New Red Arrows aircraft to be built at Prestwick ?

Doug Maclean – Ayrshire Daily News Aviation News Editor

The Royal Air Force Aerobatic Team, the Red Arrows, is one of the world's premier aerobatic display teams. Surprise news this week reveals that Prestwick is a strong contender for the site which will build the Red Arrows jets of the future.

Image - Aeralis

Representing the speed, agility and precision of the Royal Air Force, the team is the public face of the RAF. They assist recruiting to the Armed Forces and act as ambassadors for the UK at home and overseas. With their Rolls Royce engines, the Red Arrows promote the best of UK industry, engineering, flying and organisation.

They fly the distinctive Hawk jet. That is the fully aerobatic advanced training aircraft that all RAF and Royal Navy pilots train on before moving to the Typhoon or F35 Lightning fighters which are the front line of UK air defence and attack capability.

The Hawk has been in service with the RAF since 1976. The Red Arrows T1 Hawks are some of the oldest in RAF service and will almost certainly be withdrawn from use by 2030. The Hawk T2 trainers will likely stay in service longer but they are no longer manufactured in the UK and the RAF have not replaced those being withdrawn from service. After 2030 we may have no more Red Arrows.

The problem the Ministry of Defence face is that there has been no UK aircraft designed or produced to succeed the Hawk. Most options for advanced training jets are based on technology which is almost as old as the Hawk itself.

Into that space has stepped a UK company called AERALIS. Founder and CEO of the company, Tristan Crawford, explained that they had been analysing the way that civil airliners were produced in “families” and could be adapted to serve different markets while still retaining a very high percentage of the core aeroplane. This means that the customer can choose an aeroplane which suits their business and only pay when they order or get the aircraft delivered. This allows the aircraft industry to produce highly safe and efficient aircraft which can operate almost 24 hours a day and the customers get great value for money when booking flights.

Car manufacturers have done this for many years. The Volkswagen Golf and Audi A3, Skoda Octavia and Seat Leon all share the same platform and have very similar body profiles

By comparison the military aircraft market is full of bespoke products for small, often single country markets at high cost and lower reliability.

Image Aeralis

The AERALIS plan is to manufacture modular military jets which will be the first new crewed UK military jet in over 50 years. Using the example of civil aircraft production AERALIS expects there will be no Defence money needed to start and develop the aircraft with all the risk being in the private sector. There is even a proposal that a fleet of aircraft that perform different roles could be owned by a private company and the air force simply pay for the time they use one. That model is already in operation with the Air Tanker private company owning the UK’s fleet of Airbus 330 multi role tankers and at certain times of the year the aircraft operate for the UK holiday company Jet 2. Air Tanker are one of several companies which have invested millions of pounds in AERALIS.

Tristan Crawford said the concept is to build aircraft using “a standard core design from which many different military light jet military aircraft can be developed and operated. And secondly to connect many existing aerospace development and manufacturing businesses together so we operate as a much larger whole without needing to create our own aircraft company from scratch.” AERLIS have produced what they call their Common Core Fuselage demonstrator. “This means that any number of light jet aircraft variants from advanced jet trainer to high speed autonomous reconnaissance aircraft can be developed” he said.

Mr Crawfod predicts that the cost of production and operation will be a fraction of current costs and much lower than buying many different aircraft from different manufacturers. AERALIS have worked with Siemens UK to produce software which allows any aerospace partner or safety regulator to access all aspects of the aircraft and all its variants.

The market for light jet military training or attack aircraft is enormous and Prestwick could be in line for a large slice of the new business. The calculation is that aircraft worth more than 90 billion pounds will have to be replaced before the early 2030s. France and the UK require about 100 aircraft between them. Production of the final aircraft assembly could be in almost any country and Prestwick is now in serious consideration for that work.  AERALIS’ innovative approach allows different companies or countries to add on their own manufactured parts to the UK produced Common Core Fuselage.

The surprise news about Prestwick was revealed on Wednesday by the prestigious Flight Global organisation. European Defence Editor Craig Hoyle wrote - “The company continues to assess potential final assembly locations, with a survey of 67 sites in the UK having narrowed to five candidates. It identifies one of these – at Prestwick airport in Glasgow, Scotland – as having recently grown in interest.”

“You need an installed aerospace skills base around you,” says Crawford of AERALIS, who notes that the company has also considered factors such as requiring 24/7 access to a long runway. “And from a political perspective, we are supporting the [UK] government agenda to promote growth in the regions, as well as England,” he adds. “We were really impressed with the combination of those factors that came together in Prestwick.”

Prestwick has a history of nearly 100 years of aircraft maintenance, conversion and also whole aircraft production. It has over 1,000 staff engaged in maintenance, repair and overhaul. General Electric have over 500 staff employed in jet engine overhaul. Some of the largest global aerospace companies have operations at Prestwick including, BAE Systems, Spirit AeroSystems, GE Aerospace, Collins Aerospace and Woodward.

In total there are more than 5,000 highly skilled people working around Prestwick airport. Engineering training is being expanded with new facilities. Manufacturing for both Boeing and Airbus is done on site.  

Prestwick has the longest runway in Scotland at 2,986 metres and a cross runway of 1,985 metres. It has customs and ATC 24 hours a day and is located by the sea – ideal for test flying. There is a Coastguard Search and Rescue base on the airport and it handles more military flights than almost any European civil airport.

The Scottish Government and the UK Government both support Prestwick and encourage its skills development. A £28 million facility, the Aerospace Innovation Centre (AIC) was opened by Spirit Aerosystems less than 4 years ago. The centre explores new, more efficient approaches to the design and manufacture of aerostructures such as wings, using lightweight composite material technology to reduce flight emissions and lower costs. It was supported with a £4.8m research and development infrastructure grant from Scottish Enterprise. AERALIS have a commitment to make their new jet fighter from modern lightweight materials. Combining with the world class companies at Prestwick seems a match made in a Scottish heaven.

If AERALIS are looking for a place to design, construct and maintain aircraft Ayrshire Daily News urges they look no further than Prestwick, well named as the Heart of Scottish Aerospace.