Future Combat Air System (FCAS)

BAE Systems has reached the "business end" of developing its Future Combat Air Demonstrator, the aircraft that will pave the way for the fighter emerging from the tri-national Global Combat Air Program.

Spanish aerospace and defense companies have bandied together like their German counterparts to create a united industrial front to urge their government to move with pace to define a future fighter program in the wake of the demise of the cooperation with France.

Our roundup of the main aerospace and defense stories making the news this week.

Germany says planning is underway for what comes next after its fighter partnership with France fizzled.

MTU Aero Engines is urging the French and German governments to take “necessary steps” to preserve the expertise and industrial capabilities created to support the development of an advanced powerplant for a European sixth-generation combat aircraft.

Eight years after Airbus and Dassault shook hands at the ILA Berlin Air Show to jointly pursue a future combat aircraft, France and Germany have decided to go their separate ways.

Airbus Defense and Space CEO Michael Schöllhorn hopes France and Germany will finally resolve the path forward for the New Generation Fighter program by ILA.

Airbus proposes partial reset of European FCAS program to address Ukraine war lessons and industrial partner disputes over next-gen fighter requirements.

Indra is starting to build air surveillance radars on the expectation of orders to address military demand for faster delivery cycles, its CEO says.

MTU Aero Engines expects the Franco-German-Spanish Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program to evolve to the pursuit of two different aircraft types.

Airbus expects the Eurodrone uncrewed aircraft program to survive even absent French participation.

Germany and France are poised to decide within days the future of the Future Combat Air System program, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius says.

The UK and France are to launch studies on the development of a successor to the Meteor beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile.

France and Germany are poised to make a decision on whether they can repair the fractured defense industrial relationship for the Future Combat Air System.

India’s Defense Ministry is seeking to join one of the foreign government-industry consortia developing competing sixth-generation fighters.

The combat cloud being designed to tie all the elements of the Future Combat Air System is more important than the ailing fighter element of the endeavor, argues the Chief of Staff of the French Air and Space Force.

Dassault Aviation CEO Éric Trappier has rejected a German idea for a two-fighter approach in the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program.

Hensoldt sees a potential $1 billion opportunity in Germany’s ambition to field an airborne electronic attack capability, with a possible competition soon.

MTU would like to keep an engine partnership with its French and Spanish partners on FCAS going, regardless of what happens to the fighter element of the program.

With demand booming in commercial and defense aviation, why are Airbus programs in turmoil?

On location in Toulouse, Aviation Week's Jens Flottau and Robert Wall discuss the implications of Airbus' latest results.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz wants the military to do a proper requirements assessment for a potential next-generation fighter.

Editors are joined by analyst Sash Tusa to discuss the fallout of the Munich Security Conference and Saudi Arabia's World Defense Show.

MTU Aero Engines' new boss wants to maintain the engine partnership with Safran to jointly pursue the fighter programs likely to emerge from the anticipated divorce between France and Germany on the Next-Generation Fighter portion of their FCAS.

German aerospace lobby BDLI is calling for a dual-fighter strategy under FCAS, effectively urging France and others to go separate ways while maintaining the veneer of cooperation.