A follow on to
Corax, or a more refined design for the UCAV portion of FOAS?
BBC: BAE wins £124m aircraft contract
The Ministry of Defence has awarded a £124m ($244m) project to develop an unmanned aircraft to BAE Systems. BAE Systems, the UK's largest defence group, will lead a team including Rolls-Royce, Qinetiq and Smiths.
Called Project Taranis, the plane will be about the size of a Hawk jet and will use a stealth design. It is not yet known how many jobs the project will create nor where it will be based. It will test whether unmanned planes can carry ground attack weapons.
Defence Procurement minister Lord Drayson has hailed Taranis, named after the Celtic god of thunder, as "groundbreaking". "I am delighted to award this contract, which will test cutting edge technology for a new generation of equipment for our front line forces," he said.
Flight tests for the prototype have been provisionally scheduled to take place in 2010.
BAE Systems chief executive Mike Turner said it was an important project "in light of the way in which military operations are changing".......