MoD releases Taranis UAV information

It was an utter disgrace that we didn't carry on into a full development run and production of Replica. Think VLO Buccaneer.

Im worked there at the time Replica was revealed, AFAIK it was never meant to go into development or fly, ever. It was just to show we have stealth technology so we could get into F35.

It didnt have any systems, it was just a stealthy platform? Do you know otherwise mate, I would be really interested???

What worries about Taranis is the French, I recon with industry participation, a UK and Saudi contract, we could do this without European "help".

Imagine this, every UK or Saudi subcontractor gets a percentage of the spoils, but each has to put forward their part of the development costs, a real partnership. Management nightmare but every project I have worked on, the suppliers were at zero risk with no skin in the game, this needs to change.

The Taranis consortium could be extended for production.

I often wonder about Replica, and how hard it would have been to turn it into a working system.

Off the shelf, radar, fly by wire, EJ200, weapons systems etc.

I'm fact take the typhoons systems and glue them in, development done just software changes to the fly by wire systems to take into account the changed aerodynamics.

The F117 were a collection of stuff from other projects, clean sheet is always expensive but using existing systems differently often less so (not always)

Rich

With it being a technology demonstrator it has borrowed from other systems. Before my time but IIRC - EAP had Tornado engines and undercarriage (and whatever else under the hood).

I only know of one fact because I was involoved, but some of the Taranis fuel system is Typhoon's (No big deal), didnt check but you may see systems from other aircraft - no point in designing fuel and hydraulic (etc.) controlls from scratch when the technology you are demonstrating is stealth and autonomy.

I also wish to point to a post in Air Attack:

and full autonomy elements

It has some pretty advance autonomy to cope with very strict UK FAA rules...