The UK, Italy and Japan have taken the next formal steps in developing their sixth-generation fighter under the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), confirming a new joint headquarters and a target to finalise a major international contract by the end of 2025.
In a joint statement issued on 7 July following a virtual meeting, UK Defence Secretary John Healey, Japanese Defense Minister Nakatani Gen, and Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto welcomed recent progress on the programme and reaffirmed their commitment to delivering the future air combat system on schedule.
The ministers highlighted the official launch of Edgewing, a new joint venture between BAE Systems (UK), Leonardo (Italy), and Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement Co. Ltd. (Japan), announced by industry on 20 June. Edgewing will serve as the industrial lead for the programme, supporting development of the sixth-generation platform expected to enter service in the mid-2030s.
The statement also confirmed the opening of a new shared headquarters in Reading, which will host both Edgewing and the GCAP International Government Organisation (GIGO). The co-location of the industrial and governmental teams is intended to streamline decision-making under a unified governance structure and maintain programme momentum.
According to the statement, the three governments aim to finalise the first formal international contract between GIGO and Edgewing by the end of 2025. The ministers described this milestone as key to sustaining pace and deepening trilateral cooperation: “[They] reaffirmed their strong and personal commitment to the programme, and confirmed to accelerate all the necessary work to conclude the first international contract… by the end of this year.”
The GCAP programme was announced in December 2022 and consolidates the UK’s former Tempest project with Japan’s F-X and Italy’s national future fighter plans. The partnership aims to deliver a highly networked, stealth-capable combat aircraft to replace current-generation platforms like the Eurofighter Typhoon and Mitsubishi F-2.
With the establishment of joint governance, shared headquarters and the creation of Edgewing as a unified industrial vehicle, the three nations are now entering a decisive phase in what has become the most ambitious defence collaboration of its kind outside the United States.
Excellent, meanwhile the Franco German project hasn’t got past a Childish squabbling gunfight yet….
A bit like their tank program as well 🙄
Now, France is looking to have 80% of the workshare to meet the time target.
‘Welcome our new alien overlords’ says no one in Germany. They had agreed to give Dassault design lead on the fighter but apparently even that wasn’t enough they want total control. Well it’s not like the Germans didn’t get a warning from the last time.
Bunfight even…..
Aaaaawwwww – I much prefer the imagery of the gunfight 🙁
the sooner it arrives the better.
They would have to have longwinded bunfight about a gunfight mate, the French would insist on supplying the ammunition as a sole source and being allowed to shoot first!
It’s encouraging when you see two RAF GCAP’s in a rendition at least.
“May I take your order sir ?”
Meanwhile the FCAS project looks set to fall apart as France demands a 80% workshare.
France, Germany and Spain are intertwined industrially and commercially in Airbus, it is Dassault that is kicking off in order to defend its monopoly position in French fighter production.
No doubt they will reach a compromise at some point. We have to hope that the GCAP programme continues to run smoothly, because competition with FCAS and the US F-47 is going to be pretty brutal.
According to Aero mag, the SCAP project contributed £13.7bn to the GDP in 2024.
GCAP –
Boff! minimal numbers, hyper complex aircraft.
In 20 years where the missile/drone will be?
Do we think the US has made a mistake with F47 by focusing on air superiority whilst GCAP is a truly multi role aircraft but with it’s latest big wing configuration a clear focus on strike?
On the basis of their industrial prowess, the American jet will in all likelihood be a more advanced and capable aircraft when compared to the aircraft fielded by the GCAP partners. One should also remember that the Americans are planning to operate a large force of stealth bombers capable of penetrating area air defence networks. Between those two aircraft, the USAF should have capability greater than that provided to the GCAP partners by the Tempest. That’s ignoring the very likely possibility that the F-47 will have a potent air-to-ground capability as well as being the dominant air-to-air asset (at least when compared to Russian or European equivalents).
Hard to say. There will be some metrics by which the F47 will be streets ahead (stealth at a guess), but overall it sounds like it will be too small for the job. It’s going to depend on the system of systems thing. Any weaknesses of the core provision will be bolstered by the loyal wingmen. So it’ll depend of what they can do too.
It’s not clear yet exactly what the F-47 will be. Much depends on how much money is thrown at the program, Trump is somewhat erratic on such matters. After all they have just pumped more money into very costly and somewhat flailing projects at NASA while scrapping generally successful more scientific ones for the most part this week, based it seems on wanting grand pr results for Potus. With a project where presently the priority was naming it in honour of the President it seems, yep someone who wants two engines on the F-35 despite that being effectively impossible and some think an idea he plucked mistakenly out of the blue based on Lockheed considering a two man version, who knows what form and interference the F-47 will eventually take. Especially so when you also have incompetents in most leading positions in Govt and even within the Pentagon now, and of course there’s Boeing’s track record of complacent incompetence. Yes the military fighter side (because they fundamentally aren’t Boeing) has been successful over decades in such aircraft, but they haven’t actually designed a new one for decades, so a supreme and timely design and the eventual result might not be assured, though the hype absolutely will be. As they say sometimes less is more and if we take the F-35 as the pinnacle of US competency then it’s more that until recently no one has really attempted to match it, than it being a particularly exceptional design, let alone remotely within budget or timescale. Historically it’s the overall network and capabilities around US aircraft that make them generally more successful than the opposition, only rarely have the airframes themselves been the best. F-22 has been the obvious exception yet still hardly a model of a successful project… and even then they chose the wrong plane.
How these aircrafts can survive the drone/missile age? How their bases can be protected by the significant increase in number of threats and the end of rear area?
How many Tempest numbers can any of the three can afford? How many can be build per year and how its production can be increased?
In service by the mid 2030s… I’ll believe it when it happens. Maybe add another 5-8yrs
Maybe, but of allies only the US may beat it to market and with the Japanese on board we probably have engineering and production competence that matches or out performs the Americans in pretty much every engineering and technology based industry, even if they have less aviation experience (though they did manage to improve the F-16). As long as the three Countries gel on efficiently I expect the project to make excellent progress even if it doesn’t meet that very tight 2035 date. I also note that Japanese launcher and satellite capabilities (despite a few recent blips) have generally been making great progress and over some decades now so I would hope capabilities there might be able to be extensibly exploited to give the platform top end networking and awareness potential by the time it enters service.