OS launches the UK’s first military aerospace start-up

19 April 2021

Tristan Crawford (Grenville 92) has recently launched the UK’s first military aerospace start-up called AERALIS, now designing an innovative successor to the popular Hawk aircraft used by the Red Arrows and to train military aircrew.

AERALIS is developing the aircraft to fly within the next three years, bringing an enormous opportunity to showcase British innovation and technology at air shows such as Farnborough and others around the world.

The below is from The Times on 17 February 2021:

The RAF has backed a British company to develop an aircraft that can be converted from a trainer to a faster, more aggressive jet by swapping out its engines and wings.

Aeralis, based in Suffolk, has been given £200,000 by the force to develop its “revolutionary” modular plane, which it says would be the first fully developed in Britain since the Hawk was launched in 1974.

The two-seater aircraft will have at least three variants based around the same fuselage but fitted with different engine and wing configurations: a basic trainer, a speedier, more manoeuvrable fighter-style plane and a reconnaissance model with long wings and a more efficient engine.

Tristan Crawford, Aeralis chief executive, said the project could help the RAF rationalise its future fleets and reduce the number of different aircraft.

“We can put different wings on and different engines on so that it becomes a basic trainer for example, so it flies more slowly and it’s more easy to fly — like the flying equivalent of a family car,” he said.

“Then you can put more swept wings on it and a more powerful engine so you can fly faster but it’s more demanding to fly . . . so then you're into your sort of Porsche.”

The fuselage stays the same for each design. Then different kinds of wings and engine units are bolted on to create the various options. The third option involves longer wings for surveillance missions, and Aeralis is also exploring a fourth option that will be unmanned and used as a fast-attack drone.

The aircraft will primarily be used for all kinds of training from basic to Top Gun-style combat exercises.

In another scenario, Crawford said that the aircraft could also be used as a tanker, a “flying petrol station”, which could refuel swarms of small drones under development for the military.

Crawford, an aircraft design engineer, said that every component would come from British companies. “The last time Britain developed its own crewed military aircraft fully in Britain was 1974 with the Hawk. Everything else that has come afterwards has had to rely on some kind of overseas partnership to make it happen,” he said.

Aeralis has been granted the £200,000 for this financial year from the RAF’s Rapid Capabilities Office, which aims to develop innovative thinking and novel ideas. The RAF said there were no plans to replace the Hawk training aircraft.

Air Marshal Richard Knighton, deputy chief of the defence staff, said: “This private aircraft company is adopting an innovative approach that I have not seen before in the combat air sector.”