The UK Ministry of Defence has awarded Aeralis, the transformational British military jet developer, a £9 million contract for digital engineering support services. The contract was awarded by the UK team within the new Global Combat Air Programme, which was announced by the Prime Minister on 9 December. Titled ‘Digital Aviation Learning from Experience,’ the contract will allow the MoD to access information that Aeralis will generate using its innovative, smart integrated digital enterprise system.
Aeralis has developed the system to enable the company to develop a family of light military aircraft in shorter timescales and at reduced cost using a fully integrated digital approach to design, development and certification. As such, MOD will use the learning from Aeralis’ approach to reducing cost & risk for a range of other development programmes including UK Combat Air and the Future Combat Air System.
This contract from the MoD to Aeralis follows Aeralis’ successful contract with the RAF Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO) to support Pyramid, the RAF’s Open Mission System Architecture (OMS). Awarded in February 2021 and ongoing, the Pyramid OMS is planned to form the core of the Aeralis modular avionics and mission system.
The MoD contract award highlights that Aeralis is the only known UK-based company that has adopted a clean-sheet approach to digital engineering to design, manufacture, test and certify a crewed, fixed-wing air system on the military register within the timescales required.