Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

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SW1
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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by SW1 »

Timmymagic wrote:That's the thing. There are no European countries left to get involved. Given the size of defence budgets and where countries are with their procurements of combat aircraft for the next 30 years there is no-one left at all. They're all already in Tempest or FCAS or have totally committed to F-35, which means they have no need to even think about a replacement until 2050 at the earliest. THe only remaining countries are ones without combat aircraft or who could never be interested in anything beyond a Gripen at most, and in tiny numbers.
Involvement in either tempest or FCAS programs need not mean that any particular country will buy the manned a/c indeed Sweden has specifically said it may not. They will be looking for industrial involvement and possible\y purchase of some of the systems and capabilities that come out of either program. I’m pretty sure Martin baker will be involved with the FCAS as it is with rafale. There are other countries, namely Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark and possibly the Czech Republic who have companies with specialism that’s any country developing a new a/c would want to leverage and are all part of the Airbus supply chain.

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by RetroSicotte »

Bear in mind, involvement doesn't mean buying the aircraft.

Look at the UK with Gripen.

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by Timmymagic »

RetroSicotte wrote:Bear in mind, involvement doesn't mean buying the aircraft.

Look at the UK with Gripen.
I know (and Gripen was a rather different situation), but if they're not ponying up some serious cash or orders I can't see any of the partners having any interest in chucking any work to other countries except in certain, very specialised, cases (like Martin Baker).

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by Lord Jim »

I suppose it partly depends on what the other countries have to offer. If they can produce parts and small sub assemblies at a cheaper price that has to be take into account. Like all things it is a balance of manufacturing in country and getting value for money by contracting elsewhere. This is where countries like South Korea and the Benelux countries may come in, willing to put money into the programme to gain minor workshare but also technologic transfer. We mustn't put up walls with this project, other nations must be welcome at any level and capacity as long as they do not present a security risk.

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by Jake1992 »

Lord Jim wrote:I suppose it partly depends on what the other countries have to offer. If they can produce parts and small sub assemblies at a cheaper price that has to be take into account. Like all things it is a balance of manufacturing in country and getting value for money by contracting elsewhere. This is where countries like South Korea and the Benelux countries may come in, willing to put money into the programme to gain minor workshare but also technologic transfer. We mustn't put up walls with this project, other nations must be welcome at any level and capacity as long as they do not present a security risk.
I agree but it all depends on what level of input they expected to have, as we saw with the F35 project some times too many partners can cause problems of its own.

Personal I think I aim should be to have 4-5 core partners that will be looking to order at the end, but it must be made clear from the start that this is a UK lead project just like the US do in their partnerships.

For me the 3 we have right now along with maybe Japan or SK would be the right start.
We should also look to exploit the Canadian situation to make head roads in the North American market along with the anglosphere like with the T26.

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

RetroSicotte wrote:Bear in mind, involvement doesn't mean buying the aircraft.

Look at the UK with Gripen.
Gripen bringing in UK exports... without having to buy a single plane! http://www.thenorthspin.com/news08/021508gripen.html
in Empire Test Pilot Shool
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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by Lord Jim »

I thought those planes at the ETPS were leased from SAAB, with the MoD paying by the hour with all support provided by SAAB. We haven't actually purchased any as they are officially owed by the SAAB.

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

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Lord Jim wrote: those planes at the ETPS were leased from SAAB
as I said;
ArmChairCivvy wrote:without having to buy a single plane!
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by cky7 »

Jake1992 wrote:
I agree but it all depends on what level of input they expected to have, as we saw with the F35 project some times too many partners can cause problems of its own.

Personal I think I aim should be to have 4-5 core partners that will be looking to order at the end, but it must be made clear from the start that this is a UK lead project just like the US do in their partnerships.

For me the 3 we have right now along with maybe Japan or SK would be the right start.
We should also look to exploit the Canadian situation to make head roads in the North American market along with the anglosphere like with the T26.
I agree in Principal with your point, the trouble for me comes in when looking at from foreign eyes. Why would they accept Britain as project lead. Years of chronic underspend have left us with a bit of a reputation as a paper tiger who thinks they’re place in the world is far higher than we actually are.virtually any viable and worth fighting over partner has at least areas of defence where they’re far more capable than us had we kept out position our position as clear number two within the western bloc then this would be a viable strategy, at the moment we are far, far from this. We can taken the typical U.K. attitude of no one else can deploy so much so far from home (despite that actually being a very weak and easily destroyable force when compared to any reasonably peer adversary), that is simply not how the rest see us. Eg,typhoo- N undoubtedly world beating platform but one that has now been left chronically underinvested and will likely never see it’s full upgrade potential making it credible for a long time to come. Type 45 - again the potential was there for a world beater but cut backs left it chronically undefended and not the full package and will never be upgraded to as such. Imagine has we put the number of VLS the US
, Japan, SK and other navies actually taking air defence seriously the initial buzz surround t45 would have sustained. The darpa kite base radar would have something Ought to have all over, type 26 - U.K. variant has far the weakest radar and will be operated in smaller numbers than our export customers and you can gauarantee we will see things cut from it lessening capability, unmanned, we Had some serious ideas being churned out but are about to be over takdn as other.nations progress to market whilst we stagnate due to lack of fundjnf. I could go on but the point is why would anyone of anything worthwhile to bring accept it’s out project and we’re in charge. Wish we had maintained spending so that we were still the west’s number 2 abs could viably pull this off but IRK we’re sk far off ITa never gonna be doable :( :shock: :sick:

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by Jake1992 »

cky7 wrote:
Jake1992 wrote:
I agree but it all depends on what level of input they expected to have, as we saw with the F35 project some times too many partners can cause problems of its own.

Personal I think I aim should be to have 4-5 core partners that will be looking to order at the end, but it must be made clear from the start that this is a UK lead project just like the US do in their partnerships.

For me the 3 we have right now along with maybe Japan or SK would be the right start.
We should also look to exploit the Canadian situation to make head roads in the North American market along with the anglosphere like with the T26.
I agree in Principal with your point, the trouble for me comes in when looking at from foreign eyes. Why would they accept Britain as project lead. Years of chronic underspend have left us with a bit of a reputation as a paper tiger who thinks they’re place in the world is far higher than we actually are.virtually any viable and worth fighting over partner has at least areas of defence where they’re far more capable than us had we kept out position our position as clear number two within the western bloc then this would be a viable strategy, at the moment we are far, far from this. We can taken the typical U.K. attitude of no one else can deploy so much so far from home (despite that actually being a very weak and easily destroyable force when compared to any reasonably peer adversary), that is simply not how the rest see us. Eg,typhoo- N undoubtedly world beating platform but one that has now been left chronically underinvested and will likely never see it’s full upgrade potential making it credible for a long time to come. Type 45 - again the potential was there for a world beater but cut backs left it chronically undefended and not the full package and will never be upgraded to as such. Imagine has we put the number of VLS the US
, Japan, SK and other navies actually taking air defence seriously the initial buzz surround t45 would have sustained. The darpa kite base radar would have something Ought to have all over, type 26 - U.K. variant has far the weakest radar and will be operated in smaller numbers than our export customers and you can gauarantee we will see things cut from it lessening capability, unmanned, we Had some serious ideas being churned out but are about to be over takdn as other.nations progress to market whilst we stagnate due to lack of fundjnf. I could go on but the point is why would anyone of anything worthwhile to bring accept it’s out project and we’re in charge. Wish we had maintained spending so that we were still the west’s number 2 abs could viably pull this off but IRK we’re sk far off ITa never gonna be doable :( :shock: :sick:
Not much to disagree with there and if we were talking about dealing with the US or France or Japan SK in ship building I’d completely agree, but when you look at our potential partners it’s a bit different.

While Japan would bring a good bit of funding along with a good number of orders and even some new ideas they really lack the experience when it comes to designing a modern first rate fighter, the same can be said for SK.

Sweden will bring some good tech along with hopefully and much needed different way of carrying this sort of project out, but they’ll most likely be contributing the least in funding and potential orders.

Canada will be contribute the least with having pretty much no recent experience of fighter design and the likelyhood of only a small order and funding contribution, but it could be worth it to break in to that market.

The only partner that could argue against us bring lead would be Italy as they have just as much experience would likely bring ordering a good number and would put up large funding, but since it’s a UK initiate program I think they would accept us as lead as long as it’s not all our way.

The one thing I would take from the F35 project is it tiering of partners, we would look at our selfs as the US potion this time with Italy taking our role as the tier one partner, with the others being tiered on what they bring.
At the end of the day any multi national project needs a lead other wise it end up be dragged out with in fighting and no one setting a clear path on where it goes.

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by SW1 »

Not sure I agree, typhoon was in the beginning difficult to upgrade due to they way workshare investment between the 4 partners was constructed. That changed many years ago now and typhoon has benefited greatly now, it will remain for few decades the mainstay of the fighter fleet. It’s been reasonable successful internationally ordered or operated by 8 countries which is pretty good for a fighter in its size and weight class.

The two prime examples to follow is probably Sweden and France. Sweden has been successful with gripen and has partnered with Brazil for gripen e. Aerospace is a global business and Sweden has chosen to leverage that global supply chain to get the best product it can but keep the integration in Sweden and invested in and designed elements they had specialisms in. They accepted the trade off between requirements and cost and produced an excellent product.

France went it more alone to an greater extent with rafale but still leveraged specialist capabilities and know how from outside France. They went for a higher performance aircraft as baseline which resulted in more cash and development issues than the swedes and a lack of international sales compared to the mirage family which sold very well.

Depending on how willing your prepared to trade on requirements and how ready you really are to accept the systems within a system approach will depend how successful we will be. We’ve talked the talk many times before in this regard and failed to walk the walk when push came to shove.

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by Lord Jim »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:Lord Jim wrote: those planes at the ETPS were leased from SAAB as I said; ArmChairCivvy wrote:without having to buy a single plane!
ArmChairCivvy wrote:
Lord Jim wrote: those planes at the ETPS were leased from SAAB
as I said;
ArmChairCivvy wrote:without having to buy a single plane!
Your eloquence in your initial statement meant I missed your point first time around. :D

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by SKB »


(Forces TV) 13th February 2020
Virtual cockpits and drones for wingmen are just some of the options being looked at for Britain’s next-generation fighter jet. The Tempest project, a joint venture between five defence companies, aims to give the UK a cutting edge in air combat by 2035. We had a first look at its cutting-edge cockpit and how virtual reality could help pilots fly the jet.

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by SD67 »

My simplistic take on it - Team Tempest have enough partners to compete the current phase ie get the aircraft developed. If there were a technical gap then we wouldn't be ramping up to 2500 people in the UK.

To get it built is a different matter, but that decision point is mid 2020s. At that point more "level 3" partners may be needed, in some cases there may be workshare involved. Personally I doubt many of these customer/partners will be in Europe, but Europe is not the world. Naturally they'll hang back a bit to see results of the development, and other basics like their budget balance, local threat situation etc. But this is not unusual, how many partners had committed to F35 by year 3 of the program? I don't see how it's an issue. As long as the product is good and the host nation/s are committed to it, it will sell, see type 26.

In terms of reservations about a program having British leadership well every project has a lead nation. Maybe a potential customer thinks they'll have more design input and operational sovereignty with the French? I doubt it.

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by Cooper »

Short of a total economic collapse in the next few years, I really can't see this project not going forward after 2025, to full production.

There is just no way that this country will leave the projected $250-$300bn export market for 6th Gen Fighters, to the French & Germans.

That is just not going to happen.

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by dmereifield »

Cooper wrote:Short of a total economic collapse in the next few years, I really can't see this project not going forward after 2025, to full production.

There is just no way that this country will leave the projected $250-$300bn export market for 6th Gen Fighters, to the French & Germans.

That is just not going to happen.
And the Americans, Japanese and potentially others...its not just Tempest or FACS. To be honest I'd be surprised if it did materialise to anything. The one thin hope is that it's a flagship project that Boris might (hopefully) want to push. I'd see it more likely being merged with either the US 6th gen programme or FACS

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

dmereifield wrote:I'd see it more likely being merged with either the US 6th gen programme or FACS
The F-22 syndrome won't go away, so which ever way Japan leans will determine whether Tempest will merged into FCAS... or v.v. 8-)
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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by Cooper »

dmereifield wrote:
Cooper wrote: And the Americans, Japanese and potentially others...
..The Americans probably won't even allow their 6th Gen plane to be sold to other countries, like the F22. The Japanese have no export presence and their fighter will be tailored to their exact Pacific theatre requirements, which may well not be suitable for other countries needs.

As for joining the FCAS... :lol: Not while the French have anything to do with it.

It's more likely that Germany would leave the French and their Prima Donna attitude to being in the lead on the project, and join Tempest, than the UK joining FCAS.

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by dmereifield »

Hope you're right, but I'm pessimistic on this one

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by RetroSicotte »

Germany is unlikely to leave at this point. They have openly acknowledged that France gets the lead and the majority workshare/design influence already. It's assured by that Germany gets the lead and the majority workshare on the new MBT in return to make up for it.

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by Timmymagic »

RetroSicotte wrote:Germany is unlikely to leave at this point. They have openly acknowledged that France gets the lead and the majority workshare/design influence already. It's assured by that Germany gets the lead and the majority workshare on the new MBT in return to make up for it.
They're also taking the lead on some elements that could actually make more money in the long run.

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by dmereifield »

RetroSicotte wrote:Germany is unlikely to leave at this point. They have openly acknowledged that France gets the lead and the majority workshare/design influence already. It's assured by that Germany gets the lead and the majority workshare on the new MBT in return to make up for it.
Until they get into the MBT project and France starts to kick off about it

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by cky7 »

I still think we ought to be careful with our egos here in regard to how other nations see us. If we go round saying this is to be a British lead program I worry about how many will truly follow through. At the moment it’s very early days and there’s clear logic for others to enjoy the chance to join in researching the technologies of tomorrow. When it comes to signing up for actually building ‘tomorrow’s fighter/system’ things maybe rather different.
Getting all sniffy about the French will do us no favours. At the endof the day, in the west, only The US, France and Sweden(and in their case last time was with considerable external assistance) from the west can claim to have built a Mach 2 fighter on their own since the 50’s. And only they can claim to have a true top end solely domestically designed and built fighter in production today. I hear a lot of people talk about how Typhoon was mostly British, whilst they forget the final design we ended up with bears a lot more similarity to the German designed TFK90 than anything from the U.K. French salesmen will be quick to point this sort of thing out. Whilst I don’t doubt our technical capability to build and design our next fighter, I still think the old third dimension that famously killed TSR2 is still beyond us. When we look at how little the govt the cares about defence I see no way of them ever providing the money and long term commitment required to get a project this ambitious over the line. This is doubly amplified when one considers it will be of little use to have a super duper air system without the enablers that go with such a capability. The other forces will also quite rightly point out how much they are gonna need in order to make them remain relevant which is again essential for such a project to have true value.

I’d love to believe I’m wrong and we will do it, but what I see and read every day (from my admittedly totally uninformed civvie position) makes me see jt as less and less likely. Such a shame. Having read the discussion on here and elsewhere my guess is (in the fantasy world where such a thing were to happen!) something more mini B2 in size than the current generation fighter. With how much smaller being defined by where those with the tech knowledge feel the balance lies in how much of Typhoon level kinetics needs to be retained. This is complimented by a small number of UAV/UCAVs designed to take on completely interchangeable mission modules or sensor/weapon suites. Perhaps two more high end types, one more ISTAR and the other more killer, along with a cheap and cheerful expendable, yet again very flexible system. The beauty of it all is the whole thing wouldn’t need to be built together and could start as a basic system, we may well even see Typhoon with something like kratos XQ-58 derivative and progress over the years through a structured program to the son of Tempest and it’s system of systems and suite of unmanned wingmen one day becoming a reality. This could then be a never ending process where instead of spending a fortune every generation we look to organically grow or improve the system every few years.
Alas, I still there’s no way that third dimension of TSR2s could ever be got right to bring such a thing to reality. IMO in the real world we’re gonna have to accept the nightmares of a coalition build (which will likely be worse than in the past due to the need for more partners with more requirements due to falling budgets and numbers). Which will mean we’ll see the sort of thing we had with Typhoon where we had a great design in EAP and the Germans in TFK90 and political wrangling leads to a compromise design between the two and we spend years and waste money arguing where the canards should be and if we have the inlet in the right place, interestingly again give France their due here Typhoon AMK does sort of indicate they may have known more about canard deltas than we did or at least gave them credit for. As an aside I think BAE were in favour of close coupled, yet TFK90 went long
arm cos it was always intended to have TVC. Whether that we could have had an even better design than the already amazing Typhoon and didn’t is either down to German post Cold War cost cutting or BAEs lack of belief in TVC but now I’m wandering far off topic again so will leave it there!! :angel: :D

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by Ron5 »

@ck7 Interesting ramble never the less.

There's really two parts to both ventures. There's the manned fighter/controller that gets all the headlines and then there's the unmanned sidekick that does all the down & dirty stuff. In the Euro effort, France leads the manned bit and Germany leads the unmanned. Given past history, France will find some excuse to leave the unmanned effort after Germany is irrevocable committed to the Dassault fighter. France will the go on and develop their own drone.

Perhaps in this hypothetical situation, the UK could join with Germany on at least that bit to lower risk & cost.

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Re: Future UK Combat Aircraft (Project Tempest)

Post by Lord Jim »

cky7 wrote:At the endof the day, in the west, only The US, France and Sweden(and in their case last time was with considerable external assistance) from the west can claim to have built a Mach 2 fighter on their own since the 50’s
Doesn't the BAC Lightning count? TSR2 was a bomber but the programme was killed by politics not for lack of capability. France has a habit of always wanting to be lead on any programme it joins as a precondition for doing so. Germany isn't really bothered about leading programmes but rather what its industry gets out of it. For Sweden it is more about sovereign capability for the most part.

As for the UK and Tempest, we have the ability and have already found capable partners with more probably in future. The biggest hurdle is going to be can we afford to actually build it.

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