Podcast: Is The GCAP Fighter The International Successor To F-35?

Watch as Richard Aboulafia joins the podcast to discuss how 2026 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for two next-generation fighter programs conceived in Europe: FCAS and GCAP.

Subscribers can read Richard's column on the Global Combat Air Program here

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Robert Wall: Welcome to Check 6 and happy new year. We kick off our 2026 season of Check 6 with a look at the next generation fighter landscape. Boeing's F-47 win was a news highlight of 2025 and future combat aircraft are going to be high on the news agenda again this year as we await the U.S. Navy's F/A-XX decision and other developments.

And it's the "other" where we'll be focusing today. Germany, France, and Spain have punted a decision for the path forward on their future combat air system program, FCAS or SCAF, depending on where you sit. And that decision should now happen this year. And the British, Italian, Japanese Global Combat Air Program, or GCAP, also has 2026 milestones ahead. And joining me to discuss that, our friend of the pod, Richard Aboulafia, Managing Director of Aerodynamic Advisory and Aviation Week's very own London Bureau Chief, Tony Osborne. I'm Robert Wall, Aviation Week's Executive Editor for Defense and Space. 

Richard, you wrote one of your thoughtful columns for Aviation Week that's going to come out here in the coming days, exploring the dynamics of the future fighter environment. So I think we want to talk about that because you made some really interesting points. But before we go there, Tony, not all of our audience will have followed every twist and turn in GCAP and FCAS. So maybe very briefly, catch us up on what are the milestones these two programs face in the coming months.

Tony Osborne: Yeah. Happy new year to all our listeners. It's great to be back. I think it's the first Check 6 of the year and it's quite an exciting topic to be talking about. For those perhaps new to this, we've got FCAS and GCAP. Future combat air system and global combat air program are the two sixth generation combat aircraft developments here in Europe. There might be a third as we look at what Sweden and Saab are doing, but we'll probably talk about that a bit later on. GCAP started in 2018. Basically started as a UK-led initiative and it sort of moved on and evolved into now this global program with Italy and Japan. And it's basically looking at basically producing a single combat aircraft type, highly stealthy, quite a large aircraft with external weapons, low observability, new engines and so on. And this is sort of moving forward very well.

The three countries basically joined together in late 2023. There's now a government organization that's running that and now a joint venture of Japan's aerospace that's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Leonardo and BAE Systems have all come together to produce a joint venture called Edgewing that will build the airplane. So we were expecting a contract for that aircraft in December. That has not happened. We are now hoping that ... Well, we're expecting that to now to come in January, but it's all been sort of held up by the UK government's decision on its defense investment plan. And all of those things have been intermingled together. And that's all been slowed down a little bit, but I think there's some expectation this will still happen this month depending on when that defense investment plan comes. This was supposed to be the big document that announced Britain's way forward in terms of how it's going to spend its money following the strategic defense review in June last year.

And then there's the future combat air system. So this is the German, French, and Spanish effort to produce not only a new fighter, but also a system that involved collaborative combat aircraft, also a combat network cloud. So it would bring together all the information from those platforms and even fourth generation fighters together so they could all share information. And this has been rumbling on for a while. This year was going to be a big year. It was going to move into phase two for the demonstrators. This was going to be a demonstrator aircraft, demonstrator engine, and also a proof of concept for what they called remote carriers. And these are the collaborative combat aircraft that were going to accompany it. Of course, this has now all been sort of thrown into confusion. Last year, we had a repeat essentially of the disagreements between Dassault and Airbus, two of the big main contractors on the program around who should play a role.

And in particular, Eric Trappier, the boss of Dassault Aviation, has really thrown the whole program into question essentially. And a man who seems to have more power in French politics than most French politicians really seems to be the driving force behind these issues. And so Germany is now questioning its position in the program. Spain will presumably be doing the same and wondering what happens next. And I think that's where we should then widen the chat. Hopefully I've expressed that.

Robert Wall: No, absolutely. I think that's a good synopsis. And I think you've been very kind to the French in this conversation. And to some extent, I think most of us would say perhaps not a huge surprise where we're ending up on the FCAS/SCAF situation. That said, what do you make of it ... I mean, put it all together, and including also perhaps broadening it out a bit, looking at the U.S. moving forward on at least one of their future fighter programs. Richard, you make an argument in your column that actually one of these programs is actually sitting pretty, so to speak, as a result. So why don't you share that with our audience here?

Richard Aboulafia: Yeah. I mean, I think there's sort of two people that are in decent enough position, one in great position, not such ... First of all, FCAS, I've always seen it as terminally flawed. One of the great privileges in my career has been for a very long time now to write a column every other month for Aviation Week. And seven years ago I said this thing looks doomed from the start. But having said that, I think France will be just fine. They've always built their own fighter and they've always done pretty well with that, so they're fine. Leaving us with the other people who I think are in really great shape and have been since the idea began. I just think GCAP, from the start, bound for success as long as they didn't screw it up somehow because of this harmonization of resources and requirements between Japan and Britain, anyone else who wants to come along so far, Italy.

And I think what was really interesting, the comments of the Italian defense minister in the aftermath of the latest round of FCAS disagreements that, no, we're going to have a big tent here. Germany, however long it takes, we're happy to talk to you. And then intriguingly, Australia and Canada and possibly others too. And my sort of number one takeaway is that the joint strike fighter benefited from one enormous tailwind, which is the U.S.'s network of global alliances and soft power. And whether you're a fan of Donald Trump or not, the idea is to smash those all to pieces, all of it. And it's inevitable that tremendous tailwind is going to go to somebody else. And it looks like GCAP is going to be the huge beneficiary of that. I mean, a couple years ago, the idea of Canada leaving F-35 would've seemed madness, seemed ludicrous.

And now it's the base case scenario I'm afraid and ditto for Australia at some point. I think other alliance partners are getting the message that the U.S. maybe isn't so reliable. So I think the huge beneficiary of this might just be GCAP Edgewing, whatever we want to call it now moving forward. I prefer Tempest back in the day, but okay.

Robert Wall: That may come back. But I think the other point you make in the column, and I think we've also talked about generally, is one of the challenges for the U.S. is F-47 and F/A-XX presumably are very high end, high spec. The thought that these would be exported widely is pretty slim. A, they're going to be expensive, so there's that issue. I remember Australia once had flirted with buying F-22, and when the Air Force chief mentioned that to me, I remember the procurement boss said, "Well, you can afford one of them, so move on to something else." And it does seem like ... And then of course the question, would they even be, given the high levels of stealth and other technologies flowing in there, would the U.S. even think about exporting them beyond maybe onesies or twosies?

Richard Aboulafia: Absolutely right. I mean, and it's a fascinating ... In addition to the U.S. abnegating its role as a global alliance partner, there's also the decision to deprioritize any systems that were suitable for export or for expeditionary warfare for that matter in favor of Home Alone systems. And you look at the history of U.S. combat aircraft production, there's always been that second aircraft that does the export job, be it, well, from F-5 to F-35. And this does not ... I mean, F-35 obviously has some time ahead of it with the big caveat that you might be reluctant to buy from somebody who might just stab you in the back. But on the other hand, there also needs to be something for the future because the F-35 is going to be less technologically relevant, presumably, starting around 2040 or whatever. And there's nothing on the drawing board.

It's, as you say, F-47 and F/A-XX, and those are going to absorb all available resources and they'll be suitable for exactly one customer.

Tony Osborne: Yeah. Trump is just a blip, right? I mean, three years he should be gone. Why don't countries take maybe some solace in that and go, "Well, we can just hold onto our plans for a little bit longer." What is your take on that?

Richard Aboulafia: Yeah. Well, this is a question we're all asking ourselves, isn't it? I mean, but the answer, of course, is that a global network of alliances and the tremendous soft power that comes with it takes decades to build and a matter of months to destroy, apparently. I mean, I'm still reeling from my trip a couple of weeks ago to Canada. Canada, I mean, they really don't like us and it's tough to recover that. It's also understandable because I'd like to think that only a minority of Americans have this attitude towards neighbors and friends, but it's enough to get someone elected and it could easily happen again. And if you look at the national security strategy followed by Venezuela, this is the doctrine. You might love it. You might not agree with it. Either way, it is the doctrine and it happened and it could easily happen again.

Robert Wall: Right. And it was also an electorally successful path. Now, whether anyone voted on that issue is another issue, but it had some success. So you could imagine someone else wanting that job from that part of the political spectrum would embrace it, would not necessarily return to call it the Reagan approach to foreign policy.

Richard Aboulafia: That's exactly right. And what's sort of intriguing right now is that, say what you will about Trump, fundamentally, he is kind of pro-defense, but one day he won't be here maybe in three years, maybe in less, and who will take his place, obviously JD Vance, that's very clear. And Vance and his associates, the Michael Antons and Bridge Colbys of the world who formulated this highly isolationist strategy with a level of disregard for alliance partners, they're going to be in the ascendancy without that Trump filtration of being, "Hey, I like having the traditional tools of superpower dominance and a trillion dollar defense budget sounds great to me." They might just say, "No, we don't need any of this because we're surrendering to Russia and China multiple spheres. And the only thing that matters is having a couple of squadrons of planes to deal with the likes of, well, Venezuela." So it could be a very different defense environment moving forward.

Robert Wall: I'd like to explore, I mean, we've talked, moving from the politics a bit to the kind of matching country interests with GCAP or somewhere else. So let's talk a bit about the ones that aren't currently aligned, and then maybe we'll talk about the ones that may need to find a new home now that FCAS is maybe on, or looks like it's headed for divorce. So let's start with, for obvious reasons, because I want to talk about the F-111. Let's talk about Australia. Richard, why is Australia a good fit for GCAP?

Richard Aboulafia: Yeah, I mean, you've got comedy ... Good word. I can't calculate the circumference of their coastline and the area around it, but it's obviously the same big drivers that led them to the F-111 decision, the only export customer range, range, and more range. But on top of that, you've got the Australian Air Force able to maybe field 100 fast attack jets maybe, and it's been that way for many years. So they've correctly identified collaborative combat aircraft as a kind of extender for their force and they've been the most aggressive about, I believe they're up to 15 Ghost Bats on order with more to come. Well, it seems a bigger plane would be very useful as kind of a quarterback for CCA operations. So this seems like a total natural. Plus, of course, the geopolitical dimension. Again, if we'd had this conversation two years ago, AUKUS would've said, "Ah, clearly they're in the U.S. camp. The U.S. is pivoting to Asia." Well, no, the U.S. is not pivoting to Asia. It's willing to talk about Taiwan and it's a possible future to be euphemistic. And of course, we for some reason put AUKUS under a unilateral review just to show, again, our extreme contempt for alliance partners. So I think at this point it would behoove them to say, "What are our other options?"

Tony Osborne: Yeah.

Robert Wall: Go ahead, Tony.

Tony Osborne: I was just going to say, just on a historical note, the UK almost bought the F-111 as well and obviously as an alternative to the TSR2. And obviously we are still in that sort of situation where there is still an American option, an old American alternative to GCAP and that's to buy more F-35. It doesn't look like we're going down that route if the contract gets signed off this month. Obviously that decision is being made clear. But sorry, I just thought it was quite interesting that the F-111 gets mentioned. Totally. Brilliant airplane.

Richard Aboulafia: Well, just very quickly, I mean, there's this sort of confluence of range-driven programs from the '60s. It's not just TSR2, it's the Avro Arrow, which I guess is technically late '50s. Okay. But people had this idea, they just couldn't afford it. And I'd love to see us come full circle and go back to the idea of a heavy, long range Commonwealth fighter driven by geopolitics.

Tony Osborne: Well, I mean, that whole range convention is a big part of GCAP, but again, affordability is going to be the really big question here. The UK is really having serious issues around funding defense. Whether we can afford to replace aircraft on a one-for-one basis is going to be the real big challenge with this program. And it is going to be such a large aircraft. It's going to require not only, yes, you've got to spend money on this because it's so big, but also you've got to then figure out your entire infrastructure around it. This isn't going to fit on airbases as we normally know them now. This is going to require some substantial infrastructure rework too, which comes with a heavy price tag these days.

Richard Aboulafia: Yeah. And if I may, just from an outsider's perspective, the biggest choice and Britain seems to have in front of it is whether to prioritize nuclear sovereignty or this, or can you do both? I don't know, but they would appear to be competing for the same high level of resources.

Robert Wall: Speaking of needing money, good place to go is where the money is. So let's go to the Middle East maybe to briefly talk about that and GCAP. I mean, to me, an interesting one was, we've been talking in terms of GCAP a lot, had been talking here a lot about the Saudi angle in part because the UK has the relationship with the kingdom, Tornadoes, Typhoons. The Saudis haven't been secretive about having interest in GCAP, but I don't want to start there actually. I'm kind of intrigued. The U.S. really snubbed the UAE on F-35. First, it was Biden pulling back something that Trump had promised, and now Trump being back in power, and then basically making the overture to Saudi Arabia. Now, we've seen on the news recently, obviously, there's a bit of tension between Saudi and UAE. So I'm wondering rather than maybe we'll talk about Saudi in a second, but UAE, a potential candidate for GCAP, especially now that they were snubbed on F-35, I'm not saying they wouldn't also buy F-35 if given the opportunity, but maybe a feeling we really want to have a strategic relationship somewhere else.

Richard Aboulafia: Well, if I may, it seems pretty clear that the UAE is always going to have a two-track fighter decision. One is always going to be France, Mirage 2000s, Mirage 2000-3s and 5s. And then of course, Rafales now, the first of the Rafales just arriving, I believe. And they'll probably continue that with FCAS, which might just be a super Rafale. As a matter of fact, I think that's probably the base case scenario. What is their second track? I think the assumption had been, well, it's F-35, but as you say, that's complicated. So is it GCAP? Is it KF-21? Is it something Chinese? No one can say. All we know is there will be a second track. It's a little bit overdue because right now it's the F-16 Block 60, which takes you back to the mid-'90s. So it's probably time to start thinking about that decision.

And it's probably a very tough decision to make because there's not enough clarity on these programs and the geopolitical components of these programs. So it's probably hard for them.

Robert Wall: Yeah. Very well. Saudi Arabia, Tony, you've obviously been tracking this pretty closely. What's your gut tell you?

Tony Osborne: My gut tells me my immense gut after Christmas. No, I think the point is, I mean, obviously we had the big Trump defense deal towards the end of last year while we were at the Dubai Air Show, where a lot of the focus was on F-35. What you didn't hear about was F-15, which I think is probably a more crucial element here. The problem is that any of these American programs doesn't necessarily give Saudi Arabia what it wants. And Saudi Arabia wants a role in a future fighter program, be that GCAP, be that something Korean, maybe even Turkish. You don't get any of the industrial benefits that Saudi Arabia wants. So buy more Eurofighters, enter GCAP is not dead because of this Trump effort, but it certainly puts questions around it. I still think GCAP is a possibility for Saudi Arabia. Obviously, I don't think there's any interest in the French role and obviously in FCAS.

I think there's maybe still some interest in Korea too, but I think that even that's sort of decaying. So if we look at GCAP, well, they can't be one of the three members of the GCAP program. That's now fixed. They'll go to contract shortly. So then it has to be some kind of relationship with one of those countries or three of those countries through some kind of partnership. How that will form, how that comes about is really uncertain. And maybe we'll see more on that at the World Defense Show in February.

Robert Wall: And should we maybe wrap it up here, go come to Europe to wrap it up? Because obviously we've got both the unaligned, what happens with Saab situation and then the Airbus situation, both the German arm of Airbus, obviously, and the Spanish arm of Airbus. If we see FCAS specifically, I guess as Tony pointed out, FCAS is more than the fighter. So we should talk about the next generation fighter, which is the fighter element of FCAS if that goes away. So let's start maybe with Saab or Sweden, I guess. Where do we think they end up?

Tony Osborne: Well, let's just be clear what Saab and Sweden are doing. So Sweden hasn't actually yet taken a decision on what it does next as a Gripen replacement, but it is basically producing the building blocks. This is a bit like the future combat air system technology sort of work that was going on before Team Tempest and so on. So basically they're developing the building blocks to see if they can go and produce a fighter in the 2030s. And the Swedish government is expected to make a decision on that in around 2030 to see if they'll go ahead. But they are producing a demonstrator that will be unmanned and so on. And then of course, you have Germany and Spain, neither of them have built fighters before, at least certainly in Germany, not since the '40s without bringing up the Second World War, which seems to be a very prolific British thing that we do.

And of course Spain- Can I mention the war? You don't mention the war. I think I've got away with it to talk about Fawlty Towers. And Spain hasn't produced a combat aircraft either, I think since the '60s, or at least it tried to, and it didn't work out. And so then they have to decide, well, if this falls apart, does FCAS remain in name, perhaps with a combat cloud only, but not the fighter? There's various different elements that could survive this. And I think it's certainly been mentioned by some German politicians about whether, well, can something be salvaged of this if we don't get the fighter to work and then Germany and Spain seek an alternative solution perhaps with Sweden or perhaps through GCAP. Yeah, there's a lot to play for here for all these projects.

Richard Aboulafia: Yeah. Well, as Tony says, awful lot of moving pieces. One thing that does hit me is that there's really no clarity on the missing piece in all of this, which is some kind of common collaborative combat aircraft for Europe with the diminishment of what was, I believe, Mosquito back in, and France has whatever son of Neuron, whatever. But boy, it would seem that the easiest thing to do is say, "Hey, Sweden, you take lead on that because you're really great at small air vehicle design and integration." Problem solved. Now, Germany is a trickier one because, of course, they're running out of meaningful technological work packages for major aerospace power that would want in. Short of a factory in Manching or wherever, I'm not sure what you'd do. I mean, MTU obviously playing a role, maybe weapons, obviously. Rheinmetall doing some structural work. It's going to be very interesting to watch because that's from a European airpower and industrial perspective, they're the ones who are going to have the most stringent requirements relative to being enticed to join.

Robert Wall: And of course, we've got the sensor side as well, the Hensoldt and the like. Indra, where do they end up? So I mean, it is complicated. I found very interesting, obviously over the last couple months, the GCAP people, any chance we get to ask them that question, they get asked that question. I found very interesting that they're very eyes wide open to the possibility, I feel like. Basically, the message is basically, we're executing the program, we're executing the plan. But look, reality is if governments tell us to make this happen, we'll need to figure out how to make it happen. And I must say, kind of appreciated that just acknowledgement, this is not just an industrial project. There are bigger stakes here. And look, look at the numbers. I mean, if you think right now, each country in GCAP is supposed to buy 100 fighters, well, that's great.

Now, add on top of that, a potential Saudi buy, potentially UAE buy. Even Germany now that they are finally spending money on defense, a German buy could be that or higher. I mean, Spain, well, okay, there's the question how Spain will afford anything in defense, but that's a different podcast. But I mean, the numbers are wild. So you can see why industry, it's not just governments, why it's actually very tempting for industry to bend over backwards to make this happen some way if they can.

Tony Osborne: And just coming back on to Germany, I mean, working with Saab will give you something, but it doesn't necessarily give you the aircraft you want, right? Sweden has a very different doctrine to the rest of Europe. It's all about survivability, operating from road runways. So we're talking about generally small aircraft. Germany's going to want something far more capable, something that can go and do deep strike and do other things and have decent range. I mean, when it was first mooted, it was talked about as being a command fighter. It was going to be a big beast. That's why the FCAS looks the way it is, even though we've got sort of mixed artists' impressions of it. Most of the time it's a big airplane with one or two seats and internal bays and so on. A Swedish option may not give them what they want, so they're going to be wanting something large and capable, and I'm not convinced that a Swedish partnership will give them that.

And maybe Richard's point about going down the path to a European collaborative aircraft path with Saab at the helm of that may be the way forward. I mean,

Robert Wall: There is the problem. If Sweden bought a GCAP, how do you land that on a highway and turn that around in a Swedish forest?

Tony Osborne: That was always the big question about when Sweden initially joined on board Team Tempest and GCAP and what was then FCAS in the UK. Well, how is this going to work? How does this fit with your existing doctrines? And it just didn't, which is why they went the other way.

Richard Aboulafia: Well, yeah, but Tony, that's exactly it. The existing doctrines were formulated from 1945 to two years ago, and now they're part of NATO. So the idea of a kind of ourselves alone, land on highways with small jets might be at odds with the new doctrine of coalition war fighting. So it could be that requirements change.

Robert Wall: Your new highway may now be the autobahn in Germany somewhere as your divert field no longer be your Swedish highway.

Tony Osborne: Well, at the same time, NATO is trying to copy the Swedish doctrine through ACE, which is what just providing air power through distributed means. So every country's trying to follow that because they know they're getting into the targeting cycles and all that. So I think Sweden still has something to offer there.

Robert Wall: All right. Well, I think we'll leave it there. Anyway, it's going to be a super interesting year, a big story, big stories for us to be following Tony, myself, our colleagues, and of course, Richard, for you to also chime in on. You're always welcome on the pod. So thanks for joining us for our first podcast of the year. And so thanks, Richard. Thanks, Tony. Also, thanks to Guy Ferneyhough, our podcast producer who's putting all this together. And of course, as always, thanks to our audience for checking in on Check 6 and check back for more as we explore other parts of the aerospace industry throughout the year.