UK Defence & Aerospace Industry - News & Discussion

[Spitfire9]

Talking of exports, I read in the (notoriously unreliable) Indian media that Bharat Dynamics claims it is close to receiving an order for locally built/assembled Starstreak missiles for the Indian army. The expected order is said to be worth 250 crore which, I think, is about 30 million US dollars. India has a large army. I wonder how many Starstreak they could end up buying.

[SW1]

Potentially quite significant news in a number of ways

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-68453469

Boeing has confirmed it has begun talks aimed at buying Spirit Aerosystems.
Spirit has a major operation in Northern Ireland but it is unclear if Boeing would keep that part of the business.
The Reuters news agency has reported that Airbus has explored the possibility of buying's Spirit's NI operation.

Spirit manufactures the wings for the Airbus A220 at a factory in Belfast.
Reuters added that a deal with Airbus is not likely to happen in the short term.
Spirit is one of Northern Ireland's largest and most important manufacturing businesses with more than 3,000 employees.

The company has been in Northern Ireland since 2019 when it bought Bombardier's operations, ending a long period of uncertainty for the workforce.

[new guy]

Potentially quite significant news in a number of ways

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-68453469

Boeing has confirmed it has begun talks aimed at buying Spirit Aerosystems.
Spirit has a major operation in Northern Ireland but it is unclear if Boeing would keep that part of the business.
The Reuters news agency has reported that Airbus has explored the possibility of buying's Spirit's NI operation.

Spirit manufactures the wings for the Airbus A220 at a factory in Belfast.
Reuters added that a deal with Airbus is not likely to happen in the short term.
Spirit is one of Northern Ireland's largest and most important manufacturing businesses with more than 3,000 employees.

The company has been in Northern Ireland since 2019 when it bought Bombardier's operations, ending a long period of uncertainty for the workforce.

Nationalise it over selling it to Boeing if we can't get it into airbus hands.

[tomuk]

Potentially quite significant news in a number of ways

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-68453469

Boeing has confirmed it has begun talks aimed at buying Spirit Aerosystems.
Spirit has a major operation in Northern Ireland but it is unclear if Boeing would keep that part of the business.
The Reuters news agency has reported that Airbus has explored the possibility of buying's Spirit's NI operation.

Spirit manufactures the wings for the Airbus A220 at a factory in Belfast.
Reuters added that a deal with Airbus is not likely to happen in the short term.
Spirit is one of Northern Ireland's largest and most important manufacturing businesses with more than 3,000 employees.

The company has been in Northern Ireland since 2019 when it bought Bombardier's operations, ending a long period of uncertainty for the workforce.

Nationalise it over selling it to Boeing if we can't get it into airbus hands.

I'm not sure Airbus would be too happy with Boeing buying Spirit at all not just due to Belfast. By volume Airbus are a bigger custonmer than Boeing are of Spirit.

There are ex Bombardier plants in Dallas, TX, Belfast and Morocco making A220 bits and plants in Oklahoma, France and Glasgow making other Airbus parts.

[SW1]

The plants in the UK and America are also heavily involved in defence programs that would not sit easily within airbus or Boeing.

I cant see airbus wanting their business jet or nacelle business either as there not on airbus products. It could become complicated.

[tomuk]

The plants in the UK and America are also heavily involved in defence programs that would not sit easily within airbus or Boeing.

I cant see airbus wanting their business jet or nacelle business either as there not on airbus products. It could become complicated.

The problem is that Spirit are losing money on the programmes so aren't attractive to a competitor like Triumph, GKN or Raytheon. The Boeing purchase is basically a bailout just to keep the parts flowing.

A four way split? Boeing and Airbus taking on their respective commercial programmes and GKN and Raytheon the miltar and bizjet us\eu parts.
Or maybe a Boeing\GKN split with Airbus 'sponsoring' the GKN takeover of its programmes?

[SW1]

The plants in the UK and America are also heavily involved in defence programs that would not sit easily within airbus or Boeing.

I cant see airbus wanting their business jet or nacelle business either as there not on airbus products. It could become complicated.

The problem is that Spirit are losing money on the programmes so aren't attractive to a competitor like Triumph, GKN or Raytheon. The Boeing purchase is basically a bailout just to keep the parts flowing.

A four way split? Boeing and Airbus taking on their respective commercial programmes and GKN and Raytheon the miltar and bizjet us\eu parts.
Or maybe a Boeing\GKN split with Airbus 'sponsoring' the GKN takeover of its programmes?

The Boeing bailout is because Boeing are going to pause there 737 rates again, and suppliers cannot cope with the continued stop start nature of the mess Boeing has got themselves into.

That would be too complicated certainly for belfast and Prestwick because the engineering and manufacturing teams support multiple programs in the same factory complexes.

[SD67]

Boeing are in a serious pickle. Buying.Spirit means reversing the strategy of the last 2 decades.And they bring the liability back onto their books - no one else to blame now.

Luckily they still have a few dumb customers like us prepared to pay twice the USAF price for a P8 LOL

[SW1]

FAA is cracking the whip may put the recent news in context.

https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/updates-bo ... x-aircraft

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)’s six-week audit of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems, prompted by the January 5 incident involving a new, Boeing 737-9 MAX aircraft, found multiple instances where the companies allegedly failed to comply with manufacturing quality control requirements.

To hold Boeing accountable for its production quality issues, the FAA has halted production expansion of the Boeing 737 MAX, is exploring the use of a third party to conduct independent reviews of quality systems, and will continue its increased onsite presence at Boeing’s facility in Renton, Washington, and Spirit AeroSystems’ facility in Wichita, Kansas.

The FAA will thoroughly review all of Boeing’s corrective actions to determine if they fully address the FAA’s findings.

[tomuk]

FAA is cracking the whip may put the recent news in context.

https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/updates-bo ... x-aircraft

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)’s six-week audit of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems, prompted by the January 5 incident involving a new, Boeing 737-9 MAX aircraft, found multiple instances where the companies allegedly failed to comply with manufacturing quality control requirements.

To hold Boeing accountable for its production quality issues, the FAA has halted production expansion of the Boeing 737 MAX, is exploring the use of a third party to conduct independent reviews of quality systems, and will continue its increased onsite presence at Boeing’s facility in Renton, Washington, and Spirit AeroSystems’ facility in Wichita, Kansas.

The FAA will thoroughly review all of Boeing’s corrective actions to determine if they fully address the FAA’s findings.

Well that isn't going to help Spirit' cashflow. Are we looking at a Chapter 11\Administration situation?

[SW1]

FAA is cracking the whip may put the recent news in context.

https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/updates-bo ... x-aircraft

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)’s six-week audit of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems, prompted by the January 5 incident involving a new, Boeing 737-9 MAX aircraft, found multiple instances where the companies allegedly failed to comply with manufacturing quality control requirements.

To hold Boeing accountable for its production quality issues, the FAA has halted production expansion of the Boeing 737 MAX, is exploring the use of a third party to conduct independent reviews of quality systems, and will continue its increased onsite presence at Boeing’s facility in Renton, Washington, and Spirit AeroSystems’ facility in Wichita, Kansas.

The FAA will thoroughly review all of Boeing’s corrective actions to determine if they fully address the FAA’s findings.

Well that isn't going to help Spirit' cashflow. Are we looking at a Chapter 11\Administration situation?

It’s the reason the story broke that Boeing were looking to buy them back.

[jonas]

Britten-Norman. Nice to see aircraft work being brought back home, and seemingly making a success. :- Click on photo full story.

https://britten-norman.com/uk-productio ... en-norman/

[TheLoneRanger]

Britten-Norman. Nice to see aircraft work being brought back home, and seemingly making a success. :- Click on photo full story.

https://britten-norman.com/uk-productio ... en-norman/

Britten-Norman should expand their horizons by getting into Drone manufacturing of various sizes and capabilities - it is a good income stream and helps develop and maintain new skills. Not all drones need to be done by BAe !

[new guy]

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/mod-awa ... e_vignette



1) How on earth is this £906m?? contract to MST for 18 15m police boats was £36m
2) Abroad??? for a contract this big?? For a relatively simple craft??? When their is plenty of companies in the UK that could do it?? After great times with MST and BMT???

Must be a typo.

[new guy]

For reference for nearly £1bn factoring in the kind of scales economics when you order 20,000% more, you could obtain close to 500 of the below

More like 9.6m at the most
If not then where is the money coming from and, holy, what a blunder from the MoD.
also 3,000 crew, assuming this isn't a mistype or that if true the MoD actually got value for money.

[SD67]

It's been corrected in UKDJ to £12.6 million

Still, NSS NSS, wherefore art thee NSS?

[new guy]

It's been corrected in UKDJ to £12.6 million

Still, NSS NSS, wherefore art thee NSS?

thanks and yep.

[whitelancer]

It's still £!2.6m lost to the UK economy.

[bobp]

If drones can do this now.....

[tomuk]

If drones can do this now.....

How are they doing it? Are the drones forming the shape autonomously? I don't believe they are. More than a massive leap to drones chasing after enemy combatants autonomously.

[Damola3]

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks-st ... 024-07-09/

UK's Starmer commits to increasing defence spending to 2.5% of GDP

I'm pretty sure this means that it'll be 138 F-35s when they decide on the final number next year (beyond the 74).

Suddenly, any current defence programmes are overfunded and there's money for extra.

I'm willing to bet:
1. 138 F-35B
2. Obviously more SSNs
3. More Type 26 or Type 45 (depending on if we sell the former on Norway, as our shipyards are all full)
4. Type 32 will start rolling off as Type 31 is done.
5. All ships fitted out out VLS.
6. Actually ammunition sticks
7. A programme to fit out drones on QE class to replace rotary wing.
8. An expanded army of some kind. Labour said that they'll expand the army if next year's review suggests it. I think more Challenger 3.

The 2030s are going to be the biggest renaissance for the defence industry since East of Suez was abandoned.

People forget that the British economy is much much stronger than it was up to the end of the cold War.

2.5% of GDP puts our nominal spend in wartime Russia territory.

At current spend, we basically have Govan and the Type 31s at full production and we will have roughly 1.5 ships entering service per year from next year. That's while SSBNs are eating 40% of the equipment budget.

2030s = 40% of the current budget from SSBNs freed up, the 2.5% uplift will be complete and the Ukraine War should be long gone, so we can spend that part of the budget elsewhere.

[Caribbean]

Starmer is refusing to set a timeframe on that "committment". The Tories said by 2030, he's refused to match that

[Damola3]

Starmer is refusing to set a timeframe on that "committment". The Tories said by 2030, he's refused to match that

I personally think that it's because they don't want to have to spend more than they need to. Allow me to explain what I mean.

I'm pretty sure that it was Shapps who said that we couldn't spend near that amount over the next few years without buying lots of equipment from abroad. Our shipyards are full, we're preparing for Tempest, expanding Barrow and even ammunition stocks take time.

The current 2.32% isn't actually as big as it seems for 2 reasons:
1. Ukraine aid is included in that.
2. SSBNs are 40% of the equipment budget atm (till early 2030s)

A hypothetical 2.5% may really start to kick in when Tempest starts production in 2035 and arguably it may not impact Tempest that much because Ukraine aid will be done and 40% of the budget from SSBNs will be freed.

Hypothetically, we'd be looking more at AUKUS in late 2030s (expanding the SSN fleet) and maybe more destroyers because we barely have time to produce more than the Type 26 (unless we don't sell to Norway).

What I'm saying is that in the short-run, it takes years to even develop systems and build supply chains for them and by that that time, nukes will free up 40% of the budget.

What matters more are the capabilities they commit to in next year's review because there's money to expand our armed forces substantially in the 2030s with current budgets.

[wargame_insomniac]

@Damola3 I hope you are right on many of those items. But I remain cautious until we see that the upgrades you mentioned are actually funded with hard budget cash.

[new guy]

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks-st ... 024-07-09/

UK's Starmer commits to increasing defence spending to 2.5% of GDP

I'm pretty sure this means that it'll be 138 F-35s when they decide on the final number next year (beyond the 74).

Suddenly, any current defence programmes are overfunded and there's money for extra.

Lmao 2.5% will pay for what we have now and no more.