IT WAS with warm hearts (and hot necks) that the team welcomed home our stunning full-scale Phoenix Common Core Fuselage (CCF) engineering demonstrator to the AERALIS headquarters in Bristol last week.

The Phoenix demonstrator left the scorching heat of Doha, Qatar four weeks ago on a ship bound for the scorching heat of…Aztec West. Although the summer sun was welcome, it did give the team a proper roasting as they nursed the precious cargo from trailer to the AERALIS hangar.

Kane Marshall, AERALIS Assembly Director, who oversaw Phoenix’s manufacture and shipping to and from the DIMDEX defence show in Qatar, commented: “It’s great to have it back. It’s been a real team effort to develop our first, real Core Fuselage, get it built, shipped to a key defence event, return it, unloaded and unpacked safely. Phoenix has fared really well in transit – she’s looking great.”

The Phoenix demonstrator was built to showcase the design maturity of the CCF – the engineering and digital heart of the AERALIS modular air system, which enables true spiral development and rapid configuration for a broad range of air missions all supported by end-to-end digital certification.

With a DAL-A software driven reconfigurable cockpit display, it also gave international visitors to DIMDEX their first impression of how AERALIS platforms can be configured to train for a range of different front-line types whilst giving both pilot and instructor the best ergonomics and field of view of any trainer on the market today.

Phoenix will remain at the AERALIS offices for now to be used for upcoming customer, programme partner and STEM engagements that we look forward to reporting on soon.

Thanks to Kane and the rest of the team for your sterling work in the heat!