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New questions about the Global Combat Air Program timeline and industrial setup arose during the Farnborough Airshow.
The European defense companies pursuing next-generation fighters are scrambling.
After months of uncertainty about funding for the UK-Italian-Japanese Global Combat Air Program (GCAP) and the future of the Franco-German-Spanish New Generation Fighter, recent weeks have provided clear answers for both. But instead of bringing certainty to Europe’s fighter landscape and giving the sector a welcome summer break, the situation has become perhaps more chaotic.
- GCAP customers eye earlier initial operational capability
- French fighter demonstrator is slated to fly before 2033
Company partnerships set up in the past few years are being torn apart. Positioning around potential new industrial arrangements is kicking off, merger and acquisition plans are being reassessed, and development timelines are under review. That is against a backdrop of a ticking clock.
The biggest driver is the demise of the Franco-German-Spanish cooperation for a new fighter, largely because of industrial disagreements between Dassault Aviation and Airbus. While the French path forward is clear—a Dassault-led program—the situation for multinational Airbus and its industrial interests in Germany and Spain are less certain.
“There’s a few options in Europe to work together,” Airbus Defense and Space CEO Michael Schöllhorn said last month. But he also made clear that Airbus will not sign on to a program at any price: “My preference does entail we find a solution that gives Airbus a significant position in a sixth-generation fighter with a Spanish and German industrial footprint.”
The strongest prospect for cooperation is GCAP, on which Canada now is an observer. Airbus already cooperates with two of the program’s three principal contractors—it partners with BAE Systems and Leonardo on the Eurofighter Typhoon.
Leonardo CEO Lorenzo Mariani has signaled openness to exploring a GCAP partnership. Germany’s involvement would bring a strong industrial partner as well as financial muscle, he said during the Farnborough Airshow. The Edgewing industrial consortium developing GCAP includes BAE Systems, Leonardo and Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement Co.
Potential cooperation around GCAP also is contributing to Mariani’s decision to hold on to his company’s stake in German defense electronics provider Hensoldt. “The movements around the sixth-generation fighter suggest that it’s prudent to wait a little bit and to seek further opportunities for collaboration,” he said on a July 31 earnings call.
But, similar to Airbus delineating its potential barrier to entry, the GCAP partners are drawing their lines in the sand. BAE Systems CEO Charles Woodburn said on a July 30 earnings call that a key requirement of expanding the partnership is to keep the schedule on pace. There is only a short window of time in which to change the industrial structure, Woodburn added.
Mariani echoed the sentiment: “The window is closing because . . . confidence in timescales will be lost.” However, he said that losing a bit of time now to have a stronger program later would be something to consider.
All parties acknowledge the decision comes down to what their governments want.
Adding to the time constraints are deliberations among GCAP participants to accelerate the program, which already has an ambitious goal of fielding an operational capability in 2035. During meetings at Farnborough, there was a “strong push” by ministers to speed up the program by a couple of years, Mariani said. Making that happen is feasible, he added, although it would necessitate customer willingness to accept at the outset a slightly less capable system that would evolve to meet requirements fully.
Industry officials signaled that governments need to make up their minds by year-end. The GCAP program recently entered a £4.6 billion ($6.2 billion), 18-month contract for the concept and assessment phase, after which the real work of detail design will begin.
The industrial implications are reverberating throughout the supply chain. When Franco-German-Spanish cooperation was teetering this year, engine providers MTU Aero Engines and Safran suggested they were eager to maintain their EUMET joint venture. The cooperation was working, they said, and could support what follows. But the chance of that is dimming as German and French fighter requirements diverge.
“We lack the resources to produce two different engines,” Safran CEO Olivier Andriès told reporters. “We only have the resources to develop one combat aircraft engine, and we will naturally prioritize the French road map.”
His MTU counterpart, Johannes Bussmann, also downplayed the prospects of maintaining the existing partnership. “You will need to develop entirely different engines if the mission requirements of the French and German aircraft are relatively far apart,” Bussmann said. “Our cooperation agreement is not set up for that.”
While France has not spelled out specific timelines for fielding a next-generation fighter, Dassault Aviation CEO Éric Trappier said the goal is to fly a demonstrator in 2031 or 2032.
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