{{Two US fighter jets were due to make their international debuts this week at the year’s most important aerospace event, the Farnborough Airshow. At the moment, only one of them is here.}}
The F-35 Lightning II may be the world’s most expensive, most advanced military jet programme, but it was a cheap and cheerful budget aircraft that managed the trans-Atlantic crossing to Farnborough.
The Scorpion costs about $20m (£12m) a throw, is built from off-the-shelf components, and went from drawing board to first flight in 23 months.
The F-35 Lightning, conceived in the early 1990s and costing about $157m, is still in the US while engineers figure out what caused a fire that has grounded the entire fleet.
OK, making comparisons is unfair; the Scorpion and F-35 are lightyears apart in specification and functionality. But it is still slightly ironic.
Whit Peters, part of the company behind the Scorpion, was involved in the F-35 when he was Secretary of the US Air Force in the 1990s.
A few years ago, he and some colleagues had an idea for a new, light tactical fighter for general security and reconnaissance, positioned between existing cheaper, but ageing aircraft, and full-on strike fighters.
“We were pretty sure that there was a gap in the market,” Mr Peters says. “It was about building something with enough tactical capacity to satisfy customers, but that also had low running costs. We are in an era when defence departments are facing budget cuts.”
{{No customers}}
His company, AirLand, pitched the concept to manufacturers, but it was Textron, the US giant behind Cessna corporate jets and Bell Helicopters, that grabbed the opportunity.
In 2012, Textron AirLand Enterprises was born. “It started with a team of about 10, a whiteboard and a clean sheet,” Mr Peters says.
{wirestory}
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