MGI Engineering has unveiled a full-scale mock-up of its TigerShark one-way effector, with the company targeting a need among militaries to rapidly field more affordable long-range precision strike weapons.

Being displayed at the DSEI exhibition in London from 9-12 September, the design has a maximum weight of 800kg (1,760lb), including a payload totalling 200-300kg.

Some 5.4m (17ft 7in) long, with a deployed wingspan of 4.3m, and powered by a pair of Argive A1100 gas turbine engines, it should have a range of 486nm (900km) when operated at a cruise speed of 351kt (650km/h), its developer says.

The weapon – which has an all-composite fuselage and 3D-printed nose section with integral avionics bay – will be launched from the ground using rocket assistance.

Those design and performance characteristics are in line with draft performance specifications laid out in September 2024 for a British Army requirement named Brakestop. That procurement activity is seeking a ground-launched weapon with a range greater than 270nm and a targeted unit cost of below £400,000 ($541,000).

“Ukraine has shown us two major points as a UK SME: they require [equipment] at low cost; and the days of trophy programmes where you’re putting multiple tens of millions and several years into developing something are gone,” MGI chief executive Mike Gascoyne told FlightGlobal at the show on 10 September.

“It needs to be low cost, and it needs to be rapidly developed. And you are going to be updating in avionics terms in weeks and months, not years.”

Gascoyne points to MGI’s motorsport-sector pedigree as evidence of its ability to match such a required pace of action. “As an F1 [Formula One] company, we are used to going racing every two weeks and putting new parts on,” he notes.

MGI has already developed its low-cost SkyShark one-way effector, which has a payload capacity of 20kg and 135nm-plus range. Applications could include electronic warfare (EW) and attack duties.

“But clearly [with] European NATO and wider there is a requirement for a heavier, longer-range system,” he says, adding: “you need to project lethality at range.”

For its TigerShark, the company is using avionics equipment, flight controller and navigation systems from specialist supplier Auterion, but has not disclosed its warhead supplier. Gascoyne notes that the design also will be able to conduct swarm operations, with a team of effectors able to share data and adjust their routing.

Meanwhile, the rapid pace of innovation in the unmanned air system sector – as evidenced by the continual process of updates required for equipment employed during the war in Ukraine – means that “When we test-fly TigerShark later this year, what it demonstrates will not be what is a production version three months later.

“That is what we as a motorsport SME bring to challenge the [industry] primes,” he says, arguing that its larger and longer-established rivals are unable to match its agility.

“We are competing against MBDA, BAE [Systems]… and we think we are going to beat them, because we are able to react and be inventive in timescales that they just can’t.”

While he declines to specifically link TigerShark to the Brakestop requirement, Gascoyne says: “We are looking to put this into production early next year – for whatever client.

“There is interest from Ukraine, and Europe – the need and the requirement is very clear.”

Also at the show, MBDA formally launched its Crossbow product: a turbojet-powered one-way effector which it says has been developed within a matter of months.

BAE, meanwhile, announced a partnering agreement between its FalconWorks innovation unit and Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, with the par initially exploring the potential to develop a “sub-1t-class” system for applications such as EW and electronic attack.