Sustaining European sovereign combat-air capabilities and the defence-aerospace industrial base underpin both multinational Future Combat Air System projects now underway, explains Douglas Barrie.
Team Tempest, the British industry team pursuing development of the United Kingdom’s future combat-air capability, has expanded to include a further seven companies, mainly first-tier suppliers, adding to the core four launch firms. Spreading the Team Tempest industrial footprint – or, arguably, circling more industrial wagons – appears judicious as a potentially far-reaching defence review nears conclusion, particularly when military spending and requirements are under scrutiny owing to budgetary pressures and the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meeting Europe’s future requirements
The additional team members were announced by UK Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace on 20 July, as part of the launch event for the virtual Farnborough International Air Show (the COVID-19 pandemic had meant that the actual show had been cancelled). The original four industry partners – BAE Systems, Leonardo, Rolls-Royce and MBDA – have now been joined by Bombardier, Collins Aerospace, General Electric UK, GKN, Martin-Baker, QinetiQ and Thales. This move arguably broadens the support base for the project across the UK aerospace sector, particularly at a time when companies involved in commercial aerospace have been battered by the impact of the pandemic.
Team Tempest is the industrial vehicle through which the UK is exploring meeting its Future Combat Air System (FCAS) requirement and future air-power requirements of its partners Italy and Sweden. The UK is also pursuing bringing additional partners on board. Trilateral industry discussions are also ongoing between Italy, Sweden and the UK to bolster cooperation on FCAS needs.
FCAS is one of two multinational European combat-air efforts. The other is a Franco-German-Spanish project that includes the Next Generation Fighter, part of a wider construct also labelled FCAS. Both projects are aimed at securing the future of Europe’s defence-aerospace industrial base, although even if both were to go ahead structural change and a reduced industrial footprint are near inevitable. Without such programmes, however, Europe would be faced with buying its combat-air needs ‘off the shelf’, most likely from the United States, with the resulting loss of industrial capabilities and sovereign control.
FCAS and the F-35
Wallace discussed the UK FCAS against the backdrop of the government’s Integrated Review of defence and security needs. The review, he said, would ‘repurpose our armed forces … for an era of constant competition’. The outcome of the work may be made public in the fourth quarter of 2020 and will inform fundamentally the future shape and size of the UK’s air power. There will eventually have to be a decision on the balance between the Lockheed Martin F-35 and the platforms and capabilities that will fulfil the FCAS requirement. The F-35 remains a possible candidate to meet part of the FCAS.
Wallace, however, sketched out a capability relationship between the F-35B and the FCAS reminiscent of the US Air Force approach, which sees a mix of the F-35 and the F-22, the latter addressing ‘air dominance’. Wallace said the F-35B would provide the strike element of the Royal Navy’s carrier-strike capability, while there was also the ‘need for the ability to clear and defend contested air space’. It is the latter that will drive the overall FCAS requirement.
London has a notional requirement for 138 F-35s, with the possibility that the A-model be bought alongside the F-35B. The UK has taken delivery of 18 F-35Bs as of July 2020, and has committed to 48, which is fewer than the number needed to sustain a 24-strong fixed-wing air component for the potential operational cycles of the two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers drawing from both navy and air force squadrons. Another two squadrons’ worth – around 20–24 aircraft – would likely be needed to provide this, and to allow a possible surge to 36 aircraft onboard at least one of the carriers. The aircraft could also be supplemented by uninhabited air systems. Beyond the carrier-capable B-model a switch to the F-35A-model could provide the Royal Air Force with a candidate to replace the Eurofighter Typhoon, initial versions of which will begin to be retired from the early 2030s. Italy too is looking to begin to draw down its Typhoon fleet from the mid-2030s.
Moving forward, fast
Team Tempest is working to an aggressive schedule, with a target initial operational capability of 2035, driven in part by the moves to begin retiring early variants of the Typhoon. A further motivation is to address opportunities in the export market from the late 2030s onwards. London and Rome signed a statement of intent on FCAS cooperation in September 2019. In July 2019 Sweden and the UK signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at examining the potential of a cooperative industrial base to address Sweden’s combat-air needs beyond the Saab JAS39E Gripen multi-role fighter. The UK is aiming for the FCAS outline business case to be complete by the end of 2020, clearing the way for the assessment phase to begin in 2021.
Europe continues to harbour two future combat-air projects and, at least in the case of the UK and its Italian and Swedish partners, there is interest in drawing in further participants. London is also continuing to canvass for additional international partners, with Japan one of several candidate countries. The UK appears not to be being prescriptive and to be taking a building-block approach, wherein countries could join the whole programme or be involved in the development of major sub-systems such as propulsion, sensors or weapons.
While the two ‘rival’ European projects can be viewed as sub-optimal, political and defence-industrial issues have so far sustained these parallel developments and may continue to do so.
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