British start-up Aeralis is seeking to raise £1 million ($1.3 million) through the Syndicate Room business-to-business crowd-funding program to continue the development of its modular trainer concept. The company has already raised £650,000 from investors and has also received offers of grant funding of £1.3 million from the Welsh government.
The latest round of crowd-funding will offer new shareholders a total of 15 percent equity in the company. The funding would enable the company to build a technology demonstrator for its innovative common-core fuselage to be displayed at the DSEI defense exhibition in London in September 2019. This common-core fuselage forms the basis of the company’s modular basic and advanced jet trainer aircraft, which Aeralis hopes will disrupt the jet trainer market by dramatically cutting acquisition, operating, and life-cycle costs.
Aeralis has designed an all-jet training solution, with end-to-end embedded training and simulation, and hopes to capture 5 to 10 percent of the forecast market for 5,500 new-generation trainer aircraft from 2023. The aircraft, which was unveiled as the DART Jet in 2015, is the brainchild of ex-BAE Systems and Airbus designer Tristan Crawford, who hopes that producing the first all-British military aircraft since the BAE Systems Hawk will reinvigorate the UK’s “whole aircraft” design capability, while also revolutionizing military pilot training.
However, the Aeralis program is market-driven, its creators seeing an opportunity for a competitor to aircraft such as the Boeing/Saab T-X (which Aeralis believes is too heavy and too expensive), the BAE Systems Hawk (labeled as being on the verge of obsolescence), and the Pilatus PC-21 (which it believes will struggle to prepare pilots for the F-35 and new sixth-generation combat aircraft).
Aeralis has designed two training aircraft, both based on a common core carbon-fiber fuselage, center wing box, undercarriage sponsons, and cockpit. The variants add different wings, horizontal tails, and engine pods—the latter “nested” into the fuselage to reduce drag and consisting of the powerplant, inlet, and nacelle.
The A-model is a twin-engine, advanced/lead-in fighter trainer variant, with a 30.5-foot span swept wing and swept tailplanes. The aircraft has a mtow of around 11,000 pounds and a top speed of Mach 0.90 or 560 knots. The B-model is a single-engine basic jet trainer with a 34.4-foot span straight wing and straight tailplanes, a mtow of around 7,700 pounds and a top speed of 360 knots. Claimed to be less expensive than a PC-21 and with equivalent operating costs, the basic trainer is able to “saturate” the trainee pilot with fast jet-type handling experience. Aeralis believes that its solution’s all-jet approach, low weight (with an empty operating weight of 3,500 pounds), and modular design will produce significant cost savings.
Aeralis estimates that it would need another £30 million to build a flying demonstrator and launch a certification campaign, and it hopes to achieve a first flight in 2021, certification in 2022, and production from 2023. The A-model would be developed first, with the B model following five years later.
Partners in the project include Formula 1 design house Williams Advanced Engineering, which will produce the composite fuselage, Bombardier, which will build composite wings and engine nacelles in Belfast, and Thales, responsible for avionics, simulation, and training systems. Cranfield Aerospace Solutions, Frazer-Nash, and Martin-Baker are also on the team, contributing expertise, time, and resources.