Further development anticipated around ‘Concept 2’ vehicle design.
BAE Systems appears poised to advance its work on an autonomous collaborative platform (ACP)/collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) capability.
“We are maturing our concept work and are at an advanced stage,” Anthony Gregory, business development director at BAE’s FalconWorks advanced technology unit, says. “There will be more to follow this year,” he indicates.
Gregory notes that the majority of CCA-type vehicles now being developed have adopted a “lander-wing” configuration, which BAE also selected for a previous design named ‘Concept 1’.
“We have gone beyond that, because we think that comes with certain limitations in terms of performance and aerodynamics,” he said at the company’s Warton site in Lancashire earlier this month. “It doesn’t lend itself to some of the things that customers need… or ease of access for payload bays.
“[Our] Concept 2 allows us the best trade space for internal payload configurations, stability of the vehicle and being able to deploy for short take-off and landing [STOL],” he says.
Referring to potential interest in an ACP capability from within the UK military, Gregory says: “We responded to the ‘Vanquish’ RFI [request for information], and we are in dialogue with the [Royal] Navy and the RAF [Royal Air Force].”
First outlined last year, the navy’s Vanquish activity seeks to demonstrate the viability of a fixed-wing ACP vehicle with STOL performance being employed from its Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.
BAE is already in pursuit of a British Army contract to demonstrate an ACP operating in concert with a Boeing AH-64E Apache attack helicopter, with the company teamed with Certo Aerospace to promote the Capstone uncrewed rotorcraft. That proposal, along with rival pitches from Anduril Industries, Tekever and Thales UK, will contest the next stage of the Project Nyx activity.
“We are busy working with them [Certo] to respond for the second phase,” Gregory says, while adding, “We are really proud that this is an all-UK solution.”
BAE believes the Capstone vehicle could be used to carry a seven-round launcher for its APKWS guided rocket, while Certo has also previously conducted a trial fit involving the carriage of multiple Lockheed Martin AGM-114 Hellfire air-to-surface missiles.
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