Digital Engineering Services Provider Selected for UK Future Combat Jet Program

AERALIS has been awarded a £9 million contract from the UK Ministry of Defence for the provision of digital engineering support services as part of the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP).

Under the contract, entitled ‘Digital Aviation Learning from Experience,’ UK-based AERALIS will use its smart integrated digital enterprise system to generate associated information, which can also be accessed by the MoD.

The system is designed 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, the MoD will use the learning from AERALIS’s approach to reduce cost and risk for a range of other development programs, including UK Combat Air and the Future Combat Air System.

This 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.  

“I am delighted that the Future Combat Air System will benefit from the transformational digital engineering services of AERALIS,” said Richard Berthon, Director Future Combat Air for the Ministry of Defence. “The learning that we will get from AERALIS will support digital engineering across our FCAS enterprise; providing us with the information we need to be able make informed decisions on this program as it progresses.”

“We are incredibly proud to be able to announce this agreement. This MoD contract is another exciting step towards rejuvenating the UK’s sovereign ability to develop whole aircraft ready for the future,” said AERALIS’s Founder & CEO, Tristan Crawford. “We are looking forward to exploiting our digital foundation to boost innovation, create jobs and drive the progress of AERTEAM. It proves that AERALIS is truly unique – we are the only company in the UK taking this pioneering digital engineering approach as part of a new economic model that supports the development of more capable and ultimately affordable light military aircraft, marking an important milestone in the development of the first wholly British crewed aircraft since the 1970s.” 

The contract from the MoD will allow AERALIS to create and sustain a further 250 highly skilled jobs and many more in the supply chain.