Stormy skies for Tempest?
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By Jon Lake
BAE Systems have unveiled a new, full-sized model of the trinational Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) next generation Tempest manned combat aircraft concept at Farnborough, even as some pose questions as to the programme’s future.
Against the background of a forthcoming defence review due in the UK, some have interpreted Prime Minister Keir Starmer as having failed to guarantee the future of the Tempest/GCAP programme when he spoke at the air show, saying that: “It is an important programme and I know that people in the room will want to hear me say that.
“It is a programme on which we are making significant progress and the Defence Secretary is holding a ministerial level meeting next week because of the significant benefits it will bring to this country. There is of course a review going on but it is important for me to put on record just how important a programme this is.”
Some believe that the UK should perhaps simply buy more Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightnings instead of developing GCAP, but experts feel that while the F-35 is today’s ‘apex predator’, it was designed for today’s epoch, and would be inadequate to operate in tomorrow’s more contested and complex environment, except as an adjunct to a sixth generation fighter like Tempest.
Others have pointed to the USAF’s apparent reduction in commitment to the NGAD (Next Generation Air Dominance) programme, interpreting this as marking a wavering in support for a sixth generation fighter programme, in favour of greater investment in unmanned platforms. This is not the case, and it actually marks a budget-driven shift in prioritisation in favour of the B-21 Raider bomber and the LGM-35A Sentinel ICBM – the two legs of the US nuclear triad for which the USAF has responsibility.
Across the UK, Italian and Japanese partnership industry leaders including BAE Systems’ Herman Claesen (managing director of Future Air Combat Systems), Guglielmo Maviglia (Chief Global Combat Air Programme Officer, Leonardo) and Hitoshi Shiraishi (Senior Fellow, GCAP, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd) are speaking with one voice, insisting that a manned platform is the key element driving the ‘system of systems’ that will provide next generation Combat Air capabilities, and that only Tempest will deliver the military capabilities, strategic relevance, and sovereignty and prosperity advantages needed.
The new Tempest concept shown at Farnborough represents a more evolved design than previous concepts with a larger wingspan and improved aerodynamics reflecting the progress made during the ongoing concepting phase. “We’ll continue to test and evolve the design, as we move closer towards the next phase of the programme,” Claesen told Aerospace Global News.
