Future of forces aviation? The world's first modular military jet

A UK firm is developing the world's first modular military jet that it says could revolutionise the way RAF pilots train and operate.

Aeralis, which can be adapted to various roles and also become a fully operational flying simulator, has received support from the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and Royal Air Force.

Airlines have used a modular system for decades, but this is the first attempt with a military jet.

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Aeralis, also the name of the company behind the project, wants the aircraft to be the RAF's next trainer aircraft – a replacement for the Hawk – but it can be reconfigured to do other jobs too.

Tristan Crawford, Aeralis' founder and CEO, said: "For us, the practical way of doing that is leveraging the commercial market to effectively say, let's have a private company that takes care of owning the aircraft, reconfiguring it and deploying that on behalf of the military customer.

"Then the customer uses whatever they want from that service.

"In that case, you can imagine the commercial company having, for example, a fleet of pre-configured airplanes - some are advanced jet trainers, some are aggressors, some are tankers, some are ISR [intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance] airplanes.

"The starting point is not to reconfigure them every day but to have that fleet available."

Along with the wings and the engines, the aircraft can also change its flight systems, making it operate and feel just like another aircraft.

Squadron Leader (retired) Archie Neill, a former RAF flying instructor on Typhoons and Aeralis' Sales Director, told Forces News: "On Typhoon, you have 10 buttons on the stick and 12 buttons on the throttle. So those 22 buttons have about 100 different functions that you use to manage the 80 avionics computers down the back.

"It's a bit like learning to play the saxophone whilst driving a Formula 1 racing car. And the problem is, when you change one of those avionics boxes or put a new weapon on board, you squirt some new software into the system, which changes the notes, so you have to learn a new saxophone whilst flying the aircraft like a Formula 1 vehicle.

"What we can do with this aircraft, is we can configure the cockpit to have those 22 buttons like a Typhoon or the F-35 equivalent.

"So, you can be flying essentially a Typhoon cockpit - ok it hasn't got the thrust, you're never going to replicate the thrust of the prancing Mustang pony that is a Typhoon, but you can develop the motor skills in the airborne environment."

The company says this could radically change the way future pilots are trained and save taxpayers vast sums of money, whilst also offering a solution for the RAF's current backlog of trainee pilots, many of whom are waiting long periods to start flying.

Mr Neill added: "So, the really exciting thing about this for me is that you could be streaming the pilots to go F-35, Typhoon or whatever, much earlier on the system on computer games.

"So when they arrive at RAF Valley to fly their first fighter trainer (Aeralis), they [trainees] can be in a Typhoon cockpit or an F-35 cockpit, learning the motor skills right up front and going through the training system without all the inefficiencies that you currently have in the training pipeline."

Aeralis is collaborating with 16 British firms, including big names like Rolls Royce and Air Tanker. Qatari investors have injected £10.5 million into the project.

The MOD has invested £9 million, whilst the Royal Air Force is supporting the development of the avionics.

The jet is also green - it will be built from sustainable materials and will run on synthetic fuel.

Aeralis says it expects to have the aircraft flying by the middle of the decade and take it to market in 2028.

The company is aiming to sell the jet worldwide and eventually have it flown by the Red Arrows - the RAF's aerobatic display team.

If all goes to plan, Aeralis will be the first entirely British-built crewed military jet since the 1970s with designers hailing it as the start of a new era in fast jet design.