UK Aerospace Looks to The Future

And so we see the celebrated AST403 requirement for Jaguar /Harrier replacement now splitting into a purely British venture to develop the Harrier as a weapon that could be flown well into the 2000s, while Britain joins Germany and presumably Italy and whoever else in an entirely new fighter collaboration. (At present the French are in the discussions, but while the French back the Germans’ anti-V/STOL view, they cannot be taken too seriously as partners in any fighter project as they have their own nationalist log to roll. Few peo­ple believe the French will cooperate when the decisions come.)

Meanwhile, the three air staffs – Britain, France and Ger­many-are discussing the basic requirement for a European fighter and it looks as if there will be a paper outlining this by the year’s end. It will concern a very nippy, technically far ad­vanced interceptor that could tackle anything in the Russian armoury and still operate also as a tactical aircraft for low­ level operations.

I got the impression that the fighter will not be the lightweight F16 sort of thing but at the same time it must be achieved within the economies of Western Europe. The Tor­nado, as found out here, is an expensive luxury. The new fighter simply must be cost-conscious.

There is little question this would be powered by an engine from the Rolls-Royce stable, though it would be another Turbo-Union style of venture – the RB-199 which powers the Tornado is run by a three-nation company of that name, with Rolls-Royce owning 40 per cent, Turbinen-Union Munchen 40 per cent, and Fiat 20 per cent.

Just as the fighter project would be run by Panavia (another German-British-Italian company formed for the pur­ pose), the engine venture would be Turbo-Union. But the British have every intention of being leaders in both ventures if they can. If not, then they would choose the engine venture to lead, I think, because Rolls-Royce has within the past year demonstrated that the politicians regard the engine side of the industry as the one to back if a choice is needed.

This is one reason why the French simply can’t be seen as participants in the fighter venture. They would want leadership in either the engine or the aircraft and neither Bri­tain nor Germany would give it to them. Rolls-Royce, with the Boeing 757 victory behind it, is determined that if any choice has to be faced in these projects, Britain gets the engine that could well be the basis for the powerplant 1n the new fighter.

Meanwhile, the more modest Harrier development for the 1990s would give British industry a very big workload and tons of design experience. To be viable, any national aerospace industry must have at least one military and one civil project which is being run on national basis, not within a partnership. The Harrier has provided that and will continue to do so.

The RAF see that development as a tactical strike fighter for the NATO Central Front – i.e… Germany – to survive the anticipated Russian take-out of all military concrete in Western Germany on Day One. That Son-of-Harrier, or Grandson, is needed, independent of airfields, to smash the Russian armour as it sweeps into West Germany.

These new Harriers would be equipped with the latest in weaponry, developed in the 1980s, to smash any tank with a one-pass technique. There will be no such thing as missing the target.

In the short term, however, the RAF has already made up its mind it wants a quick Harrier development, which it calls Harrier 5. The present Harrier will be given a new wing, bigger and more efficient, as well as a higher-powered Pegasus than the present version. This project is already un­der way at British Aerospace and Rolls-Royce. I understand that current Harriers could be retrofitted with engines and wings when needed.

The Sea Harrier version is well known and already well underway, so the whole Harrier concept is giving and will give the industry a mass of work well into the 1990s and Air Show in June. It could well be in the Australian military in­ventory in the later 1980s.

To discuss the civil aspect of British aerospace ambitions is a very exciting thing indeed: British Aerospace is, first of all, adamant that Britain, France and the USA must and will decide to proceed with a Son-of-Concorde. There seems little doubt in BAe minds that this decision will be taken within five years and that the aeroplane will be flying about a decade later.

The idea behind all this simply is that the supersonic idea cannot die. Too many passengers will have flown in Con­cordes to allow it to die. And as Concordes are built to last 15 years and over, the project must be got under way soon. There is no doubt that it will be a European/ American venture.

Though the British did not say so, the fact of the matter is that if France does not persuade the British and American Governments, then France will join the USSR in developing a supersonic aircraft. The Russian failure with the Tu-144 has rankled Moscow, and it has been a failure. The aircraft is out of airline operation. Several have crashed. France could provide the brains and Russia the roubles to get such a ven­ture on the way.

The new SST will be capable of Mach 2 and seat some 300 passengers, with longer legs than the Concorde, to make it truly inter-continental in terms of non-stop New York/Frankfurt or Rome, even New York/Middle East, cer­tainly London/Sydney in a couple of stops. The speed of Mach 2 means present metallurgy can be used, which would enormously reduce the potential cost as compared with the Mach 3 aircraft talked about years ago in the USA.

British Aerospace and McDonnell Douglas have been co­-operating in work on this venture already. But the Americans would probably have some grouping of US interests, such as McD/Boeing/Lockheed, for the SST venture.

In the civil field, the British have, of course, a purely native-son airliner undertaking in the BAe-146. This is the four-engined feeder-liner that they hope our East-West people will order. This project has gone underway without a solitary entry in the order book, though the British speak of five airlines being interested. It is hard to assess what they really mean by this.

When you get them down to tors, they say that the 146 will not be a fast seller. It will be like the Fokker F-27 and the F-28. It will sell in twos and threes, with many customers re­ ordering over the lifetime of the aircraft. There may not be an entry in the order book when the prototype first flies in about a year. There is one school of thought which thinks it best not to have any orders before first flight in case the aircraft is altered to get them and spoils itself . . . as happened with the Trident, which was in effect ruined to get BEA’s order.

BAe has been working – up at the old AVRO factory near Manchester – on a successor to the One-Eleven or a development of it, however, it may be described. This had in mind the CFM-56, the General Electric-SNECMA American­ French engine, but BAe would like Rolls-Royce to get ahead with its Spey replacement engine, the RB-432, for this ven­ ture.

The Corporation has some ideas that could be forged ahead if there was a British Spey successor. Of course, this is the engine that Fokker needs for its F-29, and without it, it may never proceed. The fact is that Fokker would need to get 50 per cent Japanese interest to proceed with the F-29 and Rolls-Royce will not proceed with the RB-432 without the same. It would cost $200,000,000 at least to get such an engine venture underway.

BAe also wants Rolls-Royce to make engines that would suit the later development of the 125, that very successful business jet the British have made for years now. This is in fact the RB-401, the 432’s design brother, of which there has been a demonstration engine running since 1975. Three engines are actually running but decision-to-proceed with production still has to be made. This engine would have good export potential if the American Navy buys a foreign VTX trainer and it might well go into the Sabreliner Model 85 in the USA, where a stretched version is probable.

Rolls-Royce is intent on getting British engines into US aircraft, as it has done so successfully with the Lockheed 1011 TriStar and to a lesser extent but no less successfully with the Boeing 747. We will soon see the RB-211 version of the 747 operating with Qantas, particularly on the cannonball service through Bombay.

The Labor Government which was defeated in May last, backed this policy, rather to BAe’s ill-concealed disgust and R-R is following through. Its chairman is the chief salesman for the RB-211. The contract with the Boeing 757 may or may not be profitable for Rolls-Royce, and this certainly is debated even in the UK, but it will give a lot of work to the industry. One gets the impression that in the long run, the British are getting around to the French idea that the main thing is to keep people working, though the new Conservative Government does not seem so admiring of this policy. R-R naturally says the 757 will be a bonanza.

One aspect of the Son-of-Concorde project would be that R-R is the only and will be the only engine-maker with long experience of making engines that consistently fly at supersonic speeds. The US engine manufacturers have military supersonic experience, but their engines fly only a few hours in a thousand at supersonic speeds as military aircraft go through the barrier only on dash while civil SSTs cruise above Mach l. It would seem the new SST must go to Rolls-Royce for the leadership in engines, though P&W and the rest might not like it. Or SNECMA.

To return to British Aerospace: The Corporation’s long-held beef that Rolls-Royce did not push the idea of an RB-211 powered version of the Airbus was met during the Paris Air Show when the UK and France announced an agreement on this. Presumably, the British Government is putting up the money for the actual development of the RB-211 version for the A300 and the 310, about £25,000,000 sterling, and there will be considerable Airbus Industrie costs to be carried by the various partner Governments. So the UK gets more share in the Airbus, as BAe wanted.

But this means that British Airways will no longer have the excuse that they would like a R-R engine in any Airbus they were forced to buy – and they have shown little enthusiasm for the aircraft. The UK Government may have been pressed to the agreement by Middle East Airlines’ much-publicised wish for an RB-211 powered A300 as a competitor for the Lockheed TriStar 500 – these were the two aircraft that MEA got down to before final decision, disparate as they may be.

Another BAe interest is the smaller European airliner of the JET 1 bracket, something between 125 and 180 seats, definitely with a British engine.

One problem is that any European group formed for this venture would have to be based around Airbus – in fact, it would be another type in the Airbus family. And although Airbus Industrie has been discussing this with BAe, the Toulouse people are said to be rather less than anxious to get another and smaller type of aircraft to develop and sell. They want to get into the bigger A300-11 version in the 1980s. However, a customer survey is being done.

FLIGHT International has been keen to see this sort of project get underway, as it would have a British engine, presumably the RB-432, but they are thinking in terms of the lower bracket of 130 seats or so while most influence in the industry seems to be on the bigger size. That might mean the CFM-56 from France.

In thinking of all this big stuff, one could easily overlook the little Jetstream, which has gone back into production with more punch and may very well sell. (Jet charter airlines of Wollongong has been looking at this aircraft.) And, of course, the bigger and better 125 Biz Jet will be on the way soon if R-R co-operate.

It is all a very interesting situation, with, it seems to me, plenty of ideas coming out of BAe.