The Ministry of Defence has reaffirmed its commitment to maintaining crewed aircraft at the core of the UK’s air power strategy, despite rapid advances in autonomous and uncrewed systems.
Responding to a written question from Ben Obese-Jecty MP, Defence Minister Luke Pollard said the “safety of aircrew and the survivability of crewed platforms remain paramount.” Pollard’s comments were made in the context of the Strategic Defence Review 2025, which sets out the government’s long-term transformation agenda for defence.
The review, published in July, acknowledged the accelerating role of autonomy, artificial intelligence, and networked systems across the battlespace but made clear that human control and decision-making would continue to underpin the UK’s approach to air operations.
The government has accepted all 62 recommendations from the review, including those concerning future air combat integration and the balance between crewed and uncrewed capability.
Pollard noted that implementation of the recommendations “is underway” and that it will be “priority business” executed through a “whole of UK Defence effort.” He confirmed that the forthcoming Defence Investment Plan (DIP) will provide further detail on how these reforms will be delivered.
When is the defence investment plan due to be published?
They are just organising a meeting to discuss this, then an action plan will be submitted to a Virtual Unmanned commitee of digitaly created Humanoids (built for but not with brains) who will then submit their findings to Rachael in Accounts so that she can decide which pensioners/disabled groups will have to foot the Bill (or Ben) (Flobalob).
Sadly far too close to the truth.
😅👍
They are just getting all of the Cans lined up 🙄.
“Autumn 2025” so they have until 21st December (Winter).
The UK must maintain manned aircraft at the core of its fleet as it’s been completely unable to acquire a jet powered drone despite 20 years of trials, tech demonstrations and design study after design study.
There is a long list of programs with everything from Celtic gods to four letter acronyms but not a single aircraft.
And we still wait for the Defence Investment Plan to find out what the defence review actually meant.
Pre SDSR. Eagle. “Wait for the Defence Review”
Post SDSR. “Wait for the DIP”
After, we will probably be none the wiser when a vague document of waffle and repeating what has already been announced appears.
What is the betting to start us off?
I used to like waffles, then I discovered politicians. Couldn’t have put it better myself, my friend.
I went off waffles when I discovered they were Belgium and nothing decisive ever came out of Belgium.
Poirot!
and Eddie Merckx
Absolutely 💯
Not a betting man, but I think these words will appear frequently:
‘aspiration’ ‘when fiscal conditions allow’ ’10 times more lethal’ ‘drones’ ‘unmanned systems’ ‘uncrewed vessels’ ‘cyberspace’ ‘action plan’ ‘exports’
‘long term’ ‘by the next parliament’ ‘autonomous systems’ ‘AI (in the Boris Johnson voice)’
Take a look st the new article on Healey’s speech.
Of much the same mould.
So another meaningless comment, as we know, hopefully, Tempest is still coming.
So we will still need “manned” assets.
How many is the answer we want to know, of anything.
Don’t worry, Corporal Jones is being called up to re-energise our defences.
“How many” is up to the new Defence Minister rumoured to be Diane Abbott, she’s just adding two and two together before anouncing “How many”. 2️⃣➕2️⃣🟰🥜🥜🥜🥜
Clearly not a believer in drone-Jesus then. Poor form from you.
Turns 2 baskets of acronyms into enough to feed thousands of civil servants?
Give defense minister an acronym he/she can baffle the public for days
Teach him/her to make up his/her own acronyms and he/she can baffle the public forever
It all comes out the same way 💩
What happened to the “Jindivik”?
It got shot down.
When?.
tempest is crewed, the MoD just repeating for comfort …thinking we integrate usa weapons last and hoping software sorted and not F35 mess
Whatever we arm it with we need the ability to integrate, test and deploy ourselves. No more waiting for the magical mystery Block IV fairy ala F35-B.