The UK's high-profile Future Offensive Air System (FOAS) programme, a replacement for the Royal Air Force's (RAF's) Tornado GR.4 strike aircraft,
has been scrapped after years of planning and concept evaluation to make way for a fundamentally different kind of project focused on a family of
long-range, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that will probably embrace the combat, reconnaissance and surveillance roles.
FOAS has drifted in the last five years, as it has struggled to establish a firm identity. "It was not well-enough defined and no one is prepared to
take big-bang risks anymore," one analyst commented. "We don't need any more killing machines. In the current climate [the UK military's
commitment to Iraq and the war on terror], a big aircraft programme at this stage would simply have been shot down in flames."
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This is real bad news...The FOAS was a great project and the UK had the technical and industrial base to realise it. I guess american systems will
rule the roost for a while now...
Some FOAS schematics & artists impressions :
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