UK 6th Generation Fighter Named - Tempest

Great news for the British aerospace industry that should give a welcome economic boost all the way through to 2060 or so.

£2 billion is a drop in the ocean compared to the likely development costs however.

Sad to see the socio-political crepe polluting the other forums starting in the aircraft forums.

a reply to: EasyPleaseMe

It happens sometimes. No big deal.

It'll be interesting to see who they partner with. We're getting to the point where no single nation can develop a new platform alone. They're too complex and too expensive.

a reply to: Zaphod58
Based on the F35 dev costs, which were around half of the UKs GDP, quite a few more partners might make sense. Plus, our media is reporting the involvement of ‘Lombardo’, whoever they are...

Looks like they have just dusted the cobwebs off the “Replica” prototype and made a few mods to it...!!! a reply to: anzha

originally posted by: Silentvulcan
Looks like they have just dusted the cobwebs off the “Replica” prototype and made a few mods to it...!!! a reply to: anzha

With a rear aspect radar for the Italians and French when they are flying away.

Wee video of testing, spent the last three years undergoing radar and wind tunnel tests in Warton.

a reply to: EasyPleaseMe

Based on the F35 dev costs, which were around half of the UKs GDP,

If I hear this myth one more time my head is going to explode. I blame clickbait and bad journalism.

UK GDP was 2.619 trillion USD in 2016.

The 1.5 trillion dollar figure for the F-35 is in then-year dollars and includes mass production out to around 2040 but the majority of this cost is operations out to around 2070, for the US Air Force, US Marines, and US Navy.

Applying inflation to get 2018 dollars (all prices 2018 dollars) from the 2018 F-35 SAR and the 2010 F-22 SAR:

$65.64 billion for F-35 development out of a total acquisition cost of $356.3 billion. Total Program Cost is $1.025 trillion (Total program cost is derived from 2015 SAR, other figures are from 2018 SAR).

$45.91 billion for F-22 development out of a total acquisition cost of $76.2 billion. Regarding the F-22 total cost, well, the SAR would require me to manually add up a bunch of numbers (not going to happen) and it only goes to 2033 for some reason, not when the F-22 will actually be retired. I would expect total program cost in the $150-$175 billion range.

I think the total amount spent so far by the US Government on the F-22 and F-35 are pretty similar at this point, in the $100 billion range (2018 dollars) with the F-35 being maybe 10-20% higher.

Typically 2/3rd the cost of a weapon system is in operations and maintenance. 1/3rd is acquisition including R&D. In the case of the F-35 about 18% of the acquisition cost is R&D. In the case of the F-22 about 51% of the acquisition cost was R&D.

What will be spent on the Tempest depends on how aggressive they are and how efficient they are. Since they are not going to build something that needs to takeoff and land from two different types of carriers, I doubt it will come out to as expensive as the F-35 to develop. The RAF also operates 136 Typhoons, I doubt they will replace them 1:1 with the Tempest. But yes you are quiet right that the UK most likely cannot go it alone unless they massively increase spending.

No need to get excited. The UK cant (=doesnt want to) afford its armed forces in their current sorry state. Depending on how Things go post Brexit they'll either join the European or American 6th Gen effort. Purchasing a domestic 6th Gen fighter will never happen.

I agree.

Some napkin math:

If we assume that it will cost 70% as much as the F-22 to develop and they buy 100 aircraft to replace 136 Typhoons at $150 million each, then excluding all operations that's still $47 billion. Program Acquisition Unit Cost would be $470 million per aircraft. You could literally buy 5 Panthers for each Tempest. If anything I am low-balling these figures.

Either they plan on getting some major partners, they have some magic, it will be limited in scope, the government plan on spending a huge amount on this, or it won't work.

Am I missing something here?

Whilst this is a very welcome announcement, and unexpected from a source I thought was a dead duck, I think this is more about "Look at us France and Germany, remember how much of the Tornado and Typhoon designs originated at Warton" as a way of us getting a decent sized share of any future product. We couldn't afford to build the P.45 on our own, so it became the MRCA Tornado, we couldn't afford to go it alone with the P.120, so it became the Eurofighter Typhoon. I think this is more of the same in that regard, except johnny foreigner made the first move this time.

a reply to: C0bzz

Very low costs so far and disturbingly efficient development (don't want to jinx it as past projects have been plagued with errors, but so far this one works - from what's visible in the photo, nothing has been changed since entering tests). I Left BAE after Iraq but live in Preston where surrounded by BAE bases and it's the only industry in the region.

Costs were kept very low as the basic design is BAE Replica. They've alse allowed Universities to help out with the development - post grads and professors worked on a lot of the upcoming stuff. They got rid of terrible R & D staff who spent 90% of their day not working or would come up with pointlessly over engineered designs when a simple one does the job better.

It's also one of the only industries left that's actively employing STEM (was no escaping £70k openning jobs when I graduated) and training under the Defence Engineering Science Graduate Scheme. It prevents brain drain to the EU and elsewhere that's been massively sped up by Brexit.

Keeping Rolls Royce, BAE, Leonardo and MBDA in the UK could see more financial return than the cost of the project. BAE alone put £5.5bn into UK based R &D over the last five years and millions partnering with universities to create new technologies and industries.

It's cheaper, faster and more fuel efficient than the f35 (which it integrates with which will massively boost international sales). The UK6th gen aircraft all work on some crazy sci fi style communications-stealth-robotics-self healing and power rangers style they fit together to form a mega-morphing aircraft.

An awful lot lies on how smooth the integration goes, if it works it'll be a big seller, if it doesn't it'll be an expensive mistake.

a reply to: waynos

Pretty much. It's been transported around Lancs and on display in Warton uncovered in broad daylight for a few years, even when Traveller's set up camp a couple of 100m from it. There's been a few prior announcements but they didn't generate much interest/coverage.

Italy are working with us on it and think Japan and Sweden are very close to announcing. France and Germany are rumoured to be interested but seems highly unlikely but looks like a huge gap until 7th gen EMP.

This can only be good news for Britain's aerospace industry, and it's also nice to see Britian being self-dependent even if it's only a mock-up for now.

a reply to: bastion

I wouldn't be surprised to see Japan jump in, if they can get some kind of fixed price deal. I haven't heard the NG figures but the Lockheed offering for their stealth program is already looking at around 5B Yen over what they want to see.

a reply to: C0bzz
Thanks for the clarification, I had searched dev costs and got program cost, including 1.1 Trillion USD MRO.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Airbus are now suggesting that the UK should be part of the Franco-German collaboration led by Airbus, saying there's only room for one design "in Europe". This follows their explicit exclusion of the UK last year. Could it be the UK announcement and plans threaten to destabilise Franco-German politics here, and the assumption that they could monopolise this area in the future?

Personally I think collaborating on this type of programme with countries like France is fraught with dangers, especially if you are going to take a subservient role. I'm also not convinced that Airbus can manage a piss-up in a brewery after the A400M problems.

The UK should take the view that if France or Germany want to join the UK-led programme, then that would be good. Considering the UK is not starting from scratch here as they will take lessons from previous programmes e.g. Replica, Taranis, F35 etc.

A UK fighter alliance with Sweden, Italy and a couple of other European nations sounds like a exciting prospect. Doubly exciting if was truly international and countries like Japan joined.

originally posted by: paraphi
a reply to: Zaphod58



A UK fighter alliance with Sweden, Italy and a couple of other European nations sounds like a exciting prospect. Doubly exciting if was truly international and countries like Japan joined.

Absolutely agree and highly probable!

The MOD have created a Rapid Capabilities Office, along similar lines of those that have brought B-21 up to production at such expedited timescales.

Great stuff!

Cheers
Robbie

a reply to: paraphi

If someone had told me 5 years ago that the 2020s might see a fly-off between a 6th-generation stealth fighter built by the literal descendant of Hawker and called the "Tempest" and a re-animated F-22 with F135s and the F-35s avionics suite in order to determine the identity of Japan's new stealth air superiority fighter, I probably would have needed to sit down and catch my breath.

Boeing is interested in helping.

ukdefencejournal.org.uk...

a reply to: Zaphod58

Saab too.

www.bloomberg.com...

This is starting to look like it could be a good party to be at??