On Friday June the 5th, the Telegraph has reported that Sweden will join the British Air Program, Tempest, with the company SAAB.
What is the Tempest?
The tempest is a British program disclosed at the Farnborough International Air show in 2018. It is a joint project between Rolls-Royce; BAE Systems; MBDA; Leonardo and now SAAB(It should be officially announced on July 19th at the Royal International Air Tattoo.)
The aimed of the Tempest program is maintaining United-Kingdom as one of the major actors in military aircraft by developing the sixth generation of fighter jet by 2035. A thousand people are currently working on the Tempest project. This number is expected to rise up to 1,800 by the end of the year.
The Tempest is in direct competition with the Future Combat Air System (FCAS), the other European military aircraft program involving France, Germany and since the Paris Air Show 2019, Spain. This co-operation has been announced in 2017, with the objective of developing the sixth generation of fighter jet by 2040. Dassault and Airbus are actively participating to it. But other European groups like Thales indicated that they will cooperate to develop the next generation of drones.
The Tempest has been launched after the negotiation failure with France and Germany over joining the FCAS.
What would change the Swedish arrival?
The British government had never hide it, despite the £2bn initial investments, Tempest need international partners to be successful. With the SAAB’s arrival, they would do a step closer to the concretisation of the project. Sweden would reach 20% of participation, and will bring its technologies and market.
According to Doug Barrie, senior military analyst, Saab will bring “cost competitiveness” and “number of potential orders” to the partnership.
It would not be the first time that United-Kingdom and Sweden co-operate. In fact, the British Aerospace has helped SAAB to develop their JAS 39 Gripen Fighter.
The only difficulty that Sweden and United-Kingdom would have to potentially overcome is the harmonization of their exportation policy. Swedish are more selective than British on where their fighters should be sold.
Nevertheless, United-Kingdom has the ambition to sign-up new countries to become a multinational project. Turkey, Japan or even Italy are often mentioned.
