The Vision of the Secretary of State for Defence, Gavin Williamson.

Perhaps you missed the announcement about Britain’s new fighter. You, just a single little person, do not really need to understand these things, because we are the experts. You do not want Britain to be invaded, like nearly happened in 1940 at the Battle of Britain, and we will defend you. This article will explain this new project to you simply, so that you can support our Minister of Defence in all that he is doing. His name is Gavin Williamson and he may well be your next Prime Minister.

Britain needs a new fighter so that we can defend ourselves. The Fighter is going to be called “Tempest”, which follows “Typhoon” , not in the alphabet, but as our present national British Fighter. As the present Prime Minister has said we need to defend ourselves against North Korea and other countries, like, er, Guatemala or even Belgium if they invade. To defend yourself you need to attack; to attack you need a fighter. Anything can happen. Aliens may attack us from the air. Therefore, we need a new Fighter.

Combat Air Strategy explained.

Britain leads in Combat Air Strategy, ever since the Spitfire. Combat Air Strategy is where fighter planes in the air fight against other fighter planes in the air, so that the best fighter planes can knock out the other fighter planes, which then need to be produced again by our superb fighter planes manufacturers including BAe Systems. New fighter planes include advanced technologies. We will recall that we have stealth bombers and fighters. To you these planes are very noisy, but they can deceive the radar of other planes and nearly disappear; radar does not hear very well. So we embrace stealth technology. Fighter planes fighting keeps you safe. Most of the time they do not fight, but fly around practising fighting to keep you safe. You may like nice peaceful sunsets, but we have to fill the sky with advanced fighter planes to keep you safe, and our best scientists are employed in making these mean killing machines for the common good. So now you understand Combat Air Strategy.

The Concept Fighter and its spiffing Technology.

This new fighter, Tempest, is not yet a fighter, but a concept. The cost of the concept is £2 billion, a bargain for getting all these aerospace defence companies including BAe Systems together to discuss a new concept plane. After the concept they will start working on design and building, which might cost a bit more. We are not sure how much. One thing they will be discussing is whether to make it a drone, with advanced technology controls from home. Drone may sound boring to you, but to us it is exciting. That has the superb advantage that if our fighter is shot down the pilot will not die while if their fighter is shot down he will die. We can replace it by providing more work for our weapons manufacturers including BAe Systems and other companies. It will take a lot of technology to make pilotless planes. Our technology is software enabled in an increasingly complex electromagnetic environment and world-leading in next generation capability. We already have a reusable and open core mission system architecture and a suite of reusable, functional software components being developed by the UK for current and future systems, so it should be a doddle to build. Companies including BAe Systems will ensure delivery of an Initial Operating Capability by 2035 and it will work sometime thereafter. We, the UK Government, are investing in the concept. Of course, we already have missiles which are pilotless, but missiles cannot fight other fighter planes who might fight our fighter planes.

Some Money Talk.

You may feel that £2 billion is a lot to pay for a concept, but you need to see the full picture. The American F35 has cost over a trillion dollars, or $1,000,000,000,000 if you don’t know what a trillion is. That is a lot of money. When we had built our two aircraft carriers and started to think about what planes to put on them, we were persuaded by the Americans to use F35s, but they cost a lot of money. That is why we need our own planes and we will make them cheaper, although there may be cost overruns.

Commercial Sense.

Of course, part of the point of these new state of the art fighters is to sell them to other countries and make big profits for British industry like BAe Systems. The countries likely to buy them are states thinking about war who are rich, and when you sell to them, then you can also sell to the other side, especially if they are actually fighting a war. Of course, no-one likes war, but selling arms is a commercial priority. Usually, these wars happen somewhere else, and when it occurs the people who attack with our weapons can be attacked with our our weapons. So in Syria the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia are attacking the terrorists who stole our weapons and attacked us, an ideal outcome.

A Bit of Politics.

These announcements are always slightly political, and now we are leaving Europe, or rather the European Union. At present we have the Typhoon which did so well bombing the runways in Libya after their planes had been destroyed, but they are a joint European Project, and with Brexit this may come to an end. The Europeans are doing their own fighter, as the US always does, and Russia, and we want our own too. We are in the First Division; we punch above our weight, as we say in defence. So, we want our own fighter, and first our concept fighter, so that we, and our arms manufacturers like BAe Systems, can keep in the First Division. Without this the Queen would not be able to have tea with President Trump, which she so much enjoys, and our leader could not be strong and stable.

You are convinced.

You, little person, should be grateful that the concept Fighter is being bought for you. £2 billion is a bargain. Now you have had some of the key points explained to you, you will not have to think while the full expenditure is rolled out, and you will be able to remember what an awesome Defence Minister we had in 2018. Everyone can see that to defend you have to fight and sell arms to others, even if they might fight us. The Tempest will lead us to peace and to win the war against peace without pilots. It will help us to punch above our weight and you will be secure as the fighters fight above Britain while BAe Systems and other companies make even more planes to replace those which are shot down. You can let your little mind go to sleep thankful that your Government is defending you against the Belgians and other invaders who will not attack, at least after 2035-40, if we have not sold the new fighter to them first, and we have more fighters than they have made by BAe Systems and other companies.

[Could you add here that BAe Systems did not put any pressure on the Department of Defence for this initiative and it was a complete surprise to us.]