AERALIS, a British modular military jet developer, will be showcasing its modular jet design at the DSEI 2021 defence industry show.
DSEI is taking place from Tuesday 14th September – Friday 17th September at the ExCel exhibition centre in London, and AERALIS will be exhibiting at its Stand H7-440 in the Aerospace Zone.
According to a news release from the firm:
“Rapidly developing and employing a generational leap in design toolsets, the AERALIS team will be demonstrating the model-based systems engineering approach that is enabling the team to effectively assess the aircraft performance now, in a digital test and evaluation environment, yielding significant risk reduction and programme benefits.
The AERALIS Smart Integrated Digital Enterprise will also enable fast iteration and certification of the modular aircraft design to fulfil new roles with new configurations, while unifying design and operational data to support customers in optimising their operations.”
Tristan Crawford, AERALIS CEO, said:
“We are very excited to be returning to DSEI and to exhibit our next-generation approach to aircraft design and development at our stand in the Aerospace Zone. AERALIS represents a step forward in the digitally-driven development and certification of flexible, open-architecture aircraft systems and we look forward to showcasing our cutting-edge modular approach to jet development face-to-face with industry and stakeholders at DSEI.”
Earlier in the year, Aeralis agreed a three-year contract with the Royal Air Force’s Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO) for research and development into a new modular approach to the design and development of future aircraft.
The RCO will support the requirements and design review process to gain an understanding of how AERALIS defines the ways in which agile, modular, commercially-driven aircraft design can develop and certify a broad range of future aircraft systems that could support the RAF’s ambition to rationalise its future fleet.
They have been pushing this about for a few years, but I just don’t think it will be going any further than the bean counters desk.
The MoD has made no attempt to expand the well used Hawk so just can’t see much happening in the future, except concept pictures
Would love to be proved wrong 🤔 🙄
There is venture capital, Government schemes etc. they need interest and a bit of funding as the concept looks good. The MOD do need to start pushing in-expensive kit 🤔
Why should public money be used to underwrite anything? If a producer is confident in a concept, let the market be the judge. Too much taxpayer money is thrown away on ideas. History is full of examples.
You make a good point money has been wasted in the past but is that not the nature of R&D? The issue here is that the UK Government would be the only one buying military kit in the UK and what better way to show interest in a concept (if indeed they are interested) than taking say a 20% stake.That would then encourage private finance into the financing the majority of development costs – assuming the venture capitalists feel the project might have legs. We need some competition injected into the UK military markets. Everyone benefits from that? Is it… Read more »
I kinda agree with Mark Bs comment. I agree with your sentiment BAe have sold 1000 hawks but UK government funded the t2, it appears no margin from hawk sales was return into RnD. BAe asked for a further 100m to fund the Advanced Hawk! I’ve said many times on here UK need to create defence products. However Boeing would probably not be the company it is without US government investment. So UK government should provide seed money but just like VCs it should expect robust plans to move the product forward. VCs do fail at times, so we shouldn’t… Read more »
Fair comments. However I believe in free markets with no government involvement, especially with my tax money. Look I will be honest and not being confrontational. Boxer is the latest issue, we had Nimrod, hell a host of messes right back to TSR2. Buy off of the open market, equipment that is tried and tested, preferably under combat. I like the Swiss for that and a few other countries. BaE, Boeing and others grew through being at the trough for years. Ike warned about it, the complex. Why did we end up with Apache and not Rooivalk or Mangusta? Because… Read more »
I follow your logic and have had similar experiences with feedback to command that had already made up its mind. Having said that, governments need to take a step back and for a country that sells a LOT of weapons/armaments we probably should support our home grown industries for financial reasons to an extent. Then there’s the (admittedly limited with how things operate now) ability to build our own stuff if things do go Pete Tong and we have to actually defend the nation ‘NOW’. I’m not saying we should buy into a company that is UK based, as we’ve… Read more »
End of the day it puts money into taxpayers’ pockets and drives on industry to develop.
spending its way out of a crisis USED TO BE CALLED PAINTING LAMPOSTS
The reason why is that it is not practicable in some industries to adopt a free market approach. These are industries with high initial outlay or capital costs, have a small market, involve limited numbers of very expensive products, or where the price of failure is too high to allow the free market “trial and error, sink or swim” approach. I am a huge proponent of the free market but I wouldn’t know how to apply such an approach in today’s defence environment. It was different back in say WW2 when demand was for literal thousands of fighters and one… Read more »
We need to find a HAWK replacement pretty soon. V old gear nearing expiry?
Aeralis financials for year ending 2020 showed £27k on the balance sheet and 6 employees. I’d be surprised if they could even create a viable CAD model let alone sell a jet. Fair play to them but to say they’re the underdogs would be a titanic understatement.
I’m thinking their strategy is to get funding for their R&D. Any sensible UK Government would want to see if this concept will go anywhere and will find a way of funding it. I doubt Microsoft’s balance sheet looked wonderful on the plane to license their product to IBM all those years ago. We all have to start somewhere.
Indeed, terrible 3D models.
What is that CGI image of a booth? lol. I would have liked to have seen a module Hawk. But one can dream.
The big challenge for Aeralis is to show that their theoretical approach can deliver much more affordable aircraft. Even if they manage that, they have to find a market. T7 RedHawk looks real value for money and will likely become the advanced trainer of the future. The RAF are planning to increase the use of simulators to reduce costs. Other air forces will go down the same route.
Textron’s Scorpion looked promising but still has no orders.
This model also seems much smaller than other competing jets.: T7, M346,M345, T50, all of them have dual propose including combat. This one seems to be too light. Supposedly price advantage but will not have others flexibility.
Initially Aeralis promoted this as just an adaptable trainer. Later they added light combat to possible capabilities. As you say, it seems to be smaller than current jet trainers,more Folland Gnat than Hawk.
Maybe the modular design they offer will be useful in the development of future UCAVs?
Smaller aircraft to UCAV.
Pros: Human weight and related equipment a bigger % of total weight
Cons: External weapons will add more % drag
I wasn’t thinking that the current design with external engines would be suitable for UCAVs. Rather that a reconfigurable airframe could be a way of building different versions for different roles at an affordable cost. I presume that’s why Aeralis has been given a contract by the RAF.
The that statement reads it appears to me that it is not so much the aircraft that they are pushing but the design methodology and, I assume, some kind of tool set or design environment. As such they may not need to go through the expense of actually developing an aircraft to be a successful business. Just my take on the words.
Cheers CR
Remember one of the original goals for tempest was that it would be modular and its airframe reconfigurable between missions through exchanging modules as well as field fabricating new ones. The US as well is pursuing a modular drone architecture that allows any manufacturers equipment module to plug and play with the drones ‘brain’.
Well when I read corporate gobbledegook like that it shows why politicians are so easily swayed, ie they are too thick to understand it. Just build it, without public money, then market it. If it is good it will sell. It really is that simple.
Except, it isn’t that simple is it. And If you think politicians are thick, then step up and have a go yourself.
No thanks. Wouldn’t touch the House of Commons with a barge pole. Never in the field of human conflict have so many egos spouted so much tripe for the benefit of so few.
Never in the field of human existence has a truer word been written 🙂
Perhaps part of the issue is that good people are unwilling to become politicians because they are unwilling to put themselves and their families through the atrocious abuse that they receive from some parts of the public and media? so you are left with a cohort of people who don’t need to worry about it because they have backing from a tight circle.
Or they can’t sign up to working in a system where lies are common place and backstabbing is how you make your way to the top… Some people morally can’t do that. I for instance resigned from a Government agency as I could not work for a place that wasted so much taxpayers money… It seemed immoral to me so I left. There is a reason many politicians come from the Eton set. They are taught to backstab and cheat their way to the top. This makes them best placed to become politicians. Imagine being a honest person that can’t… Read more »
There are good people in politics. The Duke of Wellington persuaded the Lord’s to repeal the corn laws which had imposed starvation on the Irish. William Wilberforce worked tirelessly for 20 years as an MP to abolish slavery. History might record Boris Johnson as a reformer. I think his Covid brush with the Grim Reaper might have been some sort of Damascene conversion. Certainly many policies of the conservative government could be described as social democrat. That’s why they are hated by the Telegraph, why the Labour party is impotent and why the knives are out in the southern constituencies… Read more »
Saying things and doing things are very different. For instance he has indeed said he is building 48 new hospitals… That is not actually happening though. He has also said he is serious about the environment, but he has then signed off to Blue Hydrogen which is terrible for the environment but is a favourite of the fossil fuel industry. Boris is really good at not telling the truth. Remember he was a journalist and was sacked for being dishonest! He also made up the common lie that the EU banned bent Bananas. He has also lied in Parliament a… Read more »
Well, Boris is certainly not a traditional conservative MP. Actually I suspect these days Carrie is in charge.
i dont think she knows which way is up,
I don’t think Dominic Cummins would agree with you. Worth remembering that a young married woman with cubs is essentially a human lioness…at the peak of her survival powers. Dangerous.
The 48 Hospitals is actually correct, but it doesn’t mention that 30 are replacement hospitals, for ones that were built badly in the 1st instance. they all lie/cheat/backstab. is a government office trait. tends to be why they have so many consultants employed, who dont play that game
It is not true at all. One of them has just been opened. It was not a new hospital it was a new unit at an existing hospital. However Sajid Javid hailed it as one of the new hospitals. It is like saying you have a new house when you have had a loft extension…
MOST LACK THE DESIRE OF THERE OWN SELF IMPORTANCE its a trait of being a nice person, something MPs fail at.
Not all politicians are thick. Mine is though… He can’t understand basic physics, maths, or common sense… He has just signed up to a parliamentary report that is climate denial and contains massively obvious calculation issues. Even my 10 year old spotted one of them!
There’s not much physics maths or common sense in the latest IPCC report.
Using the word ” denial” gives the game away. Climate change is a quasi religious belief system
that suppresses heretics and would probably burn them if a carbon neutral method could be found.
Lol. Go on then show me an example of this quasi religious information. (Also you know it is possible to “deny” truth? I am not sure what about the word “denial” suggest religion…)
Nope… Didn’t think you would…
Denial is the term used to denigrate those who question the data used and/ or the conclusions drawn. Galileo was forced to deny the heliocentric nature of the solar system to preserve an erroneous religious belief.
True science is always questioning and re examining existing theories. Only in climate science do we see an attempt to marginalise and silence those who do not accept the current orthodoxy.
That is how religions behave.
You are totally correct on the science front. But totally wrong on the denial front. Denial is a term used for those that simply deny the facts. They either make no attempt to provide evidence to back up their claims or try to manipulate the laws of physics in order to attempt to prove their claims. Those that actually provide verifiable and repeatable evidence to prove a particular theory are not deniers they are scientists .
You have not provided any evidence for your wild claim. I would put you solidly in the denial camp.
And how do they build it without the capital to do so?
This company is small, tiny, not a massive corporation like BAE who can afford to build an aircraft and it not be adopted.
They need the capital investment to get it off the ground- literallly and figuratively!
they will design and out source, imagine going into production with a F1 Team
Pointless, exercise as there is a glut of new fast jet trainers on or due to the market, better to purchase a ready developed product rather than waste development costs. it doesnt look right as a trainer ITS DAMED UGLY. The Boeing or the Leonardo look better and each company has production in the UK. BAEs cannot be bothered so let the lose work.
They have the advantage though of being wholly British; something that might be a winning consideration when the time comes to replace the Hawks of the Red Arrows.
As an aside, I recall that the de Havilland Mosquito was dismissed as being to radical – after all, who wins wars with an aircraft made out of balsa wood and built by furniture makers? And look how that went….
Not very well in the Far East I was told…termites ate the wood.
how dare you the mosquito was a brilliant aircraft.
i am only joking btw
The concept looks promising but is so desperately reliant on funding from hitherto unsecured sources as to be squarely on the back foot right from the outset. They need a step up to get off the ground, whether that should be MOD led is a matter of opinion but I suspect without that level of support it’s going to be difficult for them to gain any ground.
How much of the following could be added to these AERALIS aircraft? Meteor BVR missiles IRIS-T short-range missiles (can also shoot down AAMs and SAMs) GaN AESA radar An IRST system like PIRATE The Arexis EW pod to make the aircraft harder to detect and engage The AN/ALE-55 towed decoy to thwart radar-guided missiles The BriteCloud expendable DRFM decoy to thwart radar-guided missiles A DIRCM system to thwart IR-guided missiles Smart expendable IR decoys (not flares) Chaff & flares Could a variant also be built with the GlobalEye AEW&C/EW system? Are these aircraft capable of landing on and taking off… Read more »