Ready for take-off But can BAE find new orders for its fighters?

In a factory on the banks of the River Ribble in Lancashire, robot arms stand on a floor striped with glowing lights. They will hold the tail fin for a test model for the UK's next-generation fighter jet, which is intended to fly for the first time in 2027.

- Jasper Jolly

The jet, known as the Tempest, will act as a symbol of Britain's hopes to remain a top-tier military nation and keep alive more than a century of building warplanes.

Yet things are markedly different in another hangar at the Warton site, run by the British arms manufacturer BAE Systems. There, production of the Typhoon jet, a mainstay of the Royal Air Force for two decades, has—for now at least—ground to a halt.

Unite, a union representing workers, has raised concerns that the UK risks losing skills, but the company, Britain's dominant weapons maker, insists that it will find new orders that will sustain jobs on the production line.

Richard Hamilton, a managing director in charge of the Typhoon programme, told reporters at the plant this week that he was "really confident" of receiving orders—but not from the UK. Instead, the UK government is trying to persuade Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia to buy more, which would secure the future of the assembly lines at Warton for as long as a decade.

The questions over the future of the assembly line are emblematic of a problem that often seems to affect military procurement: the UK wants the best weapons; wants to boost British manufacturing; and needs to keep a lid on costs.