UK to develop next generation fighter

[jjb1970]

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/britain-to-take-leading-role-in-next-generation-air-power-as-defence-secretary-launches-combat-air-strategy

 

Impressive, I just hope the government see's this through.

[Gibbo675]

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/britain-to-take-leading-role-in-next-generation-air-power-as-defence-secretary-launches-combat-air-strategy

 

Impressive, I just hope the government see's this through.

I'd rather that the gubbermunt spent the money they lever out of my fist in the form of taxes on something a little more worthwhile than planes that may be shot down with relatively cheap missiles.

 

[russ p]

I'm sure the Likes of trump will make sure it goes the same way as TSR2!

[Gibbo675]

I'm sure the Likes of trump will make sure it goes the same way as TSR2!

Now there is a story, my Grandfather was a Ministry of War cost accountant and was party to the cancellation.

His other claim to fame was signing the cheques for EECo Lightnings.

[Classsix T]

(back in your box young man...)

C6T.

Edited July 17, 2018 by Classsix T

[Legend]

Wow interesting comments on an organisation that helped keep the peace during the Cold War

 

As to Tempest I think this is nothing more than flying a kite. There is a Franco- German initiative to make a new 6th (?) génération aircraft, I think Turkey , Japan and presumably the US all have similar projects . Almost certainly we will end up teaming up with one of them . I like this new Defence Secretary . He has got all the spiel, but at the end of the day has not(yet) secured the budget to back it up. Can you really see the UK going it alone and producing the next generation fighter by itself? When was the last one .... the EE Lightning. Everything else has been collaboration since then

[Metr0Land]

Is it me or does that Tempest mock-up look like Firefox from the Clint Eastwood film (but painted grey)?

[meil]

Is it me or does that Tempest mock-up look like Firefox from the Clint Eastwood film (but painted grey)?

It looks more like the YF23.

 

Someone's bought an Airfix kit and made it bigger out of plywood!

 

Design by committee, constant specification changes, client doesn't know what they want. It's got TSR2 written all over it.

Edited July 16, 2018 by meil

[burgundy]

If I remember correctly, the reason that we went for collaborative solutions that resulted in Jaguar, Tornado and Typhoon was that the cost of developing a top quality aircraft was more than our defence budget could afford. Plan B would have involved more off-the-shelf purchase from the US, following on from the Phantom/Hercules buys.

Collaboration, even with a higher overhead for a multi-national project, allowed us to afford a programme in which we could make a significant contribution to the military requirement, the technology and the industrial effort required. It also maintained on-shore a significant design and system integration capability that covered not only the airframe, but also all on-board systems. Even on this basis, I believe that we have significantly reduced the quantity of aircraft from that, for which we originally signed up.

Given that defence is currently struggling to make ends meet, and our own production offtakes are progressively reducing, this seems to me to be a bad case of hubris.

Best wishes

Eric     

[pete_mcfarlane]

If I remember correctly, the reason that we went for collaborative solutions that resulted in Jaguar, Tornado and Typhoon was that the cost of developing a top quality aircraft was more than our defence budget could afford. 

I've seen suggestions that the final bill for the UK's share of the Typhoon development was actually higher than it would have cost BAe and RR to develop the thing entirely within the UK. A lot of these collaborative projects seem to suffer from how the work is divided up, which massively adds to the costs. 

 

The most interesting thing today's announcement I that it took place in front of a full size mockup. The Franco-German announcement of their equivalent project took place on some tarmac in front of their existing (previous generation) aircraft. This suggests that we're a bit further down the road than they are.

[jjb1970]

I think international co-operation on industrial projects works well when there is a clear leader and the partners basically do what they're told to do. A straight bi-lateral project can work but once you get several partners that all consider themselves to be joint leaders it all starts to break down and the politics and resulting cost escalation can negate the benefits of cost sharing.

 

I'm pretty sure that if this actually delivers a fighter there will be co-operation. The UK is already talking to Sweden about collaborating (and it should be noted that Sweden actually has a rather impressive record for developing fighter jets) and there are various countries outside Europe that could join. I suspect that the UK's preferred choice would have been another joint European project but France and Germany decided to exclude us, funnily enough I suspect that may well be much more of an opportunity than anything else.

 

Of course, there is a wild card possibility, that the UK is demonstrating that we have the know how to develop a next generation fighter as leverage to join a potential USAF next generation program. Despite a lot of criticism the costs of the F35 are now dropping sharply and the industrial benefits to the UK will probably be significantly higher than a domestic or European program. One reason the US was up to having us in the F35 program was because we had something to offer, this might well be a similar play, although we're now getting into Kremlinology.

[jjb1970]

The other aspect of course is it might well be a shot at Europe to let us into the joint European program, although we're now getting into being a bit like a character out of Dune and seeing wheels within wheels within wheels. Certainly if the UK does want into the Euro program then demonstrating we can go it alone if we want to is a good lever as the alternative would be to be asked in as a junior partner below France and Germany. I think Italy may well be playing that game with Loenardo in this Tempest team.

 

If the UK does develop the Tempest in Earnest I think we may well see us look to Asia-Pacific for partners. There is a big arms race in Asia, some very technologically advanced countries and there is a global tilt in political and economic power Eastwards.

[Steadfast]

Design by committee, constant specification changes, client doesn't know what they want. It's got TSR2 written all over it.

Or IEP!

 

Jo

[Liam]

OT but when I was in Cheltenham yesterday in the sky above Sandford Park I saw a Jumbo Jet being escorted by two fighter jets - could it have been related to this announcement?

[2750Papyrus]

The rule of thumb used to be that the cost of a project increased as the square root of the number of participating countries.

[The Fatadder]

It is clear that other national partners would need to be involved to get this past the line, but this is generally the way these sort of projects work.  You make a proof of concept of a demonstrator as part of the process of forming the build "alliance".  If I remember rightly that was the case with Typhoon  which was developed out of the BAe EAP.  Some of the articles already mention ongoing discussions with Saab, while BAe are already in a partnership with TAI over the Turk's indigenous fighter programme.  Though based on my experience of dealing with TAI on A400, you couldn't pay me enough  to partner with them! 

 

 

There is also a lot to be said for getting into one of these projects as a lead contractor, one of the flaws with the Typhoon programme was the structural inefficiencies (multiple FALs duplicating effort, too many sales campaigns lead by ADS Germany who couldnt sell a glass of water in a desert, countries ordering huge numbers of aircraft to secure workshare (than cancelling them once the factories are built) 

 

 

In the end my expectation would be that this will either get folded into a larger US project (best case scenario) with the dev put into stealth / remote combat that forms part of the proposal meaning that BAe / Rolls can get a decent chunk of workshare on a project delivery very large volumes rather than all/most of the work on a low volume programme.  Or it will get rolled up with the Franco German project which presumably is a tie up between ADS and Dassault 

[pete_mcfarlane]

It's worth remembering this quote from the 1970s, in the context of UK vs German/French aircraft programmes.

What Europe must avoid is the kind of wasteful competition that has the Hawker Siddeley Hawk and Dassault-Breguet/Dornier Alpha Jet battling against each other in the world market.

The Alpha Jet has been out of production for nearly 30 years and never sold well in the export market, whereas the Hawk is still being built.

[lapford34102]

 

NATO is a farce. Unnecessary throwback to a perceived non-existent threat

Rather irrelevant comment but I'll bite. Why ?

 

The French managed to design and build the Rafale on their own after they pulled out of IEP.

Maybe the powers-that-be have decided it's time we got back in the warplane game seriously again. A link with the Swede's in this area already exists via BAE and Saab.

The mock-up looks remarkably similar to a paper design they came up with in the late 80's though undoubtedly updated for contemporary technologies.

Whilst the F-16 and F-15 are still produced and are capable aircraft they are products of the 70's however updated they are. The F-22 is unlikely to be available - or affordable - for export in the near future and the F-35 is not exactly a single platform solution. Perhaps they are looking at future gaps in the market.

 

Stu

[Zomboid]

It's worth remembering this quote from the 1970s, in the context of UK vs German/French aircraft programmes.

The Alpha Jet has been out of production for nearly 30 years and never sold well in the export market, whereas the Hawk is still being built.

That was 40 years ago though. Very little in the world is the same as it was then, so the fact that a British design in the 1970s was more successful than a French/ German one of that time is pretty meaningless in 2018.

[tomparryharry]

It's all collaboration these days. Turkey will build the catapult, Italy will handle the spares. Spain will build the rubber band. Germany will build the handle. Scotland will do the bits painted blue. Ireland will build the guidance systems. Great Britain will put the stickers on, and the French will market the system as 'Trebouchet' 

 

Voila!

 

Ian.

[The Fatadder]

It's worth remembering this quote from the 1970s, in the context of UK vs German/French aircraft programmes.

The Alpha Jet has been out of production for nearly 30 years and never sold well in the export market, whereas the Hawk is still being built.

 

a better comparison would be the  situation of Typhoon vs Rafale, the problem is that the more countries you add to a programme the more complicate it gets (and the more likely to end up with a massive over cost.)

 

Again I will take the A400 as an example given that I know its situation all too well (being careful to keep to public domain information).  There were so many countries involved, each asking for their own specific requirements a lot of which were almost mutually exclusive.  Some countries wanted what was in effect a C17, while others just wanted a C130.  France / Germany demanded A2A refueling of helicopters (which iirc the aircraft still couldn't do when I left ADS).  There were 4 different standards of defensive aids, different configurations of armoring and so on.  In the end they have made what could easily have been 3 or 4 different aircraft into one very very expensive one.  To expensive for the all important export markets...

[Joseph_Pestell]

a better comparison would be the  situation of Typhoon vs Rafale, the problem is that the more countries you add to a programme the more complicate it gets (and the more likely to end up with a massive over cost.)

 

Again I will take the A400 as an example given that I know its situation all too well (being careful to keep to public domain information).  There were so many countries involved, each asking for their own specific requirements a lot of which were almost mutually exclusive.  Some countries wanted what was in effect a C17, while others just wanted a C130.  France / Germany demanded A2A refueling of helicopters (which iirc the aircraft still couldn't do when I left ADS).  There were 4 different standards of defensive aids, different configurations of armoring and so on.  In the end they have made what could easily have been 3 or 4 different aircraft into one very very expensive one.  To expensive for the all important export markets...

 

Not my field at all. But inflight refuelling of helicopters sounds very problematic!

[a320sim]

Not many people seem to have realised that MBDA and Leonardo have UK subsiduaries but are basically European companies - so it is not the UK going it alone (which the Defence Secretary has conveniently forgotten!).

[The Fatadder]

Not my field at all. But inflight refuelling of helicopters sounds very problematic!

Lots of problems with the leading edge melting if i recall correctly.

 

Of course the programme was also beset by engine problems (culminating in the crash in 2016/6), the route cause of which was the requirement from the European governments to buy the engines from a trans European engine alliance who had never made large turboprop engines before rather than a safe off the shelf solution from Prat.  Cue massive delays, cost over runs and a gearbox that 10 years after first flight still doesnt work.

[jjb1970]

The A400M is one of those aircraft that has become something of a disappointment. The engine decision was purely political and even at the time it was decided to exclude P&W for not being sufficiently European (well, not European) most engine people highlighted that it as a stupid decision that would bite us on the bum. I remember many years ago I knew RAF people that were very pro A400M basically because the C130J was a disappointment and they thought that the A400M was the best answer to address the disappointments of the C130J. Now I don't many would shed many tears if they were to keep a C17/C130J mix and lose the A400M.