Australia and Canada Poised to Join British-led Sixth-Gen Jet Fighter Program

12 comments

1. The Trump fiasco may be just what we needed to decouple from the US. I for one welcome any incentive to further the CANZUK cause.

   > While it calls for closer ties between the three states, including the development of defense technology, its tier one program, centered on nuclear-powered submarines that all three nations could operate, has been criticized by President Donald Trump in the past.

   All the more reason to do it.

2. Tempest has potential to be the single greatest aviation achievement this country has ever produced, beyond Whittle’s engines, the Comet, the Harrier, even Concorde.

   The US have given a contract based on creating competition, not the best design. FCAS is in the mud because the French are once again proving to be impossible to work with. The Russians can’t get a 5th generation fighter working, much less deploy a 6th generation one (yet). China seems to be best arranged out of everyone but it remains to be seen whether their new fleet is as functional as their supporters claim, but regardless they won’t sell in the West.

   Which leaves us, with a project that’s well funded, led by 3 of the most advanced nations on the planet (UK, Italy and Japan) and hopefully soon gaining Canada, Australia and outside interest from the Nords.

   Combine that with the Type 26 and Type 3X series of Frigates selling like hot cakes, more Typhoon orders and upgrades, Merlins flying off the shelves down in Somerset, hopefully more sales of AW-159 and potentially AW-149 production for NMH and it’s looking bright for our defence industry at a critical time.

3. I appreciate competition can be beneficial but how about merging the two European programmes GCAP and FCAS? The development savings and airframe cost per country would be dramatically reduced meaning more can be built and purchased.

4. And let’s build them without any US-sourced components or software.
   The US wanted Europe to be more self-sufficient in defence so we’re just giving them what they wanted.

5. > As reported by *Flight Global*, Australia has expressed interest in joining the effort and could be joined by Canada.

   This sounds a lot less definite than the headline does

6. INB4, Boeing and Trump come in with the ‘but but your supposed to buy our F47 first not make you own’.

7. 6th generation (theoretically) can communicate with many allied assets on the battlefield and _choose the best one to complete the task_ as it flies.

   So if the fighter is flying over a field and sees a Russian tank, it can instantly see what assets we have over the battlefield, tell them _all_ where the enemy is, and allocate the best unit for tackling it – which is possibly not the plane.

   So the plane could real-time ‘order’ an automated artillery piece 16 miles to the East to shoot, or a Challenger to engage, etc. chosing the best option – within a second of the target being identified. 8 seconds later, an artillery shell could be in the sky …

   Also all units have full battlefield awareness. So as the plane sees enemy troops, or anything else it instantly sends the position to all our troops maps. AI predicts where the enemy unit is heading or it’s next actions.

   It can also recommend to the pilots targets, can deploy drones to take on smaller targets or gather intelligence as the plane leaves, and uses AI to predict enemy actions and provide suggestions to the pilot.

   And that’s just the unclassified stuff 🙂

8. CANZUK is the future. We should work closely wherever possible with our closest commonwealth allies.

9. Looks like we might get something out of the change of government across the pond after all.

   I’ll never know the answer to this question (well not unless I live at least 30 more years anyway) but I’d love to know what is going on behind closed doors regarding Five Eyes at the moment. Hopefully they’re gently decoupling intelligence sharing too.

10. great. it’s about time everyone stopped being complacent and relying on america for military and tech, trump killing off america could be one of the best things to happen to the rest of the world in a long time. all this recent news about the world waking up and scrambling to work together is exciting, i’ve been calling for this very thing for over a decade because i’ve been sick of being america’s bitch ever since blair bent over for bush and took us into those stupid wars in the middle east that nobody wanted. i’ve been excited about the uk/it/jp jet project for a while and if ca/au can be integrated while keeping the project on track i welcome it wholeheartedly

11. I think having Austrelia involved in aircraft development is a top idea. You can guarantee aircraft performance when performing aerial manoeuvres during inverted flight.

12. This will certainly help my children find affordable housing.

Comments are closed.