Q. When was the contract placed for Taranis & for how much?
The joint funded contact was placed in December 2006. Originally valued at £124. 5M, the contract has been uplifted under separate approvals to £142. 5M and extended by approximately one year to accommodate an additional programme of work with a wider scope. This utilises the Taranis air vehicle to provide further outputs with wider exploitation into manned fast jet aircraft and includes additional risk mitigation activities to enable full realisation of the programme objectives.
Q. How big is Taranis?
About the size of a BAE Systems Hawk which is approx 12 m in length with a wingspan of 10 m.
Q. When will Taranis fly?
We expect the first flight trials to take place in 2011. Testing on this system requires a very different approach and testing regime to traditional manned platforms. The system will be comprehensively and extensively "flown" on the ground for many hours. This thorough and robust testing activity is the major stepping stone needed to ensure that the system progresses into its flight testing phase in a safe and low-risk manner.
Q. Where will it fly?
Team Taranis will ensure that the most appropriate test-ranges are used for any flight trials of the aircraft. The flight trials will not take place in the UK, but will be conducted in safe designated test areas under close supervision.
Q. When did Final Assembly commence?
Final assembly of the Taranis technology demonstrator commenced in December 2008.
Q. Can you provide an example scenario of how Taranis could be employed?
Taranis has been designed to be an unmanned, stealthy autonomous combat aircraft ultimately capable of delivering weapons to a battlefield in another continent. It will be able to hold an adversary at continuous risk of attack; to penetrate deep inside hostile territory, find a target, facilitate either kinetic or non kinetic influence upon it, assess the effect achieved, and provide intelligence back to commanders.
Q. Why all the secrecy over the shape and design of the vehicle?
From the outset, Taranis has been designed to utilise the most advanced means possible of achieving low observability, this includes both the systems and technology inside the aircraft as well as the shape, design and finish of the exterior of the aircraft. This does mean that there are aspects of the exterior design of the aircraft which remain classified.
Q. Does Taranis use the same control system as the Mantis technology demonstrator?
The Taranis programme brings together a number of technologies, capabilities and systems to produce a technology demonstrator based around a fully autonomous intelligent system and builds on proven systems and control technology designed, built and tested successfully in other BAE Systems unmanned platforms such as Corax, Raven, HERTI and Mantis.
Q. How many man-hours have been involved in building the demonstrator so far?
Over one million man-hours.
Q. How fast/high/long will the Taranis technology demonstrator fly for?
This information is classified, but clearly in order to fulfil the missions set for it, Taranis needs to demonstrate performance levels that deliver on speed, reliability and survivability.
