Podcast: Future Of Air Combat In Focus At Farnborough

Robert Wall:

Welcome to the second round of our Farnborough wrap-up Check 6 podcast. While our commercial aircraft colleagues moaned about a boring show, the defense arena has actually been intriguing in many respects. To help shed light on that for you are Aviation Week editors Brian Everstine and Tony Osborne. I'm Robert Wall, the executive editor for Defense and Space. Tony, let's kick it off with you. BAE showed a new model of GCAP, the fighter that the UK is developing with Japan and Italy. Maybe you can tell us a bit about that, what was interesting to you? 

Tony Osborne:

Yes, thank you, Robert. Yes, it's been an interesting air show. It now seems to be every two years now we've got a pretty sizable, chunky update on GCAP. Obviously this is the first year where GCAP has really become this three nation endeavor. It wasn't until the end of 2022 when Italy and Japan and the UK signed the tripartite agreement to begin development of the Global Combat Air Programme. So this was where really GCAP really came into its own.

So we had presence from the governments for all three nations, the industry partners from all three nations. So the likes of BAE systems, Leonardo, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries having a very definitive joint presence. Because it didn't start off brilliantly earlier in the week, as listeners will be aware, the British government, the new British government led by Keir Starmer has basically started a defense review. Of course, that puts a question mark under every program, and of course some in the British media interpreted that as maybe this program might get canceled.

So basically the headlines, the start of the show were GCAP was in danger. Yeah, I think now we've several days into the show, coming to the end of the week, I think the feeling certainly among the GCAP industrial partners is that they had a show of force, so to speak, of ministers coming to have a look at this giant GCAP model in the new configuration, asking questions, being curious. The industrial partners seem to have been quite heartened by that. The expectation is that this project meets all the government targets around jobs, around security, cooperation with other nations that this new government seems to be pursuing quite considerably. So they're quite encouraged by the noises that are being made there.

We've also seen some progress on the demonstrator aircraft that the UK is producing, sort of rebuilding those industrial capabilities, that design efforts and so on. That aircraft is now halfway through production. We've seen pictures now of the internal structure of it, lots of security, lots of caginess around both elements of that program, the demonstrator and GCAP. There is genuine progress here. The skeptics will still say there's probably not enough money to produce this amazing combat aircraft. There's still questions about viability in the future and the numbers that will be purchased, but from what the industrial partners are saying, they're putting a very brave, happy face on the progress. 

Robert Wall:

Yeah, I thought it was interesting. The PM in a very low-key visit actually showed up here and he didn't have to. He obviously has tons on his agenda. He's talked a lot about reaching out to international partners, and obviously this is a flagship program. So I also thought it was a bit overdone some of the narrative out of fairly benign comments. Anyway, I mean, the other interesting thing is of course as you point out, they're making progress at the time, the US equivalent effort, NGAD, seems to be teetering. So, Brian, do you worry that Tony's going to have a big, fun program to write about over the next two decades and you'll have nothing? 

Brian Everstine:

I don't know if I'd go that far. In fact, I asked Bill LaPlante, the Pentagon's top weapons buyer about that at Farnborough, and he told everyone to pump the brakes a little bit. He said these programs will continue, the U.S. will modernize air power. It's just going to take a little bit of time. They're going back over their plans, making sure that what they buy is really what they should buy, but we don't really know how that's going to play out. Is it going to be two years delay, three years, more than that? We do know that the funding is likely going to be cut pretty dramatically when we're seeing numbers of the Navy's F/A-XX dropping down to just $50 million or so for next year under one of the authorization bills. So I think NGAD is going to happen, but I might be a little older and a little grayer when we start to see it come through. 

Tony Osborne:

I did speak to a senior GCAP official, and I did ask him about this whole U.S. uncertainty. They said, well, is it possible that this is just about trying to keep costs right, trying to try and encourage the big OEMs to try and keep their costs under control? Also, they sneakily said maybe they'll come and join us. 

Robert Wall:

Well, in fact, interesting to me was in a respect, especially on the U.S side, the conversation has really shifted. I mean the industry folks, and even to some extent the government folks, it's been much more about the secondary element or what was often seen as the secondary element of these future combat programs, call it collaborative combat aircraft, call it remote carrier, loyal wingmen, whatever you want to call it. The uncrewed element. I thought very interesting the discussions at both Global Air Chiefs, then RIAT apparently, I wasn't there, but then also at Farnborough about really where we should be going with these CCA concepts and a bit of tussle breaking out there as well. So, Brian, maybe you can share with some of our listeners what you observed there. 

Brian Everstine:

Yeah, so just the level set background here. The U.S. Air Force is really the first out of the gate on collaborative combat aircraft, and they're trying to do these things in what they call increments. They awarded contracts under their first increment to Anduril and General Atomics, looking to fly their vehicles within the next year or so. By awarding to those two companies, it's an interesting approach. They're really not the main traditional primes. You think of Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop really lost out and then looking at more of the low-cost smaller systems to get the program started.

Before at the Global Air Chiefs we reported, my colleague Steve Trimble wrote a story on this that Northrop Grumman's head of aeronautics, Tom Jones, came out and talked about how for these things to be viable, they need to be capable. They need to have low signatures, they need to have range, they need to just be able to keep up with the F-35s and potential NGADs. In a follow-up discussion, General Atomics kind of accused them of having some sour grapes of being a little hurt over not taking this first increment. So it was a little bit of a spat back and forth. We've seen that going forward as we look at the second increment, which we expect these vehicles to be a lot more capable.

We talked with some of the major players here. For example, Boeing Defense CEO, Ted Colbert, talked about this with a small roundtable of us that they're really investing highly in their air dominance programs. They have campuses in St. Louis, in Arizona that are really focused on air dominance, which could be NCAD, but is also a lot about CCA. The company has its MQ-28 with Australia, its MQ-25 here in the U.S. with the Navy, is kind of building the ground for their CCA programs, but there's a lot more going on in the dark space that he alluded to. So we're seeing a lot of the companies put an investment for this following increment, but we really don't know what the requirements are. The Air Force is very coy, they're not really set. So there's a little bit of a guessing game on where companies should go.

One other interesting note out of Farnborough is that GE and Kratos announced a teaming agreement on a new engine. The GEK800 I believe is what they call it. It's scalable for starting out for cruise missiles, smaller weapons types, but could scale up to just under about 3000-pound of thrust, which is the very low end to below the low end of what the Air Force has said is looking for CCA. It's a new player on the engine side that's a part of the supply chain that is really tight for collaborative combat aircraft and also shows that Kratos had hinted about trying to be a prime on follow on increments, but could be looking to be a sub through this engine provider to stay in the game. 

Robert Wall:

Brian, that's an interesting point, and what I thought was interesting was when you talk to some of the folks at the Global Air and Space Chiefs Conference last week, there seemed to be a lot of uncertainty really even among the future customers of what it is they might want. So that was just something in the chatter. A lot of people wanting these CCAs or loyal wingman or whatever you want to call them, but really not quite sure what performance they are really targeting. Tony, maybe you can talk to us a bit about where the UK is on this. 

Tony Osborne:

So the UK is pursuing a strategy, the Autonomous Collaborative Platform strategy. That's pretty much early days and there will be an influence from the UK Defense Review, but that splits these ACPs into various tiers. You've got a disposable tier one, tier two is attritable, tier three is going to be those really more exquisite platforms that you really will be desperate not to lose.

So we're probably not going to go for the tier three end. That's probably going to be a bit of expensive platforms, but tier two is certainly where it's going to be at. So various companies, industries, looking across that area to see what the REF wants. That's probably not going to be something before 2030. Even though actually the RAF took quite an early lead through Project Mosquito a couple of years ago and then subsequently canceled that.

Rolls-Royce gave us a brief update here at the show on their Orpheus program, which would provide a potential short life power plant for ACPs, but also for cruise missiles. So that was rapidly developed, those who remember from two years ago that they launched this program to develop an engine just 18 months. That program is continuing with a number of tests including embedded electrical generators and so on. So they're using that as a platform to rapidly iterate and develop new technologies for engines, but also prove out that ability to rapidly produce, rapidly develop a turbofan to manage.

Robert Wall:

Yeah, interesting. Another thing that I thought was quite interesting, Airbus has put more detail out on its efforts to modernize its A330 base tanker with the now the A330neo given the classic A330 is going out of production — new engines, more efficient wing, 8% more performance, really talked up that a greater range with an eye on what they thinks is another wave of orders or demand from customers out there. Initially, probably new ones, but eventually also replacement ones.

Then so of course then asked about the U.S., which is a very painful memory obviously, having initially won that program and then having it stripped away. And painful now also for Boeing for having won of course with the billions of losses that its taken on the program. So be it. I thought it was very interesting and it reminded me, we may be on the cusp of another round in the tanker war. So, Brian, am I overly optimistic? 

Brian Everstine:

I mean, honestly at this point, who knows? They've been going back and forth so much. We had the Bridge Tanker program, then it was called KC-Y, now it's called the KC-135 Recapitalization Program. The Air Force was supposed to have its acquisition strategy set last month. We haven't seen anything about that yet. Asked Secretary Kendall about that at I believe it was Riyadh, and he said there's no final decision yet. So industry's just waiting and waiting and waiting. It seems like Airbus is just responding and having conversations with the Air Force as they want to, but not really anything hard set yet.

Boeing is now the program of record for KC-46 is increased from 179 to 183. There's another option for 188, which I mean as this is going, probably expect that to be exercised. I think it's just a question of funding as it goes down to every program. I mean, Sentinel is eating everything in the Air Force right now. So we'll see as the '26 budget plays out. They talked about the need to accelerate NGAS, the next generation kind of clean sheet design, tanker. But There's no money in it in the outyears in the budget. So who really knows what's going to be happening in the mobility community?

I mean, it's funny when you talk to AMC about it, they're pretty desperate. General Minihan says we're on the fifth generation of fighters, but really on just a second generation of tankers. So it's really taken a backseat of modernization. So unless there's any money, I think we're just going to be sitting here waiting. 

Tony Osborne:

I was going to say, it's quite interesting that the U.S. Air Force has taken a backseat of modernization. Here in Europe we're seeing modernization with platforms like the KC-390 really gathering pace. I mean, I think you were at the signing of the Netherlands and the Austrian contract for that program. So it's quite interesting on both sides of the Atlantic, very contrasting procurement processes. 

Robert Wall:

The Dutch have opted to, I mean the plane is refuelable, but Dutch have also opted to use it as the tanker version so it can pass gas, so to speak. Anyway, which takes us to our next topic, including for helicopters, for helicopter refueling. With that, Brian, you had a really nice scoop on the helicopter front. For the people who haven't had a chance to read your story yet, why don't you fill them in?

Brian Everstine:

Yeah, that was probably the story of Farnborough, at least from my perspective. I mean, the biggest story probably in the aviation world of the past several months has been Boeing's acquisition of Spirit AeroSystems, bringing them back into the fold. As part of that, there's been some... It's all the focuses on commercial, obviously with all the problems with the 737, but there's a lot of open questions on the defense world because this would make them a supplier on B-21, make them a supplier on CH-53K and notably Bell's future long-range assault aircraft, which Bell beat Boeing and Sikorsky for the Army's FLRAA program.

We understood and have now confirmed that when the acquisition closes middle of next year, Bell will kick Boeing off of the program and look for another supplier for their fuselage. It's interesting because there's a lot of history there. There's no real love lost between the two companies based on the V-22 Osprey. They've been teamed since the early stages of development. It was a unique kind of 50-50 even share approach, which led to a lot of problems in the early development of the Osprey. A lot of bickering, a too many cooks situation, which has relatively evened out as we're in the very late stages of procurement.

The V-22 is going to be winding down, but now we're going to have to see what is Bell going to do. By kicking Spirit out of the program, they're going to have to find a new fuselage supplier. They're going to take it in-house. They have a teaming agreement with Leonardo on tiltrotor for Europe. Leonardo has a facility in Philadelphia. Does it have the capacity or really the interest to take on a program of this size? So it'll be real interesting to see that play out. I understand the workforce it has, is being notified in Wichita about this, potentially workforce losses. It's all... We don't know how it's going to play out yet, but it'll be a big hole in Spirit's defense portfolio. 

Robert Wall:

Yeah, it certainly was not a great marriage at times between Bell and Boeing, so you can see why that would happen. Tony, you seem to have stumbled across something that might not have been the big helicopter story of this show, but actually could be a hint that we might have a big helicopter story at future shows. So why don't you walk us through that a bit more? 

Tony Osborne:

Yes. It all appeared really late yesterday afternoon as we were trying to furiously type our stories, including Brian's FLRAA scoop there. This is the press release that comes in that says that GE Aviation was working on a new engine with Airbus helicopters. So that would be a brand new turbo shaft that would set new standards in efficiency, reliability, and environmental responsibility. Slightly this would probably be a engine for a commercial platform.

It's interesting because no Airbus helicopter has ever been powered by a General Electric engine. The only exception there is that the CT7 or the T700 is a engine option on the NH90, which Airbus produces in conjunction with Leonardo in Italy and Netherlands Fokker, but only really Italy's aircraft are using that engine. So it's a really interesting view into the future there. So previously no GE engine powered helicopter. So the big question is what is this engine for?

Airbus have not declared any new helicopter variants in the near future. What size will that be? Previously GE helicopter engines have been focused at the larger end, 7, 8, 9, 10 ton aircraft. So Black Hawks, the AW189 from Leonardo, and the Sikorsky S-92. So just to suggest that maybe a re-engineering program for an Airbus aircraft or a brand-new program. Airbus have still not yet responded, and we've had very little information out of GE, but it's certainly one we are chasing. The prospect of a new aircraft is quite exciting as this new engine. 

Robert Wall:

Absolutely. I guess we'll just have to stay tuned. Okay. Let's park it there. Thanks, guys. Also, thanks to all our listeners, and check in again soon with Check 6.