The UK’s first fleet of uncrewed fighter aircraft is one step closer to reality following the award of a £30 million contract to design and manufacture a prototype in a three-year deal supporting more than 100 jobs in Belfast.

According to the Royal Air Force, the uncrewed combat aircraft will be designed to fly at high-speed alongside fighter jets, armed with missiles, surveillance and electronic warfare technology to provide a battle-winning advantage over hostile forces.

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“Known as a ‘loyal wingman’, these aircraft will be the first uncrewed platforms able to target and shoot down enemy aircraft and intercept surface to air missiles.
In a boost for Northern Ireland’s defence industry, Spirit AeroSystems have been selected to lead Team MOSQUITO in the next phase of the project.”

Team MOSQUITO, which also includes Northrop Grumman UK, will mature the designs and manufacture a technology demonstrator to generate evidence for a follow-on LANCA programme. If successful, Project Mosquito’s findings could lead to this revolutionary capability being deployed alongside the Typhoon and F-35 Lightning jets by the end of the decade.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, Chief of the Air Staff said:

“We’re taking a revolutionary approach, looking at a game-changing mix of swarming drones and uncrewed fighter aircraft like Mosquito, alongside piloted fighters like Tempest, that will transform the combat battlespace in a way not seen since the advent of the jet age.”

A full-scale vehicle flight-test programme is expected by the end of 2023.

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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114 COMMENTS

  1. Mosquito

    Excellent choice for a project name. They swarm, they just keep on coming, knock em down and more take their place, and they are really annoying!

    And its also a good shout towards the legendary fighter bomber from WW2 as well.

  2. Ironic, isn’t it? The Whitehall “drones” buying more? Still, if the designers can make them work they’re a force multiplier all right!

    • Couldn’t the Australian loyal wingmen design be adopted for licence production?

      Seems like we are about to chuck away money reinventing the wheel here, I would cut a corner here to keep maximum money and effort for the Tempest platform itself.

      It would be a good opportunity to further and deepen our defence ties after the success of T26.

      A wider question, I assume, for all the talk of collaboration with France on such high tech aviation projects 10 years ago, can we assume Anglo French cooperation in this area is now dead and buried?

      It’s such a shame that Anglo French technology collaboration in such areas has stopped. I get the impression that shared British/French interests, have been snuffed out, in favour of wider EU interests.

      • Maybe we have different requirements to the Australian system. How many would moan we can’t produce our own in house developed loyal wingman capability. It’s good for our own industry and jobs, and for developing future systems in this area.

          • Highly unlikely, carrier capability would massively complicate the design and put the unit price through the roof…

          • Maybe: but the tech might be transplantable into another platform?

            As someone else pointed out further down the thread the Turks have allegedly got a UAV that can fly off their Canberra class effort so that airframe should work on a QEC.

        • Loyal wingman is effectively Gen1.

          Also we do have the know how and ability to make a whole fighter jet: which AUS doesn’t. We can currently make most of the complicated bits in the UK: Typhoon (lots of), F35 (specific manufactures bits), Harrier (parts for USMC), wings for all sorts of aircraft.

          We have our own sovereign airborne radar and avionics capabilities.

          There may be commonality with AUS: it may be that we see things very differently.

          Who knows until there is some flesh on the bones?

          • Whilst we haven’t designed and built a combat aircraft here in Oz for many many decades, for many reasons too, It doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of technical knowledge involved in this project.

            Boeing Australia (the largest Boeing operation outside of the US), Boeing Phantom Works Australia, BAE Systems Australia, are all major players in the project here.

            I’m sure they have access to all that is required from their parent organisations when required too.

          • I’m not trying to diminish AUS tech and capabilities which are very good.

            I wish we had the AUS Hunter factory approach here in the UK.

            However, there is a big difference in designing the whole thing and making most of it.

            I forgot the other bit which is RR so we do sovereign propulsion as well.

          • Boeing Australia is mainly a commercial office, they do have a couple of subsidaries that do aerostructures mainteanance and reconditioning too, and I think they manufacture wing flaps.

          • No word yet what they might be named, it will probably end up being an Aboriginal name, same as a lot of previous local aircraft designs.

            Just have to wait and see.

          • Yeah exactly, I’m sure we will end up with a very capable system, as you pointed out, we have all the technical capability in this country.

        • I’m all for in house development when applicable, but as Tempest will be a ‘system of systems’, I would rather keep core project money focused on the manned platform and engage with a collaborative effort with the Australians re the loyal wingman.

          As has been correctly pointed out though, politics comes into play here re Northern Ireland and as Sydney Camm always said, ” there are four forces at work with military aircraft, thrust, lift, drag and politics”!

          Always the way, projects get steadily dragged off course due to regional political considerations, Tempest will be no different….

          • As I state above this will be intimately linked into Tempest so much tech will be interchangeable and compatible with close liaison between them whatever comes out of both. At this stage I am not convinced trying to tie the Australian project into it would be efficient or particularly cost effective the whole performance, stealth considerations, sensors communications and more of this loyal wingman will need to work seamlessly with Tempest otherwise Tempest itself will have limitations set upon its operational parameters whatever its strict capabilities are in and of itself.
            Another big issue in that regard would therefore be a serious amount of UK originating tech, research and intellectual property would inevitably have to be shared with Australian based companies and US subsidiaries there over which there would undoubtedly be concerns. Dealing with British based companies subsidiary or otherwise would at least be safer from leakage.

      • I hope the MOD/RAF don’t cock it up again by trying to over specify it and finish with another outdated solution as it needs lots of bespoke development which just compromises basic capability and takes years longer to develop as the investment funds just are not available. I know the RAAF and RAF are in regular discussion on areas of common interest with common equipment I hope this is another one.

      • Bang for buck should be considered. Australia bought into type 26 why not go loyal wingman? Other opportunities abound with Australia developing sovereign missile capabilities that the UK could join. Brexit is now a reality, why not schmooze up to commonwealth partners – Oz & Canada et al?

      • The French are the French. Always want to be Primus inter Pares if you know what I mean. Difficult to live with that, unless its been officially accorded them.

      • I think it would have been a good idea had we initiated it together (strange that wasn’t considered) but to simply buy whatever product they have produced with Boeing would be short sighted:
        1) as we have found with other drone acquisitions the Australian requirements can be very different to our own though that in itself may not be a deal breaker it’s probably a bit late to take our needs into the overall design parameters.
        2) We have to look ahead here, and this technology is going to be eventually the biggest military aviation market sector at some stage, so it would be shortsighted to cop out at the beginning when it seems relatively small and simply buy off the shelf. It would likely mean catch up at best and permanent customer over creator in the future costing us skills, future partner status, exports and technology development. As much of this technology will overlap with Tempest that would neither make sense or probably save much in budget either certainly. It in terms of what would be lost if we gave up design initiative and the flexibility and weight it gives you in this sector.

    • Yes. £30 Million is for developing a prototype, not a complete operational system. First you need to design the flying vehicle, all the fancy systems will come later.

      • I think we all know this won’t lead to anything in service, and we will end up buying off the shelf US drones. The question is whether the research will bring other advantages over time, such as using on other tech or money through patents.

    • Why three years? That’s an unfeasibly short time, bearing in mind that R&D has to come first, then production capability.

      • Everyone is moving towards the iPhone model of development. Big bang developments quickly get superseded. We can get something down now, with an open architecture and we can continuously improve it without too much hassle – I think that’s the plan anyway.

        • At least someone understands how it works these days, it’s changed massively in recent years, the Australian example has been developed extremely quickly, because design CAD technology and especially 3D printing allows for extremely quick prototyping now to create the basic vehicle (hell the US are claiming a new stealth 6th gen fighter prototype in under 5 years not that I believe that). However taking it all to a finished in service machine is an entirely different matter and this 3 year contract reflects that staged reality.

          • It is a different world from wind tunnel testing, with smoke blown in, to running an early incremental computer simulation to (now) running dynamic interactive simulations.

            You can then 3D print most of it, at least for prototype stages.

            Given you don’t have the safety considerations for a test pilot you can “Move fast and break things”

            Can we actually test fly the prototypes anywhere near where we can manufacture them?

      • Drones are a rapidly maturing technology. Pulling together the various ‘bits’ into a complete system is not trival obviously, but many of the building blocks are already in place e.g. collision avoidance systems.

        I also suspect that the company may have been doing development work with internal and external funding below the media radar. Reading between the lines this contract appears to be building on that initial level of work so I would suggest that there is has already been a few years of R&D undertaken.

        Cheers CR

        • Yes the tread in no agile, get something working quickly then add capability. It fly early fail early and prevent expensive mistakes later in the program.

          • Move fast and break things. Springs to mind.

            Although need to avoid the other tech aphorism

            Fake it until you make it!

        • Indeed this is not just starting now it’s just an official announcement of taking the work to a complete prototype based on all that previous work.

  4. Great news for F35 and possibly Typhoon, though they talk here about Tempest, and in combination with Mini Cruise, this is very encouraging for UK defence companies.

    • Hi maurice10,

      I agree with you it would be a very good way to significantly increase the Typhoon force’s capability and F35 when shore based. Not sure what would need to happen to enable these drones to fly off the carriers, though.

      I find the focus on Tempest encouraging as it suggests a lot of high level support for the project.

      Cheers CR

      • Hello Chariotrider, the ghost of TSR2 still lingers, especially as the Tempest programme is virtually all British.

        This new Mosquito and the Mini Cruise could revolutionise how the RAF functions in the future? We could possibly see fewer manned fighters and greatly increased fleets of remote aircraft. The only issue with such developments, is the total viability of manufacturing manned aircraft? Maybe all future manned fighters will be sourced from just one or two global manufactures?

        One cautionary note, if that becomes the way forward, could the UK be one of the suppliers? We once dominated the aero industry and there is no reason why we can’t become a principal manufacture in the future. Tempest will need to be the best aircraft available but could also be very expensive? However, if fewer manned planes are required, the unit costs may be worth paying for? Such a proposition is only viable if an unmanned Tempest version is only bought in very small numbers, or else, the cost model of mixed manned and remote vehicles could be financially flawed? Balancing the mixed costs will be critical, and that won’t be an easy task both politically and financially. P.S. my assumptions are predicated on the theory that remote vehicles are significantly cheaper than manned ones???

  5. I thought Loyal wingman was a Boeing concept for the RAAF it certainly looks similar to the prototype being test in Australia, are we being Chinese and reverse engineering this drone? ?

    • Yes. £30 Million is for developing a prototype, not a complete operational system. First you need to design the flying vehicle, all the fancy systems will come later.

    • I think it’s an imaginary drawing based on current thinking on the subject just as Tempest renderings,dummies are ideas based on some long standing aerodynamic thinking on next stage aerodynamics. Of course we only know current thinking when it’s already potentially yesterday’s so most of these designs tend to have similarities superficially.

  6. Interesting news.

    As an Australian it’s a bit of a pity the UK appears not to be joining our Loyal Wingman program.

    Our respective air forces will be operating F-35, E-7A and P-8A, why not the same Loyal Wingman too?

    We’re procuring our version of T26 to be built here in Oz, but each ship will contain UK sourced equipment, the same could also apply to a joint Loyal Wingman procurement.

    You would think with the UK having left the EU, building stronger defence industrial relationships would also lead to more two way General trade between our two nations.

    Anyway, ‘our’ Loyal Wingman will shortly start flight testing, the first of three prototypes:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uUR9Cj-aZVA

    Cheers,

    • Spirit Aerostructures was originally part of Boeing and just makes the hard structures. It has no aircraft design, UAV skills or avionics etc. operations. This announcement makes no comment of who is designing and manufacturing all of these crucial elements. The lack of any apparent BAE involvement and the use of Spirit suggests that Boeing might be heavily involved and thus commonality with the Aussie programme on that basis is therefore highly likely.

    • I don’t know. I think we’d all like to have seen a bit more joined up thinking in this domain. Would make good sense to have partnered with Australia. I am wondering though if the problem is a reliance on Boeing? Perhaps we are trying to build a more sovereign capability independent of the US in this regard. Tempest needs to be sufficiently European and not dependent on US technology to be a marketable alternative to French, German and Spanish offerings as well as future US products. Just a thought.

    • No offence intended to Australia. My take is that having left the EU the United Kingdom is now having to address the existential threat from the SNP and Sinn Fein.
      Brexit border bureaucracy has encouraged the forces of separation.
      Babcock’s investment in Rosyth, H&W resurrection by InfraStrata and Navantia and the choice of Spirit in NI for a sovereign ‘loyal wingman’ are very likely HMG sponsored and supported projects intended to shore up support for the Union.
      And as other posters have pointed out we do have the full portfolio of skills necessary to design and build a good product. We can and should be a leader in this area.

      • While I don’t disagree that both the SNP and Sinn Fein can be considered a threat to the union, I would also consider this same move from another angle: The UK government has an obligation to encourage/develop industry and jobs for all corners of the union, not just look after the needs of London’s financial sector. Defence is a great way of doing this. I appreciate that Scotland sees a lot of naval investment, and I’ve no problem with that (I just wish the SNP would stop pretending that they don’t..), but Northern Ireland in general has been desperately in need of investment for some time- same with Wales and the north of England (and west, to be fair).

        • Indeed, for me the issue is the return on mindset which I think governs centrally taken decisions. If you do your capital investment justification by considering only its effect on exchequer tax income then you invest your money in London and the South East…until you choke the area to death: a divisive and unsustainable longterm strategy.
          What you should do is invest in national infrastructure and people and then have faith. A motorway is nearing construction which will put the people of Derry less than an hour from jobs in Belfast. Better late than never I suppose.

    • I think the simple answer to your question is that these will be built and designed to work with Tempest rather than the F35Bs which will be mainly carrier operated. There are rumours of an ‘A’ variant buy, but that seems unlikely given budget constraints.

      So as it will likely be a wingman to Tempest it would be better to build it with that in mind ourselves.

      • There is also the issue that with Tempest we will own all of the software and so we will be able to interface it as we please.

        Whereas with F35 we are limited in what we are allowed to do.

        So it might be that we actually have our UK wingman connected to Tempest and Typhoon and but not F35. Which is another reason not to buy F35A.

        Don’t know anything special: just speculating. Sometimes the decisional factors are simply the most obvious things.

        • Indeed. It actually makes no sense at all to try and design something to work with Tempest and F35. I cannot imagine for second that we will buy the F35A either, enough ‘B’s for the carriers yes, but ‘A’s for the RAF not a chance. Tempest and its loyal wing men are the RAF’s future.

      • Missed opportunity I agree but far too late now other than certain systems and non critical tech I suspect especially as a different US company is involved in this compared to the Oz version. That’s a bit of a statement in itself on this issue I reckon. Boeing may just be paying for its effective dismantling of Shorts and the NI Connection here just might be the pointer to not wanting to reward them.

  7. I must be wide of the mark but I’d have thought that a ‘command’ aircraft to control a load of drones/unmanned aircraft would need to have a couple guys working the ‘Xbox’s’ and be bigger than a fighter.

    • This is something that interests me too. Typhoon and Lightning are both single seater aircraft. How busy is the pilot going to be if he has drones to control alongside flying and fighting his/her own aircraft?

      • In December 2020, the USAF had a demonstration flight in which an F-22 and an F-35 conducted a flight with a semi-autonomous Valkyrie drone. The Valkyrie is one of the candidates for the USAF’s own “Wingman” program named Skyborg. The USAF gave contracts to three companies to have a Skyborg prototype available in May 2021 with flight tests beginning in July.
        The USAF’s emerging Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) intends to have all of its surveillance and attack platforms being able to communicate with each other. The USAF is confident that the F-35 and F-22 will have no problem controlling any ‘wingmen”.

        • I believe the same concept is planned to be used by the RAAF too, having Loyal Wingman operating not only with F-35A, F/A-18F or EA-18G, but also with E-7A, P-8A, escorting KC-30A tankers, etc, too.

      • That’s where the AI.comes in but I also note from elsewhere that external control via cooperative means is being considered if a second man is deemed advantageous and secure links can be maintained. But I suspect 2nd and 3rd gens will see the true potential.

    • These drones will not be “flown” remotely as is Predator. They will fly autonomously. The Tempest pilot will issue tactical commands and the drone will do the rest e.g. “go there and tell me what you can detect & target”.

      • Aye, I ‘get’ that but data will still need to be processed and I’m assuming some interaction between the pilot/operator and the ‘wingman’ or two. Especially if things start getting ‘shooty’ and there will be more missiles about the place.

        I’m sure greater minds than mine have thought it all through.

        • Indeed as I said above external input from a variety of sources is in fact under consideration I am sure this is something prototypes will help to assess.

  8. Excellent.

    End of the decade though?

    What of 216 Sqn and the swarming drones, I take it that is a different, smaller system, as we had read of the previous DS talking of deployment imminently.

    • Hi Daniele, I think so, yes.
      I think 216 Sqn and the swarms will likely take shape around those news reports that the MOD is looking at lower cost “attritable” drones. This just means kit that is intended to be used again and again, but cheap enough that you’re not going to lose sleep over it. The Protectors are too expensive for this, they’re looking at something like the Turkish drones that have had so much success in Syria, Libya, and Nagorno Karabakh (not sure if I spelled that properly…)- they lost quite a few but they’re effective and cheap enough to be replaceable.
      These Loyal wingmen will be a step above, from everything that’s being said about them.

  9. I would love to see the Mosquito name back in RAF service. Thrilled that we’re looking at an indigenous effort too rather than importing from Boeing

  10. Good to see investment into future tech for the armed forces. I noticed some comments about the possibility to develop a version for the carriers. In many ways I agree with this there is a question though that I don’t understand. Turkey has the Anka UAV very much akin to the MQ-1 Predator which will operate from their LHD which is based on th the same design as the Aussie Canberra. So if the Turks can land one or plan to land on their LHD why can’t we land one on our QE. Just thinking out loud.
    As for the name well my most loved aircraft of all time, pity we do not have one with the BBMF

  11. The redeeming feature of this contract is that the MOD aren’t managing it themselves. I’m tempted to say “Here we go again” trying to develop independently of other nations and consortia which will lead to yet another set of headlines in 2023 about a “waste of public money”. It’s hard not to be cynical but since the late 50’s how many ideas, proposals and prototypes have there been which once the cost is published become political footballs and end up being cancelled. I think I must be getting old because instead of positive excitement at this contract I can only see the downsides!

    • Reinventing what though? In its most basic form, it is a simple radio controlled aircraft. The aircraft design is perhaps the simplest part of the build and development. The complicated part is designing the autonomy. This is unfortunately the future. At some point the prediction of the 1957 Duncan Sandys Whitepaper will come to fruition, whereby frontline manned aircraft will become a thing of the past. Therefore, is it not right as a forward thinking Industrial Nation, that we should be at the forefront of unmanned aircraft development?

      The RAF are already leaning this way, as the Tempest is supposed to be a manned/unmanned design. Could this be the last manned frontline fighter and interdiction type aircraft? probably, but I think close air support is still some way off though.

      We are already in the lead with regards to swarming technology. As a civilian example, just look at the drone swarm that was used for the London New Year celebrations. Both DSTl and Qinetiq have numerous technical papers on the development and intercommunications that control the swarm.

      BAe and Qinetiq have been teaming up with Universities to further develop aircraft design, through 3D printing and new memory skin technology. BAe are investigating the use of “blown air” to replace conventional flying controls.

      Then there’s Rolls Royce, who are undoubtedly the leading aero engine designer and producer outside of the US. There are exciting times ahead, with developments such as variable cycle engines, centralised internal generator, new blade material and construction techniques. Along with funding development of Reaction Engines.

      When you combine all these systems within an airframe, it is understandable that the UK should be looking at developing this type of UAV. We should be able to produce a World beating product. However, we must make sure it doesn’t become a political football, but part of a long term strategic plan.

      • Thanks. A very thorough and thoughtful response. Very Grateful. I too remember the 1957 Whitepaper and the debate throughout the fifties and sixties about the end of “manned flight” and the eventual spread of missile warfare which would negate using regular fighter and bomber aircraft. The debate in “Air Pictorial” and other magazines raged on for years. AI and Remote Control is in the near future but my only fear is that we’ll have uninformed or financially driven politicians making the decisions. That is probably more of a threat than any prospective aggressor but when was than not ever the case? Regards.

      • The following is a really good observation that seems to be often overlooked – “The aircraft design is perhaps the simplest part of the build and development. The complicated part is designing the autonomy.”

        I think I’d go one step further and say that a similar observation applies to manned aircraft too, replacing autonomy with a broader software development component. As an example, we might consider how early F-35 flew before getting to IOC and we still aren’t where we want to be on software with F-35 today. It might be two full decades after the initial flight of the F-35A in 2006 by the time we get Block 4 UK weapons support.

        Conversely we might consider how quickly the new USAF advanced trainer, the Boeing/Saab T-7 Red Hawk has been developed; being held up as an example of using modern rapid development techniques. The US NGAD program along with the UK’s Tempest program seem to be using similar fast development techniques but the software will be the critical development path.

        • I agree, with today’s computational fluid dynamics software we are about 95 to 97% certain of the airflow characteristics of how a aircraft flies and responds to control movements and dynamic wind disturbances. So as I said the designing the aircraft is the easy part. The decision on how to build the aircraft will come down to production costs and how quickly the “client” requires it. Even with the legacy metal bashing and riveting, you can produce a clean sheet design really quickly. The hiccup comes when you want to put things in it and then have access, without disturbing the structural integrity of the thing.

          For something like the Predator, there is very little additional systems and it is mostly an empty tube with wings attached. You have a satellite data link, fuel tank, pumps, engine and digital control, a set of warning strobe and navigation lights, then the feed to the Electro-Optic turret. Then there is the air data computer which feeds the combined inertial navigation and GPS platform. It may or may not have wiring for wing hardpoints. When you then look at making it more autonomous you need to add a traffic collision avoidance system, perhaps its own warning radar. So what started of as something quite simple, ends up being quite complicated ala Watchman.

          The Loyal Wingman concept is a further step in development. How much autonomy should it have? It will by law have a man in the loop to control the firing of weapons. The parameters of flying a preset number of waypoints as part of a patrol is as per Predator, or flying in concert with another aircraft is relatively quite simple, if they have a two way datalink. The issues arise at “first contact”, who does what and when? This is where the time and effort will go. In some respects it’s much like the control laws used by an aircraft’s automatic flight control system. The aircraft is programed to operate between set parameters. Its response to outside events, such as wind shear or gusts are factored in to return the aircraft to its straight and level neutrality or continue part of a coordinated turn. However, giving it the autonomy to aerobatically dodge a missile, or activate and dispense countermeasures is going to be interesting.

          Brimstone and Spear 3 have a network swarm capability, to make sure they don’t duplicate targets. So it’s easy to extrapolate how a pair of Loyal Wingmen teamed with a manned fighter would operate in this regard, as each communicates with each other and with the pilot making the final decision or overriding the autonomous decision.

          Let’s not kid ourselves. The Loyal Wingman aircraft will not be a cheap alternative to a manned version. The development costs alone will be nearly as high as say a new Typhoon. However, the offset being, you don’t need as many pilot’s to work with or fly them. Exciting times ahead methinks!

          • “Let’s not kid ourselves. The Loyal Wingman aircraft will not be a cheap alternative to a manned version”

            Nobody is kidding themselves. The name of the program should give you a clue. It’s being developed as an add on not a stand alone system. As for development costs being the same as a new Typhoon, don’t be so daft.

          • I am not talking about the early prototype, but the singing all dancing version. But then it depends on how the aircraft is going to be kitted out. Will it have “good enough” sensors or top of the range stuff like those fitted to Typhoon/F35 etc, i.e. AESA radar, an IRST, a fully integrated DAS, integrated navigation attack computer etc? Granted the development costs of these systems are already paid for if we buy off the shelf and use Typhoon systems. However, integrating them into a new autonomous aircraft is going to throw up all kinds of issues. £100 million is probably a bit low, especially if we use Watchkeeper as an example.

          • Sorry I misunderstood your reply, I thought you were saying the development costs would be the same as Typhoon’s development costs (umpty billion) not the price of one production Typhoon.

      • Indeed we have to remember that the Turkish drones that decimated the Armenian forces and the Russians were Unable to neutralise were developed and produced in about 5 years because the US refused to sell them their alternatives. It’s simply how Complex and intelligent you want to make these things.

        • Or, how you can simplify complex systems with clarity of thought?

          Often the design and engineering thought process over complicates and slows because you attempt to incorporate all the previous thinking rather than use a reductionist principle of what is the minimum that is needed.

    • But when uk has gone alone ( or lead) in technology development it has become increasingly successful. Think ASRAAM, BRIMSTONE, METEOR, SPEAR 3, MERLIN etc.

        • Partly agree. First priority is to ensure mission success. On the commercial side the sale to third parties could always be better but the technical success of many of these solutions has allowed significant commercial benefit in development cost avoidance and/ or the procuring of alternatives from others. ASRAAM has resulted in relatively cost effective development of CAMM which is enjoying export success Brimstone has allowed significantly reduced airframe costs for given punch and has led to a relatively lower cost path to Spear3 etc.

    • At one point, Taranis was the single most technically advance project the UK had ever undertaken, apparently. Even more so than Astute and QE so I guess there will be a big part of all that included in this project too….. hope they swap the Engine though…….

  14. Dont get too excited people, its just development of a technology demonstrator not a finished article. The technologies and concepts will then feed back into the LANCA programme which is part of Tempest.

  15. With Combat Air being halved over the last decade this is a welcome development. The Aussies seem to be using their loyal wingman with two seater Hornets. Are any of the two seater Typhoons left in RAF service or did they all get they all get Cannibalised for ‘Reduce to produce’. Surely the workload of operating Mosquito from a single seat aircraft will be tricky and we dont need our latest and greatest aircraft if we have attritable drones in support.

    Hopefully the investment leads to some operational capability: I’m still not sure why we havent got any Taranis derived drones in / nearing service yet….

    • The Americans seem closest to getting that sort of vehicle into service though both Russia and China have prototypes I note. I think making demonstrators is the easy part, perfecting it and developing a use scenario that adds up are the difficult bit. Trouble is that this sort of platform is developing so quickly and quite diversely that deciding if and when to pull the trigger to produce service versions is difficult to ascertain and cost dictates the US and China can afford to risk that well beyond countries like ours most of the time.
      How would we actually use Taranis if we had it now I wonder I understand a loyal wingman far better at present. That said Taranis types may prove crucial by the thirties I still think they are trying to work it out.

  16. With regards to a single pilot controlling these loyal wingmen, then I guess a massive dollop of AI will be involved.
    If you’ve ever played Call Of Duty in single player mode, you have have a band of loyal “wingmen” accompanying you through the levels. If you stop and think , they hang around waiting with you , if you point them in the right direction, they unleash hell in the direction you send them, while you outflank the opposition, while they kamikaze onwards. If you want your team back with you, you click a button and they give up sacrificing themselves or giving you covering fire and come back to you. You battle on and your buddies keep up and help, defend or charge forward at your command. You don’t really think about them, you just make sure they are going in the right direction occasionally and helping you out when you need them.

    I guess if their only mission is to fly alongside you and automatically jump in front of any missiles heading your way that you’ve missed, that’s a result in itself.

  17. This sounds exciting but more like a decade away before it’s In service and likely part of Tempest. I would much prefer In the short term we had a QEC carriers have drone capabilities for surveillance and engagements or build a helicopter carrier that host drones too.
    The Turkish Canberra class style carrier will be the world first drone carrier as one mentioned before able to carry new TB3 drones and Akinci long range drones, and have autonomous low radar detection long range speed boats with anti ship missiles acting as force multiplier communicating with drones in the air and frigates .

    • The QE’s with F-35’s massively overmatch the Turkish effort so you are worrying needlessly.

      And these Loyal Wingman/LANCA drones will be operating from the UK carriers. The challenges in so doing are significant but not show stoppers. The light weight of the drones make the problems a lot simpler.

  18. Taranis
    What happened to the Taranis project and knowledge….. Does this belong to MOD/RAF or have BAE taken it….
    thanks Ian

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