With the aircraft expected to enter service in 2035 and be operated for decades to come, a young engineer joining a company like Team Tempest electronics lead Leonardo UK could conceivably work exclusively on the jet for their entire career.
But a programme like Tempest, which aims to speed up development by drawing on the lessons learned from building previous combat jets, faces a key challenge. How do the companies involved preserve the essential knowledge and experience gained from programmes like Tornado and Typhoon as older workers retire and are replaced by the next generation?
The answer being put forward by Leonardo UK is its new ‘brain-to-brain’ initiative. Here, experienced engineers approaching retirement spend some of their final year in employment passing their hard-earned know-how on to the company’s younger staff. The first cohort of employees to undergo the programme are those currently working on the Tempest radar team at Leonardo in...