Great Britain expects to create its own sixth generation fighter. Earlier, the launch of such an ambitious project has already been announced by Germany and France, which are going to develop a new multipurpose combat aircraft jointly. Thus, in Europe they are going to create at least two promising combat aircraft of the sixth generation.
A new ambitious project was launched in the UK at the Farnborough Aviation Show. British sixth generation fighter was officially named Tempest (English "Tempest") in honor of the eponymous successful British fighter Hawker Tempest during the Second World War.
In this project, the UK government is going to invest 2 billion pounds (about 2, 7 billion dollars). In the future, the sixth generation Tempest fighter will have to replace the Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft in the Royal Air Force. British Prime Minister Theresa May spoke about plans to develop a new combat aircraft at the opening of the Farnborough International Air Show. An investment of two billion pounds will be allocated for the implementation of this program until 2025. According to Theresa May, the project lays the foundation for the Typhoon successor program and will help define the long-term vision for the British military aviation industry. The allocated funds will allow the development of the necessary set of technologies, which will form the basis of the new aircraft, which is scheduled to be commissioned after 2035.
Kingdom Defense Minister Gavin Williamson, in turn, noted that the projected sixth generation combat aircraft will be able to fly both under crew control and in a completely unmanned mode. It is known that a group of companies called Team Tempest will work on the implementation of the project, which has already included the largest British military-industrial corporation BAE Systems, as well as the well-known European manufacturer of various missile systems MBDA, in addition to them, a manufacturer of aircraft engines will take part in the project - not lesser known British company Rolls Royce. The possible participation in the project of the Italian concern Leonardo is also indicated.
The British Ministry of Defense believes that the aircraft that are being created as part of the Tempest project will be able to supplement the fleet of the fifth generation F-35 of American production. At the same time, it is planned to completely abandon the use of the Eurofighter Typhoon by that time. The announced project has already been commented on by American generals. In particular, Todd Walters, who is the commander of the US Air Force in Europe, stated the importance of compatibility between any British fighter and the American F-35. He expressed the hope that the new British combat aircraft will be "maximally compatible" with the F-35B fighter-bomber, which the UK acquired relatively recently (4 aircraft have been received so far).
The Izvestia newspaper writes that the promising British fighter goes back to the Replica project, on which BAE Systems engineers worked in 1994-1997. As part of that project, London was developing a technical look for a promising tactical fighter. At the same time, the question of whether to create a new aircraft independently or to postpone all work and simply buy promising F-35 fighters from the United States was being decided. Now we can say that then the second option was chosen, but the scientific and technical groundwork created back in the 1990s will be used to create a combat aircraft of the next generation.
This can partly explain the given degree of ambition: Great Britain decided not to repeat the fifth generation combat aircraft, immediately taking on the sixth generation aircraft. This decision can be explained without resorting to the choice already made by London in favor of buying the fifth generation F-35B fighter-bombers from the United States. The rather difficult story of the creation of the Eurofighter Typhoon fighter and the entire experience of joint European defense programs accumulated since the 1980s shows us that these programs are not so much expensive (and they really cost the taxpayers dearly), but rather slowly implemented. As a result, launching the design, a typical European country with a developed defense industry risks, in the best scenario, getting a fifth-generation fighter ready for serial production by the time when prototypes of a sixth-generation combat aircraft are ready in the United States and, possibly, Russia and China.
Yet the British will not be making the new fighter alone. In addition to the British companies BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce, the MBDA consortium (which is a pan-European association for the development and production of aircraft weapons), as well as the Italian concern Leonardo (one of the largest engineering holdings in Italy) are already included in the cooperation on its creation.
It can already be noted that in the creation of the sixth generation combat aircraft, Europe repeats the fate of the fourth generation. In the 1980s, the project to create a single European fighter broke up into the national French fighter Dassault Rafale and, accordingly, "thinned out" after France left the Eurofighter Typhoon project. Literally in April 2018, Germany and France moved forward on plans to develop their own air forces. At the moment, both countries are going to build their sixth generation fighter - FCAS (Future Combat Air System), which will replace the Eurofighter Typhoon fighters in the German Air Force and Dassault Rafale fighters in the French Air Force. It is possible that Spain will also join this project, which is showing interest in replacing its own F-18s. France and Germany intend to complete all work on the new joint aircraft by 2040.
It is characteristic that Paris had previously planned to participate in a joint project with London. What is now shown under the name Tempest could just become FCAS (currently the program is called FCAS TI - Future Combat Air System Technology Initiative). However, it did not work: the military-political alliance between Great Britain and France, which had been forged since the end of the 2000s, cracked on this issue, and the French decided to return to the traditional tandem with Germany, which since the 1970s was considered the backbone of the entire European Union. At the same time, Paris did not officially refuse to work with London, but in practice, France's choice was made in favor of developing a "continental" sixth generation fighter.
The first details about the technical features of a promising British fighter
Guided by the presented photos and video materials, we can already say that the model of a combat aircraft shown to the press and the general public is a high-wing aircraft built according to the "tailless" scheme with two keels deflected to the sides. The presented layout makes it possible to judge that the new aircraft will have two engines with air intakes located under the wing on both sides of the fuselage. In the design of the new fighter, it is planned to widely use stealth technologies. According to the British Secretary of Defense, the new Tempest fighter will be optionally manned - it will be able to fly not only under the control of a pilot, but also in an unmanned version, the plane can be fully autonomous.
It is known that a special multi-mode aircraft engine will be created for the new aircraft. The fighter will be able to control various drones, and will also receive a "directed energy weapon". An on-board control system will also be developed, working in conjunction with a self-learning artificial intelligence and equipped with a virtual cockpit function.
The defense company BAE Systems has already presented the concept of a virtual cockpit for the promising sixth generation Tempest combat aircraft, which is planned to begin work in the very near future. According to Defense News, in the new cockpit, virtual elements will be added to the pilot's visual field using a special helmet-mounted display. At the same time, the displayed information can be adjusted for certain situations, a setting in a very wide range is available.
In the overwhelming majority of cases, fighters produced today traditionally include a set of digital and analog instruments and one or more multifunctional displays on which customizable information is displayed in the cockpit. Depending on which version of the combat aircraft is in front of us, the number of digital and analog instruments in the cockpit can differ significantly. For example, on older models of combat aircraft that have not undergone modernization, digital instruments in the cockpit may be completely absent.
The F-35 Lightning II 5th generation American multifunctional fighters are already using a kind of virtual cockpit. In this fighter, the so-called end-to-end vision system was implemented - the image from external video cameras installed along the perimeter of the combat aircraft's airframe is displayed on the pilot's helmet-mounted display and shifts in accordance with the turn of his head. For example, looking back, the pilot will see exactly what is now happening behind his F-35, and not the rear wall of the cockpit or the back of the seat.
The concept of a virtual cockpit, which was shown by BAE Systems, implies an almost complete rejection of the instruments in the cockpit in their usual form. All information and data from various cameras, sensors, radar, weapons control systems will be displayed on devices in augmented reality. At the same time, the information output in the cockpit will be fully customizable - the pilot will personally be able to select the displayed information and devices by setting their position in the visible space. So it is reported that some devices can be brought out of peripheral vision, they can be seen only when the head is turned in the desired direction.
The concept of a virtual cockpit presented by the British assumes the placement in the cockpit of only one touch multifunctional display, but it is planned that it will turn on only in the event of a failure of the augmented reality system. This display will be disabled during the entire period of an accident-free flight of a fighter.
