Modern-Aviation

One hundred years after the formation of the Royal Air Force – what kind of combat aircraft will it be flying over the next century? That is a key question that is set to be brought into sharp focus this month with the release of the UK’s Combat Air Strategy.

Announced by UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson MP in February this year, the strategy will see collaboration and input between the MoD and industry over the future direction of Britain’s military aerospace sector and the RAF’s requirements around the middle of the century, when the Eurofighter Typhoon will be phased out.

After over a decade in RAF service, the Typhoon is still yet to have its finest hour, with an imminent leap in multirole capability under Project Centurion that is adding Brimstone, StormShadow and (at some point) AESA radar that will see it become the backbone of the RAF’s fast jet force.

Yet time is marching on fast and the extended timescales of modern combat aircraft (and associated software) development mean that, for any notional 2040+ fighter, development will need to start soon. Even discounting pre-development studies such as CALF (Command Affordable Lightweight Fighter) and JAST (Joint Advanced Strike Technology), the Lockheed Martin X-35 first flew in 2000 with the F-35 entering operational service in the past couple of years.

The need is not only to begin now to ensure an aircraft is ready in two decades but also to bridge the gap in valuable experience, skills and knowledge. Behind the scenes, the UK’s largest and most important military aviation supplier, BAE Systems, has been pressing the Government to take steps towards a commitment that would support critical jobs and Britain’s strategic military aerospace sector.

Yet looming over these ambitions for a coherent and affordable combat air strategy for the UK are three swords of Damocles that have emerged since the last Farnborough Air show in 2016 – Brexit, Trump and a projected £20bn ‘black hole’ in UK defence budget. These three factors, upending solid political, economic and strategic assumptions about the state of the world, mean that at the moment planning for future requirements may be akin to spinning a roulette wheel. As one veteran industry noted – a Combat Air strategy that didn’t take into account Brexit, Trump and the MoD funding crisis would be ‘meaningless’.

One challenge for those tasked with predicting the future and the requirements for a Typhoon successor in the RAF, is the fluid nature of threats and rapidly changing battlespace. Conceived in an era before the iPhone, the UK’s F-35Bs enter a world of hypersonics, cyberwarfare, space-enabled warfare, where non-state actors can field precision aerial weapons in the form of weaponised consumer drones. What threats will a fighter of the 2050s face?

While not universally accepted by all, the term ‘fifth generation’ does provide somewhat of a shorthand in defining a combat aircraft – with stealth, sensor-fusion, AESA radar and supercruise, all features of the F-22, F-35, PAK-FA/Su-57, J-20 and FC-31. Retrofitting some of these into older legacy aircraft is certainly possible (eg AESA or sensor fusion) but not all – particularly the low observable configuration that makes ‘fifth generation’ able to penetrate and operate in the most highly defended airspace.

What, though, makes up a ‘Sixth gen’ concept? All that encompasses a fifth-gen fighter – plus directed-energy weapons or hypersonics? These two at the very least would push the cost of sixth-gen fighters into the stratosphere and mean that only a very few nations could afford them. Perhaps the defining feature of a ‘sixth-gen’ capability is affordability – a fifth gen platform that could be acquired in bigger numbers and give air forces critical mass. Perhaps the Gripen E, a Western fighter aimed at breaking the cost curve, is a better guide to the future than the F-35.

Finally, there is the question of the sixth-generation’s place in a future force network – able to share vast amounts of data securely and leveraging cutting-edge AI, analytics to fight smarter and faster than the enemy. Indeed, the F-35’s most impressive capability may be not its stealth but as a key node in this future battlespace network, able to detect, classify and share new threats as they appear.

Douglas Barrie, Senior Fellow for Military Aerospace, International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), says of the ‘generation’ tag: “My preference is to avoid using generations at all. Whatever emerges needs to balance combat capability, development and through-life costs, and exportability. There’s no point in designing an exquisite platform if you can only afford a handful.”

If hyper-connected, vastly expensive superfighters are one end of the spectrum’s answer to ‘what is a sixth-gen capability?’, another may be swarms of cheap, disposable drones, with AI controlling them to overwhelm the enemy. Concepts such as DARPA’s Gremlins, USAF’s ‘Loyal Wingmen’, UK’s LANCA (see below) and even China’s ‘Sharp Sword’ UCAV hint the future may be one of human/AI teaming, with crewed aircraft becoming the on-site mission commanders of increasingly capable robot wingmen. But where does the correct balance lie?

For a high-end sixth-generation UK capability, one proposal from defence lab DSTL, seen by AEROSPACE, is Nemesis, a concept for a large tailless, twin-seat fighter. The concept shown had no vertical tail surfaces and was armed with what seemed to be a directed energy weapon or laser of some description. However, DSTL refused to provide more information or context about this platform, believed to be one of several concepts, saying that: “we don’t provide comment to speculative articles.”

Meanwhile, while BAE Systems has previously revealed various futuristic concepts for swarming UAVs and hypersonic ISR aircraft – so far it has not revealed its concepts for the Combat Air Strategy. The closest to a notional ‘sixth generation’ fighter, revealed in 2014, appears to be a tailless, crewed fighter, with air intakes on its upper surfaces.

Another more recent concept, seen in an trade advertisement for BAE’s SIGINT capabilities, features what looks like a sixth generation fighter but with anhedral wings and upper surface intakes.

Yet it may be wise not to read too much into these public reveals, given the potential for false conclusions and disinformation. BAE’s 2014 ‘future fighter’ for example, features pitot tubes and airspeed probes – external exturberances unlikely to be found on any operational stealth platform. Indeed, in the 1980s while BAe’s P.1214 Harrier successor turned heads with its sci-fi ‘X-wing’ design (and even a full-scale mock-up), the eventual AVSTOL solution, the F-35, bears most similarity to a single-engined F-22. Other stealth fighter concepts in development, such as Turkey’s TF-X, South Korea’s KF-X, India’s AMCA and China’s FC-31 also all feature similar planforms and configurations.

Providing input to help develop the operational requirements of any UK sixth-generation fighter concepts that emerge out of the Combat Air Strategy, is the RAF’s new Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO), tasked with accelerating innovation, partnering with industry and getting new technology into the hands of the warfighter fast. Working to Air Vice-Marshal Simon ‘Rocky’ Rochelle, Chief of Staff, Capability and Force Development, and led by Air Commodore Linc Taylor, he says: “the RCO mission is to regain the warfighters edge. We aim to explore, exploit and expedite capability.”

Since its formation in 2017, the RCO has worked at impressive speed on a number of rapid acquisition projects - such as Leonardo’s BriteCloud active decoy system – a world-leading digital defensive expendable that went operational with the RAF Tornado Force at the end of May. It also procured a cutting-edge HD colour video satellite, Carbonite-2, for the MoD on orbit from acquisition to launch in an astounding eight months. As Rochelle observes of the UK’s traditional quick procurement method, the UOR: “We had found that actually that was starting to look a bit sluggish”.

Interestingly, the RCO also issued a RFI (Request for Information) to industry earlier this year under project LANCA for a ‘Loyal Wingman’ class of lower-cost attritable combat UAV. This RFI, is open to UK and international companies, is also open to academia and SMEs or ‘combinations’ of those, says Rochelle, adding: “the conversation is open; that’s why the RFI is written in the manner it’s written. It’s for everybody to come and show us what can be delivered its effectiveness. We are truly looking for disruption in that area too.” On LANCA, he notes: “we are interested in exploring it as a potential part of the future combat air system.” On the broader FCAS concepting work, a MoD industry day was held on 13 March, with Flight Global reporting that a consortium called Team Tempest, comprising BAE Systems, Leonardo, MBDA and Rolls-Royce, had been formed to develop FCAS concepts.

As well as its output of new hardware, faster to those at the sharp end, the RCO is “designed as a disrupter in all sorts of dimensions” says Rochelle, challenging the RAF, MoD and industry to rethink how they do business and accelerate timelines, so that “we can cascade some of that thinking into normal processes and acquisition”.

For the Combat Air Strategy, AVM Rochelle is understandably tight-lipped about the RCOs role in this noting that “quite a lot of the things that we do in the RCO are of a classified nature.”

However, he was able to reveal that “Team Tempest, which is an industrial team working with us, with D&ES, to look at concepts for the future of combat air systems.” He added: “we’re doing some work under Future Combat Air Systems technology with France. We’re also doing FCAS UK and there are synergies, crossovers and connectivities, but there is also separation in some of that work as well.”

For FCAS proper, Rochelle says: “I can’t say anything more at this stage”, but gives a glimpse into some of the thinking on the balance between the platform and the system itself: “It’s a platform within a systems of systems which is important in the future. So when you talk about a Tornado for example, you don’t just talk about the aircraft. A Tornado is nothing without a Storm Shadow, Brimstone, a Raptor Pod and a targeting pod. There’s always a system within a system. The question for us is: how far do we go further forward in the conceptual ideas and what is the next natural evolution of those concepts?”.

With the West potentially facing an erosion of its military edge as well as disruption from emerging cyber and space threats, AVM Rochelle says: “We need to maintain our operational advantage. Part of the RCO’s standup is to help make sure that we maintain operational advantage with our warfighters.”

The dilemma for the UK is now becoming more acute, as the end of production of the Eurofighter Typhoon hoves into sight. The large production run (just under 600) and export wins (Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait) have managed to delay the inevitable for a while but, based on the current order book this should push Typhoon production out to 2023/24.

Part of the problem, however, in launching a replacement for Eurofighter (and Rafale) is that the three main military industry giants of Europe are at different stages and have differing requirements when it comes to replacing their fighters. The UK, for instance, is looking for a Typhoon replacement as an air superiority/strike fighter but, with the F-35 on order, is less concerned about the stealth strike role. France, meanwhile, will need to replace Rafale, a multirole fighter with carrier and nuclear strike missions. Outside the F-35 programme, it has more of an interest in stealth UCAVs for first day of the war roles. (Hence why the Dassault nEUROn demonstrator included a weapon bay).

Germany has two requirements. The first for a nearer-term strike replacement for its Tornado force, which it intends to keep flying until 2035. This could be met by Typhoon or even perhaps F-35. Further ahead, Berlin will also need to consider a Eurofighter replacement. Yet the awareness of a ticking clock on Eurofighter (and Rafale) production has been heightened by geopolitical events too. Brexit and the new US President have upended cosy assumptions about the reliability of allies and have pushed France and Germany closer together.

Earlier this year at ILA Berlin, Paris and Berlin announced a key step to collaborate on a next generation fighter. Here too, the devil is in the detail. Given changed geopolitics, will any new strike aircraft for the Luftwaffe to still need to carry the US B61 nuclear bomb – a relic of Cold War NATO requirements? Given German public hostility to military power (and especially nuclear weapons), these factors suggest that there are already diverging opinions on requirements – even before the key questions of workshare, orders and jobs come in.

Outside this Franco-German combat aircraft alliance, other partners for Britain may be further away. The UK, for example, is collaborating through BAE and Rolls-Royce with Turkey on its TF-X project and there are opportunities with Japan, which is looking for international partners for an air superiority fighter to replace its F-15Js. Denied the F-22 and having started development of its own FTX, Japan is now seemingly interested in a hybrid F-22/F-35 type fighter.

There also may be opportunities with South Korea – developing its own KF-X stealth fighter and, potentially, India, which has cooled on the FGFA project with Russia but which is still intending to develop its own stealth fighter in HAL’s AMCA.

It is also worth pointing out the UK’s existing collaboration with France to develop a stealth UCAV demonstrator leveraging experience from the Taranis and nEUROn projects. Yet Brexit uncertainty and a reported shift in requirements now seems to have slowed momentum on this joint drone project.

Of course, it may be that, in some cynics’ eyes, the UK defaults to a traditional position and buys whatever America decides for its next generation combat aircraft (FA-XX – US Navy/PCA – USAF). Professor Keith Hayward notes that, in the case of the UK and US: “BAE might, again, be tempted by a junior partnership role, even at the expense of some design and systems integration capability,” adding that: “the best option is an EAP style programme that could be open to France and others.”

Meanwhile, defence analyst and commentator Howard Wheeldon has this view on potential partners: “My preference for a sixth-generation combat aircraft (or system) development would be for a collaboration on manned aircraft development based on relatively small numbers of aircraft being required and that would involve France, Britain, Germany and Italy. Alongside this, however, I would like to see the UK alone invest more into unmanned combat air capability development on its own or with a chosen partner. My second option would be for the UK to come together with Sweden and maybe some other Nordic states to develop next generation manned and unmanned combat aircraft capability. UK Typhoon export customers may well wish to have some involvement in this and it has not escaped my notice that the UK/Turkey TF-X manned combat aircraft capability development might also play into this idea.”

Wheeldon also cautions that, given the disparity between the US defence budget and rest of the world, “from a potential development cost and affordability basis, further collaborative partnerships with the US would seem to be unlikely” for a piloted sixth-generation combat aircraft.

The UK going it alone, however, says Hayward is: “impossible to contemplate” as an “independent development is far too expensive.” Barrie concurs: “Going it alone for a full blown programme doesn’t strike me as feasible. Given that it took near a decade (1975-1985) for the shape of the previous European combat aircraft developments to shake out, I suspect it may take some time for partnership structures to emerge, including on the Franco-German effort and on wherever the UK goes. A mix and match of traditional and new partners is an option, with perhaps some at the systems level only rather than on any whole project.”

Wheeldon also agrees but draws a distinction between piloted and unpiloted sixth-gen concepts: “I do not believe that there is enthusiasm within government for the UK to go it alone on manned combat air capability. That said, the same argument does not apply to unmanned combat air capability and this being from a design and development perspective much cheaper to develop than manned combat aircraft capability, I would not be at all surprised if UK policy on combat air might be to push more money into unmanned capability development.”

Previously, the BAE System Replica (along with its long VSTOL heritage and co-operation), was the UK’s entry ticket to the top tier of F-35 partnership with the US, proving that Britain had the industrial know-how to develop a stealth fighter by itself. What could the UK offer today?

Another factor is the potential for any UK sixth- generation fighter to win export orders. With the UK’s ‘prosperity agenda’ there is now an understanding in the higher levels of UK armed forces that they need to support Britain’s domestic defence industry and help defend UK jobs. This, as Chief of the Air Staff told AEROSPACE, if the “UK is about the number two defence exporter in the world, then 80-85% of the financial value of that is in the aerospace sector. It is a huge contributor to our national wealth.” He said that this would not mean blindly ordering UK weapons or platforms – however expensive, saying: “Competition, and many industry colleagues will tell me this, is good. It keeps us healthy. It keeps us vibrant in the export market. It’s not about throwing away some of our principles of acquisition but it is equally about making our decisions within a coherent framework.”

Like the UK’s Naval Shipbuilding Strategy, then the Combat Air Strategy is expected to have a strong emphasis on export potential and possibilities for international collaboration. Harrier, Hawk and Typhoon have all proved big successes on the the international defence market. Can the UK come up with another military aircraft design in the same league as Canberra, Hunter, or Harrier?

Yet, while sixth-generation, money-no-object, stealth fighters may keep CGI artists in business, some warn that more realism is needed. As yet, no one knows what a sixth-gen fighter looks like – and hypersonics and directed energy weapons are a sure way to push costs into the stratosphere. It may be, then, that a more affordable, yet innovative platform (like the LANCA) is something where the UK could play to its strengths (AI, stealth) and which other airforces could buy in large numbers as force multiplers.

Another suggestion, might be for a LO ISTAR relay platform, able to loiter in contested airspace and relay information back from other stealth platforms. For partner air arms looking to exploit the power of the F-35 – this might be a vital niche.

The shape of wings to come?

The crystal ball still remains cloudy over what the Combat Air Strategy will contain – with some experts predicting that the Strategy will be long on intent and fine words about Government support and the industry’s heritage in the RAF’s centenary but short of actual programme commitments or concrete orders.

Professor Keith Hayward, for example, expects: “I suspect it will be a rather vague document in terms of specific programme commitments. There may well be some commitment to R&D, or technology acquisition (or there should be). Better still, some reference to technology demonstration to hedge against an uncertain technological environment. Exploitation of F-35 will be a central issue, whether this includes increased networking capacity is again dependent on how much cash there might be floating about but the House of Commons Defence Committee did come down hard on this issue.”

Meanwhile, the IISS’s Douglas Barrie warns: “What it shouldn’t look like is long on ambition and short on funding – it needs to be realistic.”

Howard Wheeldon, meanwhile, foresees that the Combat Air Strategy will need to take into account the faster rise in unmanned and autonomous systems in the next 50 years: “I genuinely believe that the UK will need to have a serious involvement in next generation manned and unmanned combat air capability development through a collaborative partnership. However, it will not, in my view, go it alone on another manned aircraft capability development alone and neither should it in my view.”

Thus, whatever the RAF’s wishes, there is also another factor – that of affordability. With the UK facing a MoD funding ‘Black Hole’ of approximately £20bn – along with potentially unexpected extra costs from Brexit (and new Galileo alternative), cash for new fighter programmes will be in short supply. To paraphrase a previous RAeS President, Sir Sydney Camm, on the axed TRS2 – the designers of any British sixth generation combat aircraft will need to get four dimensions correct – span, length, height and politics.

Courtesy: Tim Robinson - (Featured Royal Aeronautical Society)
3 July 2018 Revisited June 2022

Yet at the centre of this debate and discussion, which one veteran observer quipped as: “Provide work for Warton” is whether the UK’s capability to design, develop and build a new combat aircraft from scratch is still there or whether indeed it has been lost already – possibly according to one industry insider, as far back at the late 1980s. Previous examples are not encouraging – from the Nimrod MRA4 to the Mantis UAV (which, although developed in record time, failed to convince the RAF to buy it over Reaper/Protector). The last all-British combat aircraft, the Hawk, meanwhile, having lost out on the US T-X programme, has a new prototype, the Advanced Hawk, with performance improvements, and a new large screen display. Yet at a recent lecture on this at the RAeS HQ, a BAE test pilot revealed that Indian interest in this has now waned and the UK MoD itself had no money – with flight test momentum slowing down.

There is also an underlying feeling from UK industry that, while the F-35 will prove extremely lucrative to GB plc in terms of the number built and the British content on each aircraft (with support and training opportunities down the line), it will not create as much long-term intellectual property value for UK as the Eurofighter programme. Speaking at last year’s RAF Air Power Conference, Michael Christie, Strategy Director and Chief Technologist, BAE Systems, noted that, while there was some (deliberate) duplication of work among partners in the Eurofighter programme, it had created ongoing IP value. F-35, meanwhile, saw Team Lockheed, with little or no duplication but ‘little long-term IP (intellectual property) generation’.

Christie observed that economic benefits will vary with each model of collaboration – and the key being the source of IP generation. The ‘best’ answer, would be a project that balances these key factors.

What is to be avoided is a repeat of what happened in the UK’s naval sector, where a gap between building submarines led to a dearth of knowledge, skills and experience. This pushed costs up and extended timelines for the Astute nuclear attack submarines.

Micro-projects, design studies or concepts, however innovative, do not provide the same level of industrial learning and experience (or the quantity of jobs) that a major programme like Typhoon (or F-35) provides. Even UCAVs, notes one expert, are ‘aerodynamically benign’ compared to a modern agile manned fighter aircraft. If the UK has lost its end-to-end capability to produce a combat aircraft – this will not be a quick, easy, or cheap fix. It will also limit options with potential partners.

Yet despite this gloomy assessment, there are grounds for optimism, Justin Bronk, Research Fellow, RUSI, is positive that the UK still remains a valuable partner: “In terms of any new aircraft development, the UK absolutely can’t go it alone but BAE Systems has expertise in VLO airframe design/construction and Rolls-Royce on the engine side of things that the other likely partners – France and Germany (and conceivably Japan) cannot offer.”