View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfWeGHGQJYc
Excerpts I've pulled out from the transcript. Some time stamps are not exact but guesses based off closest auto generated time stamp (rather than being meticulous on exact timing), sufficient to locate it in the audio/video track.
Capability requirements
00:17:29
"...as part of that combat air system we described earlier, it is vital that we have at the heart of it a capability that can achieve that range survivability, connectivity and particularly compute power to take sensor inputs from across the force, make decisions at pace, downrange in order to be operationally effective against this sort of threat. That requires a really complex air system, combination of systems. And to do that, it's a very technically challenging and an expensive business. It requires a partnership between countries to bring the best of their industrial strengths and their technical strengths and yes, investment together.
Program allows sovereignty, cost sharing
00:19:40
... we are willing to work with other partners. We are genuinely a partnership of peers who are operating in tandem. It's not a program which is led by a single nation. And that gives us I think the strength of political support for the program. Which is incredibly important in something as challenging as this. It also allows us flexibility to have our sovereignty as three nations. Incredibly important to us, but to not have to pay for that individually.
00:20:21
And I think what we've seen is we're able to pull resources to achieve our each of our respective national sovereignties but without paying the full price. We can also bring in other partners if we choose to do so. And we've designed all of the partners agreed, in the outset, that we would look at bringing additional partners into the program in due course if that was appropriate.
Virtual flying of concepts in combat scenarios by human pilots
00:22:20
So we we've obviously spent a lot of time sharing our understanding of threat sharing our understanding of what the requirements that are driven by that and working on them together as three nations and I think it's an unparalleled in in my experience genuinely joint development of a set of military requirements. Based on that we have then been designing concepts air vehicles that could meet that those requirements.
We have been iterating those concepts as you can imagine and I think the really exciting thing that technology allows us to do now is to test those concepts genuinely fly them... with a pilot in a simulator flying a GCAP concept against different threat environments operating with other GCAPS and that allows us to iterate the concept in incredible detail and at pace which is extremely important.
GCAP designs shown so far are ""representative models" (i.e. not the actual airframe design?)
00:23:10
In terms of the next step we are absolutely now working through a set of engineering milestones further maturing the detail of the concept. We're pretty clear on what it needs to look like and the characteristics. Yes, we've shown some representative models to give people a sense of what we're talking about and I think the reaction to that has been really interesting. People can see that this is really different from what they've seen before. It's very much complimentary and differentiated from what F-35 can give.
[My note on above excerpt - concept images so far are "representative models to give people a sense of what we're talking about". My reading - don't take the concept images too literally. They give indications as to design attributes - size, range etc, but is unlikely to be the actual airframe design, it may look quite different.]
Breaking the exponential cost increase curve of combat aircraft / systems.
00:24:15
... So there's something called Augustine's law, and Augustine was an individual in the US
Air Force in the 60s or even earlier I believe who plotted all the cost of combat aircraft over time and he notices an exponential curve. So we can't continue an exponential curve. Governments will not continue to afford it. So one of the [things] at the heart of the program is breaking that curve by doing things differently. So yes, it's about a large aircraft, a large system, but it's also about how we do it, how we deliver it. And a lot of the work we've been doing in the UK over the last not
00:24:49
just last few years under the FCAS program, but beyond that is developing those core technologies. Those core skills around low observability, for example, with the Tyrannis program last decade, but also investments in digital and other areas to allow that to happen. We've done a huge amount of analysis to understand what makes program success.
Customer nations will have some freedom of modification
00:31:08
...we talked earlier about the differentiation between what we're doing and maybe other programs. It's really important for customer nations or partner nations these days to have a sense of sovereignty. They want to be able to modify capabilities to meet the threat and sometimes the technologies that they have. And I think GCAP with that open system architecture Herman describes gives us and them the opportunity, [so] they don't have to have all of the fundamental skills that we have provided, but they can achieve a degree of sovereignty that's much greater than if they were just a customer.
Prior experience with 6th gen technologies, & seeking to work to a pace of "half time" of prior projects
00:34:00
And of course it's technologies and we've been very privileged I would say in the UK compared to other nations thanks to the UK government also thanks to industry investments to really get the core technologies for a sixth generation program in place. I mentioned earlier the Tyrannis program a low observable unmanned combat aircraft that flew more than 10 years ago but the technologies are absolutely still relevant today and the engineers who design in GCAP today learn their trait on that program >> 10 years ago >> and that's just one example of the investments we're making there are many others in the engine domain in the sensor domains as well with our partners in Leonardo and Rolls-Royce that allows us to control the risk on the program going forward but it remains is an incredibly challenging program. But I think we've made some fantastic first steps. If you look at where we are today on the program on GCAP and compare it to the equivalent point of Typhoon is about half the time. And we of course will endeavor to continue to keep that half time mantra alive as we go forward.
Your description of a recipe required to achieve pace in the program is a good one. and there are so many ingredients required to make the recipe work. How we define our requirements and when we try to achieve them ensuring an incremental approach to capability delivery rather than trying to do everything in the first iterations of a program. The technology allows us to have a block strategy that can genuinely apply different capabilities over time.
Futureproofing
00:37:14
you futureproof something like GCAP when you think about not even years but decades ahead? ... So we're in a very critical phase of the program on the point you mentioned there. So the first thing we're doing today is making sure that all the physical attributes of the system are future proof. Will it been able to carry enough sensors in the future? Will it be able to carry enough payload in the future? so the concepting work we're doing today in very close collaboration with the government requirements managers aims to address that. But the most powerful part of the answer to your question is the open systems architecture. ... It segregates the application software from the operating software. So it makes it easier when there will be new computing chips available to simply take the hardware out and stick the other hardware in and the system will continue to operate in the same configuration that you saw before.
Unmanned aircraft contribution.
00:41:15
We run thousands of scenarios overnight and they just don't focus on what the aircraft needs to be but they focus what the system needs to be. So we're flying you know a manned asset with two or three collaborative combat unmanned collaborative combat aircraft or one and we exploring what capability that needs to have. So that gives us more flexibility again to deal with the future proofing because it might be easier in the future to adapt and change an autonomous collaborative combat aircraft particularly when we're looking at low cost manufacturing for them then continue to worry about the quarterback as I referred to it earlier. So the future proofing extends itself beyond the man aircraft into the total system solution as well. The other aspect of the future combat air system that that's been really important in the last few years it's not just an aircraft program.
