QinetiQ has successfully trialled the UK’s first Crewed-Uncrewed-Teaming demonstration between a crewed aircraft and an autonomous jet drone.

The trial – which took place in collaboration with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), the Royal Navy and the Air and Space Warfare Centre (ASWC) – saw a QinetiQ jet aircraft take off from Ministry of Defence (MOD) site Boscombe Down in Salisbury, while a modified Banshee Jet 80 drone was launched from the MOD Hebrides range, off the north-west coast of Scotland.

Flying from Boscombe to the Hebrides, the aircraft soon gained control of the Banshee, with the drone receiving its orders from the aircraft before automatically conducting the mission assignment, flying at 350 knots.

The mission was completed not only by the live Banshee but also a number of digital Banshees within a live-virtual swarm, successfully acting in a co-ordinated manner.

The Banshee was equipped with QinetiQ’s Airborne Command and Control for Swarm Interoperable Missions (ACCSIOM) technology, which allows the drone to communicate with the crewed aircraft using the same messaging format as the standard NATO Link 16 datalink. Instrumental to the deployment of autonomous air platforms, the technology provides an airborne gateway which can receive and translate both long range and short range communications between drones while in-built safety systems can override the autonomy to ensure the drone stays at all times within a safe operating area.

The success of this trial demonstrates that the combination of Crewed and Uncrewed Teaming between current front line combat aircraft and next generation drones can be potentially achieved successfully with the existing combat air fleet, while offering the potential to increase combat capability in an affordable manner.

Alan Hart, Managing Director Science & Technology, QinetiQ said:

“This transformative trial is a great example of collaboration and technology leadership in aviation defence capability, as we seek to meet the ever-changing requirements of those on the front line. It represents a significant advance in developing technologies that will allow uncrewed systems to operate seamlessly with current aircraft, providing the basis for air operations for the next twenty years.”

Minister for Defence Procurement, James Cartlidge said:

“Our Armed Forces strive to be at the cutting-edge of technology. The ability to team crewed and uncrewed systems is an important step forward in our ability to seize the opportunities inherent across drones. Using British engineering expertise, this successful trial is another excellent example of what happens when the MOD and industry experiment and test hand-in-hand – a core approach in our UK Defence Drone Strategy and Integrated Procurement Model.”

Peter Stockel, Dstl’s Chief for Robotic and Autonomous Systems said:

“This UK first paves the way in de-risking the barriers to adopt autonomous systems through advancing autonomy capabilities that are easier to integrate and also address regulatory requirements. The project has been about ‘teaming’ throughout, not only for the crewed-uncrewed technologies and their integration, but also as an exemplar of MOD, Dstl, QinetiQ and other industry partners working collaboratively to accelerate advanced autonomy research and development for operational advantage at pace through more open and agile approaches and real world experimentation.”

Commodore Steve Bolton, Deputy Director Aviation Programmes & Futures, said:

“I am delighted with the results of this trial. The development of Crewed–Uncrewed Teaming, as one of the Royal Navy’s many aviation transformation initiatives, seeks to embrace the onset of autonomy and Human Machine Teaming, to expand our aviation combat mass and operational advantage at sea.”

This flight trial is part of the UK’s Accelerating Air Autonomy Capability Experimentation (A3CE) R&D programme and is the culmination of a year’s planning and development activity by QinetiQ and Dstl that has seen a series of synthetic and flight de-risking trials, assessment and testing.

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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89 COMMENTS

    • Yes. I like the Banshee, surely has development potential and available now for larger scale almost fill sized testing. I wonder if the quite short catapult runway has a big bearing on its range/,carrying capacity,?
      We should get 24 new two- seater typhoons for SEAD and UAV control purposes.
      Not sure that one man in an aircraft can successfully orchestrate a bunch of drones and fly the aircraft/maintain good tactical and situational awareness?
      AA

      • I have exactly the same concern about overloading single pilots.
        Banshee may make a good first step, potentially with ISR and EW payloads, but I’m not sure it can carry enough to be a full fat loyal wingman. As you say, a good development path though.
        My other concern with it is how it’s recovered- all well and good parachuting down for recovery, but turnaround to getting it ready to go must take a long time- especially if it splashed in the water. Fine for a testing and target drone, not so good when you’re trying to maintain a tempo of operations. In some combat scenarios, you may not even have the opportunity to be recovering them at all.

      • Orchestration is automated by AI, the crew simply define the mission profile, drones do test without needed C2. Can be done from ground too, so no need for crewed platform at all.

          • Indeed Ai is progressing at such a rate currently any order for 2 seat Typhoons would be almost totally redundant, putting it optimistically. As said only if control from ground became totally inoperable would it within 5 years have even a secondary back up role to Ai support to a pilot.

          • Today of all days there was a programme on Drone AI and its use in swarm attacks and with learning a Drone swarm would start off programme too hit either a hard target or a Person with its ability too learn when would it start its own targeting free from human input there has to be a code of ethics with these new inventions

          • Sorry @spyinthesky, AI is not yet advanced enough to carry missions on its own and make changes as needed. To achieve this level of capability, AI requires a lot of data to learn from real-life scenarios. For instance, a recent test conducted in the United States used a hundred times more data than the standard amount used in AI systems. Although several countries are competing to develop advanced AI technologies, they are keeping their results and data to themselves. This includes both NATO allies and nations such as China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

            For those who are not familiar with high-end AI development, Machine Learning (ML) algorithms learn and improve automatically from their inputted experience. This process is similar to how humans learn. The algorithms use statistical techniques to identify patterns, and the brain puts these relationships between inputs and outputs to provide solutions. ML requires significant human inputs, and it takes an enormous amount of time and cost to deliver its results.

            On the other hand, Generative AI is an offshoot of AI that uses machine learning techniques to create new content to be used by the AI instance on its own. This AI models solutions via its generative brain, which learns patterns and relationships in a series of datasets to create new data resembling the training data. To put it simply, it is like asking a pilot with 30 years of experience to create a flight simulation plan based on their experience.

          • Thanks that’s why ,I mentioned what was said in this Programme about a Code of Ethics being set out for the use of AI especially in the Defence sector

      • Indeed – a Two Seat Typhoon would have made a good choice for controlling Drones with an WSO in the back seat – shame we scrapped about 14 of them a few years ago.

        • Alas Paul, the first two seaters ended being built to such an obsolete spec, coupled with a reduced need for two seaters, that they were parted out to support the 30 Tranche 1 single seaters.

          We can only assume a good deal of AI decision making will be employed operationally.

          I’m certainly no expert in this area, I don’t know how advanced this technology is, but to get such a system as close to 100% reliable as possible must be an absolute nightmare.

          A typical hypothetical, It’s 2040, consider a Tempest on a deep strike mission with four UCAV’s as part of the package, sanitising the route ahead and riding shotgun.

          You have to be 100% certain the AI doesn’t decide to launch a Spear 3 at the school bus that just happens to be driving past a ‘live’ S300 missile launcher that’s hidden in a village.

          Is it that capable yet??

          Will the pilot in the loop always have to give clearance to launch?

          • John, look at my reply to Spyinthesky, I answer this question for you.

            I work in a company that is in the top 5 globally for the development of AI. We are 100% owned by HMG. The AI brain is being treated as a Sovereign asset for our Armed Forces and the country. That’s about as much I can say about us, although I can talk about AI quite freely, I cannot get into specifics. The same brain works equally as well whether its use case is its autonomous control of a loyal wingman or the interception of incoming vampires on an RN platform.

            The Japanese are arguably the Kings in this area. They don’t shout about it anywhere near as much as the Americans or Chinese. As a country, we didn’t start our programmes until 2010, about ten years behind these three countries.

      • QintiQ already have a Banshee development called JackDaw. It’s twin engine and part of LANCA a program for the MOD.

        For a country that has come up with such aircraft names as Mustang, Tempest and Sea Fury, JackDaw has to be an all time low and the absolute worst name for anything although maybe not if we include Sea Ceptor.

        • Jackdaw looks to more convenient than Vampire in terms of size and launch footprint (The catapult concept for them is much smaller) but makes the same performance claims.
          I have never found a payload number for Vampire/Banshee, but Jackdaw says 30kg. I imagine it being used as a sort of free flying LITENING pod with an EO/IR turret in the nose to do ISR at low level and high speed, or with EW kit to pretend to be a jet.

        • JIm wrote:
          “”For a country that has come up with such aircraft names as Mustang, Tempest and Sea Fury, JackDaw has to be an all time low “”

          Do you not think they chose to name it the Jackdaw as it is the smallest of the crow family, as such it is prone to flying in flocks or murmuration’s so mirrors everything they are trying to achieve
           
          If anything, I’d say the name is rather apt.

          • It very clever but It’s not exactly a name which will inspire terror in our enemies though 😀

        • I would assume someone thought JackDaw is clever because of the birds behaviour, bonding flocking and often working together to drive off predators etc but could have gone for something more dynamic I reckon. To think Spitfire could so easily have been a shrew eh.

      • I would suggest that the pilot will not need to orchestrate the drones in an operational system. I would also point out that the article said nothing about ‘pilot’ workload.

        Why do I make these statements?

        Firstly, we do not know the details of what was actually achieved beyond the outline achievements of linking a manned and unmanned flight systems – that statement covers a huge range of capabilities and levels of autonomy. The article talks about autonomous systems but does not go into details – for reasons we can all appreciate. Nevertheless, this is still a big step forward and demonstrates real progress. We might see a few more similar looking trials, possibly in different locations with more room. If we do then my guess would be that they would be exploring the ‘envelope’ particularly around autonomy.

        Now I why do I think that two crew would not be required?

        I know that the UK has had systems that simply required the operator to point at an area and the system would work out a light path and (I think a search pattern) and go do it for at least 15years. Also, from what I have read about all the smart tech I do not think a pilot would need to do anything other than select a ‘weapon’ to engage the selected target. Everything else would be worked out end executed by the artificial intelligence system either on the crewed system, or the AV. If the crew interface is well designed this would look pretty much like a first person shooter video game with the crewed system sitting well out of range of enemy systems whilst the autonomous systems go in and deal with the threat. In short, little or no extra work for the pilot at all, especially as the pilot in question probably played first person computer games before they could walk!

        These things are not ROV’s. The US have already demonstrated ‘fighter’ drones that can out fight crewed aircraft. Those drones may have had a ‘pilot’ monitoring the drone ‘just in case’ but they were certainly not involved in the ‘combat’ demonstration.

        Just for the record, my description of the ‘scientific method’ is based on my research experience when I was at the old Royal Aerospace Establishment (it changed its name on my first day!).

        Cheers CR

          • CR, what you outlay is called a predicted parameter programme. You give the mission programme to the drone based on “reaction to waypoints” within the programme. It’s not AI. AI would normally be told to execute the optimal or best search/patrol/defence strategy/delivery in a given area and left to deliver based on the algorithm.

            At the present development stage, it would require user decision/authority for the release of weapons and/or any action that can affect a human.,

      • Oh how. Good the possibilities were with the taranis program the thought of a drone like that operating frame a carrier was an exciting prospect.

    • Agreed, keen to see this develop further.
      Noted that they used a Qinetiq jet- which I assume was a small business jet. Not surprising in many ways, but I’ve always been sceptical that pilots of single-seat aircraft (i.e. our entire combat fleet) will have the bandwidth to effectively fight their own aircraft and 1 or more loyal wingmen. Maybe I’m wrong, AI and suchlike can achieve a lot, but still…

      • QinetiQ Banshee is a small target drone, not a business jet nor a passenger jet of any kind. It is launched from a special ramp and ditches with a parachute landing. The RN have been experimenting with it for surveillance, with maybe a flight time of an hour (Project Vampire), and it was converted into a kamikaze bomb for Ukraine, payload around 10kg.

        • Sorry, I think you may have misunderstood me- I’m relatively familiar with Banshee. My point was that it was being controlled by a station in a business jet, according to the report- presumably not by the pilot of that jet. My point being that it would be challenging to pilot an aircraft while controlling additional drone aircraft (which presumably a Typhoon or F-35B pilot would need to do).

          • The avionics will look after the drones. That’s what these trials are about. The workload has to be manageable for a single pilot.

          • Sure, I’m not talking about piloting them like a remote control plane.
            But even the act of keeping an eye on your own aircraft, threat warning receivers, mission waypoints, instructions from superiors, taskings from JTACs (or whatever it is we call them), trying to discern between friendly and not in the air and on the ground/sea, is a lot. doing that while also managing the sensor picture, position, weapons status, activity of a single offboard drone, and then assigning it actions and potentially targets is a lot. Particularly if you’re anywhere near the enemy’s AAD zone, with potential air and ground launched missiles coming your way, etc.

          • And because of all that is why sensor fusion and enhanced situational awareness has become the key driver behind fast jet design. The F35s avionics make all that work load more manageable than ever before. Because the pilot isn’t having to look at different information from the radar, another display from the defensive aids ect. The pilot doesn’t really know which sensor is providing the information he is seeing in front of him. The loyal wingman concept will simply extend that sensor range and capability, giving the piloteven more tactical options. The avionics will make the decision making much simpler, freeing up pilot mental capacity. BLK4 will enable many of these capabilities.

          • That doesn’t really take a whole lot away from what the pilot has to do, and you can’t completely stitch the sensor picture of them both together either; the pilot needs to know which airframe is being targeted by a missile for instance.
            I still think it’s an awful lot of workload for one person.

      • The exec jet might not have anything to do with the need for additional crewed input to the system under test. QinetiQ have long operated flying labs. Lots of data acquisition capacity for weeks of post flight analysis, may be a safety pilot with override capability… etc.

        Also, there were virtual Banshees ‘flying’ in the test scenario. They may have been generated on board the exec jet. All in all that’s a lot of computer power needed. So a reasonable sized aircraft would be needed to generate all of the data and people on board to monitor the experiment. The thing about experiments is they are run using equipment designed to be flexible and able to do a wide range different stuff. They are not specialist systems, certainly not fully developed flight standard – if they were it would be a prototype at least and the systems would have cost a few £billion knowing the MoD..!

        I have put a couple of answers above that might answer some of your other points.

        Cheers CR

  2. So does this imply that a ‘front’ line aircraft has to control them or could an aircraft back in friendly airspace be used in the mother ship role?

    • If it’s Link16, then could be from anywhere, as long as there’s a repeater in range- although I imagine you might start seeing some level of lag.

  3. Always pains me that Labour sold off such a chunk of our R&D arm. What became Qinetiq was part of the MoD and should have remained so.
    Good to see Boscombe involved, much quiter there these days.

    • QinetiQ does a lot of work for foreign governments which it couldn’t do if it was still DERA, many sensitive parts of DERA moved to DSTL.

      I would put QinetiQ as one of the more sensible privatisations.

      • Yes mate, Porton, Fort Halstead and Portsdown West remained as DSTL, rest was sold off. Ranges remain MoD owned but Q operated.
        I’d have kept the lot, and reintroduce a RARDE too. ( that’ll please Graham)

    • QinetiQ over expanded into the US and had to lay off a bunch (>1000) people here in the UK to pay for the losses. The dipshit CEO who got over excited having pulled off a good first acquisition resigned but was kept on a fat salary as a ‘consultant’. He also got to walk away with a few mils. worth of shares if I remember right. I was one of the 1000 or so… grr! That whole sell off episode stank to high heaven.

      QinetiQ is permanently embedded at Boscombe and I think they own or lease on behalf of the MoD, many of the aircraft on the site. The aircraft are flown by RAF and I think QinetiQ crews. I would suggest the exec jet would be a civvie.

      This article took me back. Oh happy days.

      I would also underline some of my posts above that whilst this is exciting news and demonstrates real progress, we are still some years away from widely fielding a fully operational system. Spiral development means that we may see something much sooner but with limited capabilities. You wouldn’t want to give an autonomous system lethal capabilities without really, really testing the system. Spiral development means you get to test each incremental step forward in the ‘real world’ whilst actually getting some return on investment as you go along. It means that the ‘core’ functionality of the system is as mature as you can make it before you switch on the lethal stuff. That approach certainly gets my vote.

      Folk seem to think spiral development is new. It ain’t, after all, they have been spiral developing the motor car for over 100 years! It works and the RAF have been applying it to the Typhoon for decades now and our Typhoon fleet is very very capable.

      Cheers CR

      • Yes mate, MoD own the site, like they do with the other Qinetiq run ranges under the LTPA.
        ETPS and the ATEC – Aircraft Test and Evaluation Centre, is a joint outfit, aircraft I think are Q owned with a mix of crews as you say.

    • Agree. The USA not only were given all out tech during and post WWII, they also then had a share of the UK’s defence R&D with Qinetiq (stupid name too). If only the UK had more confidence in itself. Bring back the RAeE that’s what I say. 🙂

    • They have to be directed on what they should be doing. But I think the point is you haven’t got someone flying it like an RC jet

  5. I still think the UK should buy up at least a couple of squadrons worth of airliners and convert/use them as airborne stand-off missile warehouses and/or remote pilot hosts. All linked up to ground or AWACS for air defence or ground attack.

    Whilst I am on about it, the RAF needs an air-to-air missile and air to ground missile with 300km+ range, as the war in Ukraine is proving.

          • No, that only goes out to 120km, too small for anything longer. I think you are talking about FC/ASW (SPEAR 5), which is the Storm Shadow replacement as well as heavyweight ASM, probably in a subsonic cruise variant and also mach 3-4 variant.

          • Thats the one. But SPEAR3 will be a very capable and flexible weapon. And F35B will carry 8 internally. 👍

          • I will set my alarm and bookmark this thread so we can catch up – my betting is we will still be waiting..🙂

          • I haven’t heard anything like that, and it would be pretty significant news to lose our deep strike capability for the next 30 to 40 years.
            Most I’ve heard is that the French prefer a high speed, low stealth missile for AShM role and we wanted a storm shadow/ NSM stealthy subsonic type for land attack.

          • …sorry I mis-read something. The French postponed signing in 2022. Guess they are still on board then 🙂

          • Watch this space. There are rumours that MBDA are looking ion to what you have described for development. As the MoD have highlighted, that there is a capability gap between Storm Shadow and Spear-3.

          • It does when launched from a stealth aircraft. And the kill chain is everything. Sounds good, having a very long range missile, but if you can’t find,track, and engage the target over the horizon, then it’s all a bit pointless

          • Sure. Agree. It has to be part of a tracking and identification system: be it forward deployed ground forces, long-range Radar all data-linked, or an autonomous missile sent to area on pec with its own guidance.

    • I use to think we should have followed on with the A340 bomber concept from Airbus to launch cruise missiles. However it was going to be a bespoke aircraft with only the ability to carry two rotary launchers for 16 weapons total.

      I now think we should invest in Rapid Dragon style capability to launch Storm shadow from the A400M and C17.

      You probably only need cruise missile carrying aircraft for the first day or two of a conflict so it’s expensive to build a capability around this.

      • When BA scrapped their big jumbos i thought that was a wasted opportunity. Need to keep costs down as much as possible. Apart from the remote pilot platform, i was thinking along the lines of continuous air defence white tensions mount. e..g. ABM or against swarms of aircraft or drones.

      • With you on this. We have so few Typhoon that launching a meaningful Stormshadow strike AND maintaining a good air defence posture becomes difficult.
        Having a few Vulcans would be good ,(!) , but as you say, any custom aircraft is an expensive capability if of no/limited other use.
        . Perhaps double the amount of P8, able to carry 4 plus Stormshadow or the new when-they-arrive land/sea attack missiles would be good. Much needed utility for patrolling and ASW work, whilst having a meaningful volume surface strike capability if it was ever needed. AA

      • I’d agree Rapid Dragon concept would be the way to go, if we need to bolster numbers quickly there’s no shortage of cargo aircraft with ramps to lob it off off.

      • Judging by the range aircraft are being shot down in Ukraine I suspect whatever follows SS will need rather greater range to be truly effective launched from such a tempting target.

    • Incredibly vulnerable as they are massive with an RCS to match.

      This was looked at in 1982 (yes really) as to whether or not a BA jet would be better to bomb Stanley runway. There were various crackpot schemes to do various things with 747’s and even Concord. As there was no AAF capability on any of them it was a moot point how it might work. The daft thing was the lack of thinking about laser guidance and lack of use of the 1st Gen laser systems that were actually down there [one of the two target designators was allegedly dropped in the drink when an SF ferry flight went down]. With those and SF illuminating and RAF Harrier GR’s doing the bombing it could have been done and repeated at will.

      • True, but similar problem with the other airliner-derived aircraft we have. The key is the word “stand-off and together with long-range 300km+ missiles (AIM260 etc.) and a local fighter escort, should minimise the risk.

        I always fancied the VC10 as a good high speed carrier, but technology has moved on and we can also start thinking about stuff like directed energy systems for aircraft defence. Sometimes you just have to think outside the box. 🙂

    • From what I read the odd air to air missile with that range are generally big and old and not very highly rated but I stand to be educated on the matter. Presently it seems generally accepted that Meteor is arguably the best long range missile out there though the Chinese are pushing the parameters and the US is though it appears secretly operating small numbers of a similar but slightly longer ranged and faster missile but not fully operationally it appears as yet. Meteors range is well over 200km and while I agree 300km + would be desirable not at the expense of other factors. Rocket, ramjet or hybrid motor technology is therefore required which the Americans are working on perfecting. The Meteors true merits are that it’s able to sustain propulsive flight longer than all/most of its competitors which makes it more effective within its range and envelope. It’s always a range of compromises in the end regarding speed, powered range, actual range, size and manoeuvrability in the terminal stage.

      • Meteor is good, but I was looking at what is coming down the track from others.

        US AIM260
        China PL17
        Russia R37M
        etc.

        In order to keep our aircraft safe and be able to hit threats, the UK should be looking at beyond 300+Km for air-to-air. Maybe a boosted Meteor II ?

        • There are a number of issues with really long range air to air missiles.

          The first is the aircraft being used to carry them. When you consider Meteor and AMRAAM are about 3.7m long. To go that bit further, AIM-260 will need to be longer or fatter or a bit of both. This then dictates the aircraft that can carry it. Especially if you want the aircraft to be stealthy. Which means the missiles will need to be stored internally. This was one of the constraints placed on Meteor, in that it had to be capable of being fitted in to the F35s weapons bay. So a longer missile, will need either a much bigger aircraft for internal storage, or it will have to be fitted externally.

          The second issue is mass. To reach the range of over 300km, you will need to carry more fuel. For a missile powered by a solid rocket motor. You will require more volume for that fuel, therefore the missile will be big. For example the Russian R-37 is 4.06m long but 38cm in diameter. Compared to Meteor at 17.8cm in diameter. The R-27M for additional reach includes a add-on rocket booster. Which will again increase its length. The additional mass, does mean that the missile doesn’t turn as tightly as its lighter and smaller cousins. When used in combat in Ukraine, the Ukrainian pilots have said its quite easy to dodge.

          A third problem is detecting the threat. To detect a small stealthy-ish target 300km (186 miles) away. Realistically you will have to use a radar. A passive IRST type sensor would need a huge pixel array, to capture enough light to detect the target. The size of the array and its corresponding optical window would make it too large to be carried by a fighter aircraft. Also a single IR sensor will not give you range to target information. However, if you have a number of sensors widely spaced apart, then you can use networked triangulation, to generate range information. Which is what the F35 does.

          There is a thought, that in the 5th and 6th gen battle space operating a radar. Is a sure fire way to having a missile sent your way. Even when using a low probability of intercept (LPI) AESA radar. There is a bit of truth in this, as some top end electronic surveillance systems are managing to get hits on LPI radars. But these are systems that require aircraft such as a Rivet Joint to carry it. Though in time they will get smaller allowing them to be fitted to a fighter aircraft.

          But that’s not the real problem. The main issue is the data-link between the aircraft and the missile. Most Western legacy missiles use a Link-16 data-link. On some aircraft, this is transmitted via an omni-directional antenna. Though a lot of more modern aircraft are using more directional antennas. But because the transmitted beam is fairly wide, even when using directional antennas. The target might detect the Link-16 transmission, which is a sure sign that something is on its way!

          If the target aircraft detects a Link-16 transmission, it will likely turn and run. If you fired your long range missile at its max effective range. The missile won’t have the kinetic energy to chase down the target aircraft. Which means you have now wasted a multi-million pound/dollar/euro weapon.

          One of the key missile requirements for beyond visual range air to air missiles (BVRAAM) is time to target! The shorter the time the missile spends in the air, the less amount of time the pilot needs to manage the missile. Which is crucial if the pilot is trying to get the first shot off, before the target aircraft can reply.

          This is why you are seeing missiles such as AMRAAM fitted with a dual pulse solid rocket motor. This is in essence two rocket motors in one. Where the 1st stage is a booster (fast burning propellent) section, which after burn out, ignites the 2nd sustainer (slower burning propellent) section. This allows the missile to quickly accelerate to Mach 4ish. The sustainer allows the missile to slow down its deceleration rate (glide rate post burn out), thus keeping its speed up but also extending its effective range. By maintaining a higher “cruise” speed for longer. The time to target is thus also reduced.

          Meteor does this slightly differently. It has a booster solid rocket motor contained within the ignition chamber and exhaust pipe of the ramjet. This accelerates it to over Mach 3. The ramjet then kicks in as the rocket motor burns out. Meteor has a number of motor mode options. Which are dependent on the range to target. If its within a certain range, the motor will go full throttle (Mach 4+) to engage the target in the minimum time. If its over a certain distance the motor will be throttled. This means the missile will initially be slower than AMRAAM. But it maintains this cruise speed for much longer. As it gets closer to the target and if its got fuel left it can throttle up again. But as the cruise portion has been maintained for longer with power, it will reach the target sooner.

          The released AIM-260 artwork has shown what looks like an AMRAAM with an add on additional booster stage. My thoughts are that after the booster has burnt out. It separates from the main missile, thereby lowering the weight and drag. It will likely have a dual pulse solid rocket motor in the main body of the missile. I have a feeling that the booster will be pushing it closer to Mach 5. Which along with a lofted parabolic curve, will help it reach its range goals.

          Meteor could do the same. Including an add on booster would not only accelerate it faster, but also significantly increase its range. The issue for both boosted missiles though is the speed. At Mach 5 they will be hitting hypersonic speeds and therefore face thermal management problems. For example, they wont have a liquid fuel that could be used as a heat dump. So they will need to find another way to cope with the elevated heat being generated by aerodynamic heating.

          • Always love a good DaveyB essay late in the day.
            For someone looking at an engineering career and obsessed with aerospace, the effort you put into these is very much appreciated.

          • Hi DaveyB. Thank you so much for your considered and excellent input – again. I really appreciate how much time and effort you put to help raise the quality of the debate. I am very aware that I just lob these (often fantastical blue sky) concepts and questions into this forum, and am prepared for the usual negative reactions. It is always so heartening when I see that informed people, such as yourself, take the time to consider the point rather than a knee-jerk reaction.

            There are a number of scenarios I could imagine where such a long range air-to-air missile is needed – both for defence and attack – and indeed others are trying to develop them.

            It terms of size/bulk/stealthyness of such a long-range-missile and host, I was just assuming that at those sort of ranges it would be worth sacrificing stealth, and also that they could be carried by large aircraft “mother ships” anyway.

            As for how to achieve that sort of range, as you indicated, I was assuming that some sort of high altitude lob would be needed together with an initial rocket phase to get the thing out of the atmosphere and into the general ball-park area needed, with use of thrusters to control. The next phase then being say RAM jet after re-entry, with a final rocket phase for actual target interception.

            In terms of target detection, identification, tracking, and interception – especially in a passive way – is the trickier bit I suspect. The use of special forces or satellites to detect the take-off of a major air asset would be one method. If the missile was then programmed to arrive at a predicted point before handing over to its own internal (AI?) target recognition algo to go and then hunt down the target (ethical issues?). Other detection and datalink with ISATR/AWACS aircraft to the rear is tricky as you mentioned. Maybe some sort of quantum Radar technology development would help?

          • Are you, in effect, suggesting a Ballistic SAM?
            Where do I sign up?
            Actually, though, a Kinzhal style launch of a very large missile (Air-launched Aster? ASRAAM-MR?) to effectively throw a missile into the general area of the target exoatmospherically could be a good way of achieving longer range as the missile would have massive amounts of energy to make an interception. You could carry, say, 2 of them on an AWACS as they will probably pick up non stealth enemy aircraft like their own AWACS hundreds of miles away.

          • For a long range (LR) missile against airborne targets I did not intend to come up with the full concept. I was just trying to flag up what I saw needed to be developed by the UK. I’ll bow to others with greater knowledge (but don’t let every man and his dog know any details about this stuff 🤐).

            For a LR air-to-air missile, I can see that a semi-ballistic, exo-atmosphere phase would help get the range, time of flight, keep thermal issues down, and help with KE for attack.. As to solving the other problems that DaveyB mentions, well I’ll leave that to others. 🙂

            Yes, arming AWACS/ISTAR assets is a good idea and/or a fighter escort, or even multiple armed/decoy drones that could also be sacrificial if the whatsit started to hit the fan.

          • No need to worry about me leaking secrets, it isn’t exactly MoD policy to invest classified info in people not yet out of school.
            DaveyB, on the other hand, is very good at toeing the line and not revealing more than he should. All of the resident UKDJ experts (DaveyB, Gunbuster and Deep32) are excellent in that regard.

          • No problem mate. Out of the box thinking is something I like promoting. It may seem bonkers on the face of it. But when you deep dive into the possibilities, sometimes it works better than expected. Plus I believe the UK is famous for shed dynamic theory. Where our eccentric behaviour does push the boundaries.

            When doing really long distance beyond visual range engagements say over 75km. Missiles such as AMRAAM and Meteor do what is called lofting. This is where the missile follows a quasi-parabolic path to the target. Basically the missile climbs in altitude to where the air is thinner. Which means there is less drag on the missile, so it can fly further. As the missile falls onto the target, gravity also gives it a bit of assistance.

            So here’s another thought based on your idea. Launch a number of medium altitude balloons. Where the prevailing wind drives them over your enemy’s territory. Attached to the “basket” would be a number of infrared seeker based air to air missiles, such as ASRAAM. Either put the ASRAAMs in autosearch mode or have them controlled via satellite data-link. When a target is detected, its information is fed back to a controller. Who then makes the decision to launch or not. You could include some form of controlled fuze, to detonate a warhead, that destroys the any missiles still on the basket or if it goes wildly off course.

            One of the mission concepts for the loyal wingman drone. Was to do a one way mission, particularly against an airbase. Where it would use something like Brimstone to take out priority assets on the ground. As it was thought the drones sensors would be able to pick out these targets. The drone would be controlled via satellite and would be used as a weapon in the terminal phase. In theory you could also arm it with ASRAAM etc to go after AEW/ISTAR targets. So in effect it becomes the booster to get the missile within distance of the target.

            There are many ways to do this type of mission. Usually the keep it it simple stupid normally wins out. But sometimes something left field is needed!

          • Thanks for the words of encouragement DaveyB. Although I am no longer in the thick of it and current, I’m not stupid and seem to easily do blue sky stuff/see a wider picture, plus have the perspective of history.

            Your drifting balloon carrier concept is a bit like the Japanese did during WWII and China seems keen on it currently for espionage. Rather than sacrifice all the kit, I would go for some sort of airship/dirigible that could return to base after a patrol if not needed. Could be manned or unmanned. There were designs for a small airship (60ft) in the 1980s.

            There are many ways of skinning the cat. I just hope the UK recognizes the need to cover the problem of threats at 300km+ ranges.

          • “To go that bit further, AIM-260 will need to be longer or fatter or a bit of both.”

            Great post DB. Keeping in mind that almost nothing has officially been released about the aim-260, it’s been estimated that it will have a similar or almost identical form factor to the aim-120 for it to fit inside the f-22 and f-35. One of the great mysteries at this point is how they achieved the performance expected using a weapon of that size.

          • Agreed, there can be a number of plausible assumptions that can be made about the AIM-260. For starters the US have said it will be a direct replacement for the AMRAAM. So for aircraft like the F35 and F22, this does place a significant constraint on the length of the weapon. Though it could get away with a wider diameter.

            I still feel that it will be solid rocket powered. As the USAF in particular believe it has less issues, compared to a ramjet for instance. However, we may see that the propellent has a higher calorific property, thereby generating more thrust.

            The US are investing in rotary detonation engines, which could be used with a solid rocket motor. Though the propellent will need to be turned to a gas then passed into the detonation chamber, which should be doable. This would increase the efficiency of the burn = more thrust. It is unlikely to be throttleable though.

            There is an exotic propellent that may be combined with the detonation principle. This propellent only turns to gas when an electric current is passed through it. This could be a step change for solid rocket motors. As it would allow them to be turned on and off, plus have a degree of burn control i.e. throttling. This then would allow the missile to cruise long distances, but make use of a top up boost, to maintain a certain speed.

            For something like the F15, we may indeed see AIM-260 with a 1st stage booster. I think this makes sense when the F15 is being considered as a missile truck for the F22 and F35. As it needs to stay further away and therefore the booster will add the necessary range to allow it to do so.

            Another point is NGAD/FA-XX. Both of these aircraft will be 6th gen stealth aircraft and therefore use missile bays to maintain that stealth. In essence both could have much bigger/longer weapons bays. Which means they could use bigger weapons than the current F22/F35 has for AMRAAM. This is the same for our FCAS and Meteor. So we may see the AIM-260 fitted to legacy aircraft such as the F22 and F35 without the booster for internal storage. Whilst NGAD etc includes the booster, as it has a longer weapons bay.

            Speaking with a F22 pilot, who said they weren’t too bothered with a missile with a huge range. As they felt that today’s opponent, in BVR combat would not see their aircraft. They were part of a two ship that snuck up on a pair of Su-35s in Syria. She didn’t go into specifics, but said the Russian pilots were visibly shaken, that they slipped on to their port wing without being detected. Its this ability to ninja a fight that for her was more important, i.e. detect the threat, assess it, launch at it, then reassess for a possible second shot. The F22 gives you that ability. I would expect NGAD (and hopefully FCAS) will be no different.

          • Over the last few years I’ve seen a number of proposed new smaller missiles that somehow will outperform the current generation of missiles being promoted, by LM in particular. They is much speculation on the internet with many pointing to the possibility of them being powered by an RDE. I’m not sure the RDE tech has matured to the level where it can be fitted inside a relatively small A2A missile. I think the evidence more points in the direction of some exotic propellant being developed as you suggested.

  7. The important question to ask is around what will the future drone control aircraft look like…I did read a good article that proposed the concept that as we move to beyond visual range combat, missile swarms and drone swarms…combat aircraft may have to change…the single seat single pilot fighter many not actually be the best platform for this future and it’s the aircraft with the ability to launch and control the most resources that will win ( larger multi crewed) able to manage control and launch a lot of ordnance and drones…with a crew of decision makers.

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