’d say it will be very expensive. A niche capability for most airforces. F35 still has decades of development coming, and for many nations, it will be the 6th gen capabilities they might require. And has the benefits of scale. But if Tempest can tap into current Typhoon operators, then it could still doo well alongside… Read more »
I don’t see that at all, NGAD looks questionable. Most US R&D is toward drones, autonomous wingman and hypersonics right now.
If the F-22 was still in production you might have valid concerns.
The sooner the better… the world is getting dangerous.
we also need to get ahead of the french and Germans for export orders so we can kill fcas
It would be nice to regain our world position in some of these areas.
I don’t think they have even started on the next phase of construction of the demonstrator and are still in the design stage. WEll, according to a French defence site.
Realistically the most likely thing to kill off FCAS will be German and French infighting, like that which has killed many European defence projects before.
Precisely.
The workshare and tech leadership arguments will follow the standard script.
You can use the same script for Tornado/Typhoon/New Idea and just change the project name.
And we have Typhoon and F35 until Tempest. Two extremely capable platforms.
Need more of both!
Agreed, they need to get this thing flying as soon as possible. Each aircraft will take a month to build so thats probably a max of 4 per month, we want 200 so will the Japanese and a 100 for the Italians then exports..So the initial 500 will take 10 years! So that’s probably from around 2032. Can we ask the Chinese to not start a war for 18 years!
“ Each aircraft will take a month to build so thats probably a max of 4 per month” These aren’t Spitfires! Each frame will take longer than that. However, the different phases will overlap. Also each country will probably make most of their own in final assembly. Part of the problem is that, in order to keep the line open you need to build at quite a slow rate over the lifetime of the project. If you rush all 200 the units you demand out in Yr1 then what is the workforce doing after that. I’d say we would get… Read more »
We will want a 200 absolutely, realistically though these are going to be expensive aircraft so if we actually get that many it will be a miracle.
Bear in mind should also have at least 72 F-35Bs by the time we start buying Tempests, possibly more.
Under current defence spending levels I think we will only see a one-to-one replacement of the Typhoons remaining, so 107 Tempests.
Requirements for airframe numbers haven’t been discussed publicly. So its pure guess work. We have capability today far exceeded anything China has in service.
Capability is amazing and getting better all the time.
In painfully thin numbers though.
But we know much more is to come. It’s the same for all nations. I’m sure the Chinese would dearly love to have in service today whatever they have planned for 2030. But everything takes time. As China is about to find out building credible carrier strike capability.
We won’t build them all in the UK. The Japanese will certainly want their own production line.
What is the definition of “sixth gen”?
Don’t think there is one yet!
Easy, the first aircraft to be flown that’s called 6th Gen will be the definition of 6th Gen, until the next one called 6th Gen is flown at which point you have a second definition. In other words it’s rather nebulous.
The US will decide what 6th Gen means and what ever they have on their aircraft will be 6th Gen and everything that comes out before them will be 5.5 Gen 😀
LocMart marketing will decide.
Yes, the definition of 6th Gen will be “Any features that are on both F/A-XX and NGAD, but not Tempest”
Yes, apparently 5th Gen planes didn’t need Infra red search and track or super cruise to be 5th Gen only reduced RCS.
Whatever LM’s marketing department says goes.
On the next fighter LM will pick up low frequency stealth primarily from removing the vertical stabiliser as the key 6th Gen technology.
They will claim that tempest with its diamond shaped vertical stabiliser is only 5.5gen and that an upgrade F35 will be the same aircraft.
The vertical stabiliser isn’t such a big deal as it can be all composite with negligible RCS.
The thing with doing it this way is that it is a super low risk strategy. A flying wing would have even lower RCS but it is then a very slightly risky design and control systems strategy.
There is a reason F35 is the shape it is.
Yes, everything is a compromise unless you want to start building £1Bn planes nobody can afford.
Much better off making some compromises to get Tempest in the air.
In basic terms, a next generation aircraft design must surpass the technological capabilities of the previous generation. With F35 I guess its the stealth, sensor fusion and battlespace information sharing and control capabilities which are far superior to anything that’s gone before (even the F117 and B2), rather than its flight performance attributes.
So 6th Gen will have to be better. One new aspect being looked at is obviously the control of unmanned drones or loyal wingmen. Greater stealth?
It is all bollocks, I remember when fifth gen included super-cruise. The F35 cannot in any meaningful way, so, super-cruise is not included any more.
After Typhoon gets its new UK radar, how close to fifth gen will it be? It was defined for stealth, just not at the expense of performance (that the F35 does not gave).
The Typhoon is a very capable aircraft and the new UK radar fit will make it a formidable adversary as you say. The F22 Raptor is also in with a shout. But industry has to use some terminology to define differences in design output. The F35 uses a staggering amount of software that processes all of the sensor inputs and other input data to supposedly give its pilot a distinct advantage in situational awareness and in prosecuting any fight. That plus its very low RCS are considered winning attributes. UK pilots who now fly the F35 say it is a… Read more »
It could still go the same way as the TSR2 or even Reaction Engines no money and government bottles it
Reaction engines didn’t fail because the government bottled it or anything. As soon as Spacex proved traditional rockets could be reusable, any idea of a conventional takeoff space plane just becomes redundant as reusability was the only real selling point for a space plane. Yes there are a few other things a space plane could be useful for. But you would be better off just putting it on the top of a rocket to get it into space which would be much more efficient than trying to get to space using a conventional takeoff with the absolutely silly amount of… Read more »
If you want to make a comparison, GCAP is like a 21st Century merged Avro Canada Arrow and TSR2 in one package…
Cancellation is aways possible, but looking more unlikely as time goes by…
Fingers crossed, by this time next year, we will know, the UK will be contractually committed to GCAP, or it will have fallen apart.
TSR2 was Not needed by 1965, because strategic nuclear strike was to pass to the RN with Polaris subs by 1968. An improved and cheaper Buccaneer could of done the job of tactical strike role.
Agreed, all it could then do was recce.
I came to that point of view reluctantly but one cannot deny obvious facts. A beautiful but limited plane at a staggering price. Buccaneer, unloved by the R.A.F., went on and on.
I recommend reading “TSR2 – Britain’s Lost Bomber” by Damien Burke. The author originally believed that the cancellation of TSR2 was a national disaster, but ultimately concludes that it was probably a sensible decision. E.g. Just one example of the problems, the very complex and state of the art electronic systems pushed early 1960s technology to the limits – and included vacuum tubes! The plane would have been an expensive nightmare to maintain and keep serviceable. In hindsight, the early 1970’s MRCA (Tornado) was a far better outcome for the RAF.
A lot of the R&D tracked across to Concorde.
But I agree it would have been a maintenance nightmare. Nothing necessarily wrong with vacuum tubes TBH if they are kept at constant temperature. The real issue is a start on a very cold morning the thermal factors are huge.
TSR2 was an expensive limited aircraft, it was superseded by the Tornado. Reaction engines doesn’t work.
Tempest is very different
Reaction Engines do work and the tech is actually used for various intercoolers already.
It has been tested red on an RR jet to Mach 3.5 successfully in a ground test.
Forget Skylon that is a red herring.
I hope MoD buy it for a song as they did Sheffield Forge Masters. Some things are critical.
Your right although trs2 tech went into tornado. Trs2 was a uk f 1 11.
Weren’t we also meant to be converting an old commercial jet to test new technologies as well?
Yes, 2excel got the contract to run and convert 1 757 ‘Excalibur’ and the other for spares for £115 million.
So where’s the update? All I saw was a single sentence social media post with no content.
We need to keep our eyes on the ball. Argentina have just secured a billion dollar order with the USA to supply weapons and upgrades to its F16’s. Whilst Typhoons with Meteor and F35’s may be more than a match, the fact is we have a hostile aggressor seeking to claim, by force if necessary, the Falkland Islands again.
Have you actually looked at the package that they are getting?
Not actually “Looked” at it due to Geographical distances and military security but I have read all about the weapons and equipment that are being supplied. Your point?
The total package isn’t really an issue as they might just have the legs to carry 1000lb of weapons and no pod to FI without refuelling, as block15 MLUs only have 3pylons available for fuel. Also can only drop the 370gl tanks but would 600gl tanks stay on and are limited to 3-4g(depending on source).
Argentina only have kc130s so no boom, so not really a chance of being a real threat to FI unless the USAF sell them a kc135.
Arg airforce won’t be able to attack FI without certain other purchases at which point we can review.
Now with a Labour government they unfortunately have a chequered history of cancelling military aircraft projects.
Except when they involve partner nations, if it’s a National one easy to just cancel, if it causes a massive international row and compensation claims they don’t.
Just look at AUKUS, only concern about that is if Mr Tangerine gets elected 🤔
Unlike the tories which have a brilliant track record on defence.
Cameron et al were a disaster. No question.
Buuuut….Doris and BW did make some sensible decisions.
However, a lot of very good R&D decisions were made, oddly in about 2012 onwards that we are reaping bounteous rewards from.
Does anyone know what aircraft frame work the headline photo is from?
To me it could be the cockpit/ nose section upto the main bulkhead of Tempest but I am not sure.
If it is it also shows that the demonstrator is coming along nicely. It is a pity that Reaction Engines have ran into major problems as I think the pre-cooler would have been really useful on Tempest.
That photo is actually about a year old – if you do a reverse lookup on the image it has been in earlier press releases by BAe.
Ahh, thanks for that SB. Just done a quick search general search online and found an article on aero-mag.com which shows the same jig and components from a different angle and you can see another jig in the background. I also note that the components look like they are single pieces not assemblies. They are big complicated chunks of metal if I’m right. So likely I should think they took quite sometime to manufacture as there will not be a dedicated production line in place and they would have take a lot of care to get it right – the… Read more »
Yup, you are right forward fuselage.
Cheers CR
The pre-cooler still could be really useful, there’s nothing to stop BAE, RR, or the MOD buying what’s left of Reaction Engines to get it IPs.
Two new posters, both starting off in splendid fashion by pushing the doom and gloom cancellation line.
Co incidence?
Or has Baker / Marty / Frank rubbed off on me!
Interesting how they are showing a lot of the development in public, in contrast to the stalled American efforts which were secret
To be fair you can’t tell an awful lot from those shots…all the materials are painted and the tags have been blurred so you can’t deduce materials from the part codes etc….everything is pained so you can’t really tell if it is 3D printed, aluminium, titanium or carbon.
I suspect we won’t get anything further until it is skinned as all the secret bits are now going into that assembly!
Even then it will probably be digitally manipulated for totally understandable reasons.
They are simply mock ups . Other than general size and shape nothing can be deduced. Not sure where you are going with “ To be fair you can’t tell an awful lot from those shots…all the materials are painted and the tags have been blurred so you can’t deduce materials from the part codes etc….everything is pained so you can’t really tell if it is 3D printed, aluminium, titanium or carbon.” There was nothing to blur and certainly no idea of final materials. It was probably ply skin over former with sculpted bondo. My point is the tempest alliance… Read more »
“There was nothing to blur and certainly no idea of final materials. It was probably ply skin over former with sculpted bondo.” They are constructing a tech demonstrator that can fly…with two modified EJ200’s to power it. That won’t have plywood skin. You don’t build models on jigs like that. If you are building a test tank model for naval you CNC cut it out of expanded foam and then used to hand finish it with a rasp and car body filler. Same with aircraft models. How do I know? I’ve been on team that actually did that… These days… Read more »
The only thing we have seen, to date, are a few mock ups of the plane and drawings. They will have been produced as cheaply as possible. They will probably show the tech demonstrator but it will be from a far and probably it will be their cameraman taking the pic not general press. And when and if we do all we will see the outside of the aircraft. My point is that the American 6th gen efforts have been shrouded in secrecy , where next to nothing is known about the aircraft. We at least are showing some glimpse… Read more »
They did this with a Typhoon technology demonstration aircraft, the British Aerospace EAP, which first flew on 6 August 1986. This is a good positive move for the Tempest development.
Pls stop tweeting out old articles :'( I click every tweet thinking theres been a new development but its just a link to a days old article whyyy