The Spirit Mosquito was an

unmanned combat aerial vehicle An unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV), also known as a combat drone, colloquially shortened as drone or battlefield UAV, is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that is used for intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance ...

(UCAV)

technology demonstrator A technology demonstration (or tech demo), also known as demonstrator model, is a prototype, rough example or an otherwise incomplete version of a conceivable product or future system, put together as proof of concept with the primary purpose of ...

in development by Team Mosquito in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. In January 2021, the aircraft was chosen as a technology demonstrator for the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

's Lightweight Affordable Novel Combat Aircraft (LANCA) concept which was first conceptualised in 2015 by the RAF Rapid Capabilities Office. The aircraft was designed to operate alongside manned

fighter aircraft Fighter aircraft are fixed-wing military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace. Domination of the airspace above a battlefield ...

, including the

Eurofighter Typhoon The Eurofighter Typhoon is a European multinational twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter. The Typhoon was designed originally as an air-superiority fighter and is manufactured by a consortium of Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo ...

Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is an American family of single-seat, single-engine, all-weather stealth multirole combat aircraft that is intended to perform both air superiority and strike missions. It is also able to provide ele ...

and

BAE Systems Tempest The BAE Systems Tempest is a proposed sixth-generation fighter aircraft that is under development in the United Kingdom for the Royal Air Force (RAF). The aircraft is intended to enter service from 2035, gradually replacing the Eurofighter Typh ...

, with a range of weapons and sensors to offer them increased protection, survivability and information.

Spirit AeroSystems Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, Inc., based in Wichita, Kansas, is the world's largest first-tier aerostructures manufacturer. The company builds several important pieces of Boeing aircraft, including the fuselage of the 737, portions of the 787 fus ...

, which is based in

Belfast, Northern Ireland Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

, was the aircraft's prime contractor and full-scale flight trials were planned for 2023. On 24 June 2022, the UK Ministry of Defence announced the cancellation of Project Mosquito, explaining that there were more beneficial capability and cost-effectiveness in smaller "additive capabilities" instead.

Design and development

In 2015, the RAF Rapid Capabilities Office began working on concepts for a "loyal wingman" UCAV, named the Lightweight Affordable Novel Combat Aircraft (LANCA), under the Future Combat Air System Technology Initiative (FCAS TI). LANCA was managed by, and was the technical authority of, the Ministry of Defence's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl). In 2019, the MOD awarded contracts to three teams to provide designs for a flight demonstrator;

Boeing Defence UK Boeing UK (; legally Boeing United Kingdom Limited) is a subsidiary of Boeing that operates in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. The managing director of Boeing UK & Ireland is Sir Martin Donnelly, a former British civil servant, wh ...

, Team Avenger (led by Blue Bear Systems Research) and Team Blackdawn (later Team Mosquito) (Bombardier Belfast (now Spirit AeroSystems), Callen-Lenz and Northrop Grumman UK). In January 2021, a £30 million contract was awarded to Team Mosquito to design and manufacture a

. The team was led by Spirit AeroSystems Belfast and also included Northrop Grumman UK and Intrepid Minds. Whilst it was previously part of the team, Callen-Lenz was not included in the MOD press release and so may have become uninvolved with the project. To reduce costs and timelines, new software development techniques were to be utilized alongside civilian aerospace engineering and management expertise. These techniques would have been used to achieve full-scale flight trials by the end of 2023. If the technology demonstration was successful, a decision would then have been taken on whether to launch a follow-on programme for a production version. Whilst an in-service date for a production aircraft had never officially been announced, the MOD press release stated that the aircraft may have operated alongside the RAF's

s, which have a planned out of service date between the 2030s and 2040s, and later, its

, which will enter service in the 2030s. The MOD contract announcement disclosed few design specifics but revealed the aircraft was an unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) designed to offer increased protection, survivability and information to manned aircraft when operating alongside them. It was set to be the UK's first unmanned platform able to "target and shoot down" enemy aircraft while surviving against

surface-to-air missile A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-aircraft syst ...

s. Concept images included with the contract announcement showed an aircraft with

low-observable Stealth technology, also termed low observable technology (LO technology), is a sub-discipline of military tactics and passive and active electronic countermeasures, which covers a range of methods used to make personnel, aircraft, ships, su ...

features; a streamlined

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft t ...

swept wing A swept wing is a wing that angles either backward or occasionally forward from its root rather than in a straight sideways direction. Swept wings have been flown since the pioneer days of aviation. Wing sweep at high speeds was first investigate ...

s, dropped

wingtip A wing tip (or wingtip) is the part of the wing that is most distant from the fuselage of a fixed-wing aircraft. Because the wing tip shape influences the size and drag of the wingtip vortices, tip design has produced a diversity of sha ...

s, a

V-tail The V-tail or ''Vee-tail'' (sometimes called a butterfly tail or Rudlicki's V-tailGudmundsson S. (2013). "General Aviation Aircraft Design: Applied Methods and Procedures" (Reprint). Butterworth-Heinemann. p. 489. , 9780123973290) of an aircraft ...

, a dorsal air

intake An intake (also inlet) is an opening, structure or system through which a fluid is admitted to a space or machine as a consequence of a pressure differential between the outside and the inside. The pressure difference may be generated on the ins ...

and a fuselage chine line — however this may not have been the aircraft's final design. On 24 June 2022, the MOD announced that Project Mosquito would not proceed beyond the design phase due to more beneficial and cost-effective "additive capabilities" being available.

References

{{reflist7. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/royal-air-force-rapid-capabilities-office-announce-review-of-project-mosquito Unmanned stealth aircraft Unmanned military aircraft of the United Kingdom Royal Air Force British military aircraft

Design and development

See also

References