Aircraft
Team Tempest Reveals a Different Approach to FCAS
The team tasked with engineering the UK’s FCAS are concentrating on technology and capability development ahead of finalizing platform design.
While tunnel tests have been conducted with notional Tempest configurations, the platform's design will not be finalized for some time. (Photo: BAE Systems)
While tunnel tests have been conducted with notional Tempest configurations, the platform's design will not be finalized for some time. (Photo: BAE Systems)

Team Tempest has provided a further glimpse into the UK’s Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program, two years after its unveiling at the Farnborough Air Show. In an online media briefing, the industrial partners within the team outlined the financial, industrial and employment benefits that will be generated by the program, and that have already been leveraged in the run-up to submitting the outline business case proposal that it hopes will unlock further funding. Both Italy and Sweden are partners in the UK program.

The Tempest name is applied to both the BAE Systems-led team working on the FCAS, and also to the manned aircraft that is expected to lie at the heart of what will be a system of systems, consisting of crewed and uncrewed platforms, weapons, sensors, and other force elements.