BAE Taranis

infobox Aircraft
name = Taranis
type = Remote controlled UAV
manufacturer = BAE Systems



caption = Model of Taranis on Display at Farnborough Airshow 2008
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primary user = United Kingdom
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The BAE Systems Taranis is a British demonstrator programme for Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle (UCAV) technology. It is part of the UK's Strategic Unmanned Air Vehicle (Experimental) programme (SUAV [E] ). BAE describes Taranis's role in this context as following: "This £124m four year programme is part of the UK Government’s Strategic Unmanned Air Vehicle Experiment (SUAVE) and will result in a UCAV demonstrator with fully integrated autonomous systems and low observable features." Taranis is the Celtic god of thunder.

Design and development

Taranis is led by BAE Systems and also involves Rolls-Royce, GE Aviation Systems, QinetiQ and the Ministry of Defence.cite press release |title=BAE Systems to lead £124 million UAV technology demonstrator programme |publisher=BAE Systems plc |date= 2006-12-07 |url=http://147.29.80.132/newsroom/2006/dec/071206news1.htm |format= |accessdate=2006-12-09] BAE Systems has overall design leadership as well as providing stealth technology, flight testing and control equipment. QinetiQ is responsible for UCAV flight autonomy and GE Aviation Systems provides electrical subsystems. The aircraft will use a Rolls-Royce Adour MK951 turbofan.

BAE Systems said "Taranis will make use of at least 10 years of research and development into low observables, systems integration, control infrastructure and full autonomy. It follows the completion of risk reduction activities to ensure the mix of technologies, materials and systems used are robust enough for the 'next logical step'." These "risk reduction activities" were related BAE programmes including Replica, Nightjar I, Nightjar II, Kestrel, Corax, Raven and HERTI. BAE Systems Australia will have a workshare of about 5% in the programme. The Taranis demonstrator will have an MTOW of about 8000 kilograms and be of a similar size to the BAE Hawk. The first steel was cut in September 2007 and assembly began in February 2008 [ [http://www.baesystems.com/Newsroom/NewsReleases/autoGen_10811916326.html Aeembly Starts of Taranis Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle] ] . Ground testing will start in early 2009 and the first flight of the Taranis is planned for the first quarter of 2010. [Industry Outlook: Taranis Skin, Aviation Week and Space Technology, Vol. 167, No. 13, October 1, 2007.] The demonstrator will have two internal weapons bays.cite press release |title=BAE Systems Taranis |publisher= FlugRevue |date= 2007 |url=http://www.flug-revue.rotor.com/frtypen/FRTaran.htm |format= |accessdate=2006-12-09] With the inclusion of "full autonomy" the intention is thus for this platform to be able to "think for itself" for a large part of the mission. The development of UAVs was a key part of the UK's Defence Industrial Strategy announced in December 2005, particularly the ability of the UK to maintain its "sovereign" aircraft and UAV/UCAV skills. [cite news | title = MoD To Invest In UAV Technology | url = http://www.modoracle.com/?page=http://www.modoracle.com/news/detail.h2f?id=12175 | work = MoD Oracle | publisher = NSI (Holdings) Ltd | date = 2006-12-07 | accessdate = 2006-12-09]

pecifications

References

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* List of unmanned aerial vehicles

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* Unmanned aerial vehicle