Interesting snippets from latest AW&ST article on the Tempest.....
http://aviationweek.com/combat-aircr...e-draws-allies
........Britain wants to be able to develop the Tempest in half the time it took to develop the Eurofighter, breaking the cost time curves that have pushed up the cost of military combat aircraft programs exponentially in recent years.
Disrupting this paradigm, say officials, means existing industrial business models will need to change. They suggest one of the keys is the use of the Pyramid open-systems architecture. “[It not only] significantly reduces the time and cost of upgrades and modifications,” says Air Cdre. Daniel Storr,
Royal Air Force head of future combat air acquisition, “[but also] introduces competition for additional applications and weapons. . . . [And] it does not have to be driven through one company.” ..........
Officials are also exploring whether the design margins for the platform could be changed as part of a review of “historic norms.” Rather than designing for the traditional 30-40-year life of a fighter, Storr suggests Tempest could have a 20-year life, after which the air force could “throw away the shell and reuse the subsystems.”........
The team is also looking at a new business model, where industry could recoup its costs throughout the life of the program, through research and development and not just during the production phase, suggests Storr.........
The idea has traction in UK industry, with officials pointing out that the technologies being developed for Tempest will not be “bespoke” for that platform but exploited on other platforms. “The investment and return equation here is going to be different; if we come up with the same equation we did before, we will probably create what we had before,” says Christie. “Revenues are going to flow in a different way, and we are up for that. . . . The government wants something that is affordable, and we [as industry] want something that is competitive and to sell in volume.”......
Engineers are keen to avoid the upgrade challenges that have resulted from the unstable configuration associated with the Typhoon and the use of canard foreplanes, which has challenged the integration of weapons and stores. “The design driver is to go for ease of upgrade, and that drives certain things into the design. . . . Stability makes it easier to do that,” said officials.