Leonardo imagery showing the “Excalibur” test bed for the Tempest. (Leonardo)

LONDON: Work has officially begun to modify a Boeing 757 airliner into a flight test aircraft for the Tempest next-generation combat fighter program.

Leonardo UK today announced it had awarded the UK’s 2Excel Aviation an undisclosed contract to turn a commercial airliner into a “flying laboratory” for tech that could be incorporated into the sixth-generation fighter, as “Team Tempest” prepares to enter its flight test phase.

Plans to use a modified 757 as a test bed were first announced by the RAF at the Royal International Air Tattoo in 2019, but little information had emerged since then.

Tempest is multi-national effort being pursued by the UK alongside Italy and Sweden with the aim of replacing legacy Typhoon and Gripen fighters with a sixth-generation solution by 2035. The program is supported by an industrial coalition featuring BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, Leonardo and MBDA.

While designed to look like a traditional fighter jet, officials have claimed Tempest’s true capabilities will be a mix of sensing, communications and data fusion systems that would make it a next-generation intelligence-gathering asset, supported by a combat cloud. The goal: Tempest will be able to share information across a multi-domain battlespace in addition to conducting electronic and cyber warfare mission sets; it is also designed to control swarms of unmanned systems.

To help get to that technological high-ground, modifications of the Boeing 757, which will be known as “Excalibur,” include significant work around the nose section of the aircraft. Modifications are designed to enable Team Tempest to explore the potential of a series of disruptive combat air technologies as well as enabling an analysis of aerodynamic and structural impacts.

“Excalibur will provide the real-world environment necessary for the latter stages of development of the complex, integrated sensors, non-kinetic effects and communications [which] Leonardo is developing,” Leonardo’s company statement said.

Interestingly, the Leonardo statement claims that “Excalibur is also expected to see use under other UK and international flight test” programs.

“Excalibur will be available to the international partners to de-risk technology being developed for the Future Combat Air System and the aircraft could also be used to complement the development of uncrewed technology, including acting as a control hub for uncrewed platforms undergoing test,” it said.

Highlighting two years of cooperation by Leonardo and 2Excel, the statement continued: “The activity considered the size, weight and power requirements of the technology which would fly on Excalibur and identified appropriate locations and the provision of necessary services e.g. power, cooling, racking, observer stations, computing and data recording.

Program officials confirmed the next 12 months will see ongoing design activities continue, including installation of Tempest equipment on board the Excalibur in addition to the detailing of flight test schedules.

Referencing the contract award at DSEI, Air Commodore Jez Holmes, Head of the RAF’s Rapid Capabilities Office, described how the information-centric Tempest concept will become a “game-changing capability” for air forces in the future.

“Our focus is to get the sensors and information architecture correct. We might have to change other capabilities out for that if necessary, but I won’t go into specifics. But we do understand what’s important for us and how and where we need to trade,” he said.

Holmes also discussed the importance of Tempest’s “digital-first” approach to design which seeks to minimize the physical footprint of the program.

“This is an entirely digital enterprise,” Holmes confirmed before suggesting he had not seen a physical blueprint for the fighter jet for “several” years.

“Advanced computing and digital design will take us one step closer to getting our models right,” he concluded.