Originally Posted by
Tarnished
Aeralis represents the “last chance saloon” to retain an aerospace capability in the UK. By that I am not ignoring the multitude of smaller projects and programmes currently in progress, but what UK plc loses if there is no Aeralis is the ability to design, develop and produce an aircraft system with the potential to sell/export significant numbers of units around the globe.
However you are ignoring a rather large and well-known aerospace capability which has just secured another export order for Typhoon, builds 15% of every F35, and is soon to fly a demonstrator for the GCAP/Tempest. So no, Aeralis is not the "last chance saloon" for UK aerospace.
Even if there are no such programmes after Aeralis, why give up such hard learnt skills to foreign alternatives.
Because the skills don't exist: BAES is working on a Tempest demonstrator mainly as a way of regenerating them for GCAP (the EAP/Typhoon generation has largely retired). The idea that Aeralis is sustaining an alternative pool of design experts is just not credible, unless we are talking about PowerPoint design experts.
The long term requirement for fast jet trainers is also unclear to me. It's very much open to question whether GCAP/Tempest will be crewed for its whole service life; if pushed I'd say not, but the bigger doubt for me is over the training needs of its pilots (WSOs?). What we're seeing in the current crop of next gen concepts are large, long-ranged aircraft that are likely to be less manoeuverable than 5th and certainly 4th gen aircraft. The main demands on the operator are going to be maintaining situational awareness and managing uncrewed wingmen. I'm sceptical that a clean sheet trainer design is needed to address that.