The Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) has reached a major milestone with the launch of Edgewing, a new joint venture formed by BAE Systems (UK), Leonardo (Italy), and Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement Co. Ltd (Japan).
The company will lead the design and development of the next-generation combat aircraft, expected to enter service in 2035 and remain operational beyond 2070.
Announced on Friday, the creation of Edgewing marks a significant step forward in the trilateral partnership between the UK, Italy and Japan. The joint venture will serve as the design authority for the aircraft and will coordinate with the GCAP International Government Organisation (GIGO) throughout the programme’s life.
Edgewing will have teams based in all three partner nations but will be headquartered in the UK to ensure close alignment with government stakeholders. The firm will oversee design and development, with manufacturing and final assembly subcontracted to BAE Systems, Leonardo, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and wider industry partners.
Marco Zoff, previously Managing Director of Leonardoās Aircraft Division, has been appointed as Edgewingās first Chief Executive Officer.
āWe are incredibly excited to launch Edgewing at the heart of the Global Combat Air Programme,ā Zoff said.
āBy uniting the strengths of our talented people in the UK, Italy and Japan, we are not only delivering the next-generation combat air systemāwe aim to set a new global standard for partnership, innovation and trust.ā
The programme aims to deliver a cutting-edge, interoperable fighter aircraft featuring advanced sensors, AI-enabled systems and secure connectivity. It also seeks to boost national supply chains, technology transfer, and sovereign capability in all three partner nations.
Masami Oka, Chief Executive of the GCAP International Government Organisation, welcomed the launch.
āEdgewing represents an important step forward in what will be a truly international joint development programme,ā he said.
āI am confident that together we can establish a new model of partnership that will promote international integration, mutual trust and a shared commitment to our future.ā
The three founding companies each hold a 33.3% share in Edgewing. The board of directors will rotate its chair among the shareholders, with BAE Systemsā Herman Claesen, Managing Director for Future Combat Air Systems, appointed as the first Chair.
Edgewing is tasked with meeting GCAPās ambitious goals while strengthening defence-industrial cooperation across Europe and Asia. Officials say the programme is vital to the long-term security and prosperity of all three nations.
Images and further information are available at edgewing.com.
So yhe G in GIGO is GCAP. So we have an acronym winin an acronym. Good god.
Maybe the G should stand for glacial
Nothing glacial about this programme at least yet. The Japanese onboard gives me hope at least, that this may continue.
It truly saddens me to see the difficulties France and Germany are having with FCAS. š
France has just announced its building a drone for Rafale even though Germany was suppose to be building the drones for FCAS.
Dassault has described the other partners as useless and is refusing to work with them.
Meanwhile half the world seems to want to be in Tempest.
Do you think we might be able to poach Spain out of FCAS?
And maybe Norway away from the US ecosystem?
You do realise that the reason that Spain is in FCAS is that they know it wonāt happen?
That way they donāt have to buy any aircraftā¦..so they donāt spend any ā¬ā¬ā¬ā¬ā¦.
Ouch. That’s pretty cynical. If they didn’t want to spend any money, why wouldn’t they just stay out of both development programmes?
They arenāt even spending anywhere near 2%ā¦.this way they look as if they will upgradeā¦..
1 we donāt want them, what do they have to offer and 2 they are something of a parsley for France, probably be a spy for them too.
Not every defence programme has to be about international collaboration, export customers are just as useful. Spain have mostly abandoned their combat air industry.
There is a golden opportunity for us to seize here. With European efforts stalling and the US doing its best to isolate itself there is a sizeable market for us to tap into.
Hopefully we have learned how not to manage the software aspect of the design as well due to us being particularly badly affected by the F35 farce.
Software design is 2 generations ahead of where it started with F-35 itās all very modular now and the fact a lot of these modular systems are up and running on all manner of technology and helping rapid development we can at least hope it will immeasurably better than F-35 which sadly is trapped in that horrible limit strewn software past no matter how hard they want to upgrade it. One aspect means complete re testing of every other major part making it a nightmare. Modularity sandboxes different aspects of the aircraftās systems, at least in theory reducing that fundamental problem almost completely. Bae itself and the Japanese more generally between them have a great deal of experience on such developmental systems so we can at least be hopeful.
Dassault doesn’t want to give Germany unlimited access to years of proprietary R&D. they are absolutely correct. Germany wants a foothold on every aspect of the project to get hold of all IP, because they lack the expertise.
I hope France ditches this bureaucratic nonesense which will be endlessly delayed by the Bundestag, cost more (like Typhoon having 4 assembly lines) and won’t have a clear roadmap for upgrades over the lifetime of the project (Typhoon and Tiger come to mind) … not to mention Germany still pretending to this day that naval version, nuclear strike capability, export blocks are not red lines for France (quid Rafale vs EF2000 all over again)
Airbus is good at making airliners and we should leave it at that. just look at Eurodrone fiasco which still hasnt flown to this day and going to cost an arm and a leg with 2 engines!
Germans would Like the French nuclear ombrella and potentially carry Asmp. No scaf, no nuclear sharing.
I think itās essentially doomed to be honest..the Italian, UK, Japan has essentially build a completely level playing field new company.. the French, German and Spainish program has not even got to a point were they can agree a programme structure..essentially Dassault will not play unless they are the prime contractor ( AKA itās a French controlled and led programme), airbus are never going to let that happen.. then you have Safran ( french ) and MTU ( German ) both after market share on the engine.. then you have a German partnership of companies called FCMS (Hensoldt Sensors GmbH, Diehl Defence GmbH & Co. KG, ESG Elektroniksystem- und Logistik-GmbH and Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co. KG) partnering idra and Thales on the senors and finally EUMET is also a partnerā¦
Essentially is a utter dogs dinner and Iām surprised they can even agree what hour of the day it is let alone how to build a six generation fighter.. when not one of them has any experience of even a fifth generation fighter..
Finally the thing I think will be the cherry on the top is that France are insisting itās a carrier based aircraft..with all the extra engineering, weight and overall cost that will entail..simple so it can fly 2 squadron worth off a carrierā¦.
The U.S. offering will be two expensive and there is a very good chance they may not even export the full finished plane.. I think the French, German, Spanish offer will fail because there is no way 8 different companies are going to agree on much.. if the UK, Italians and Japanese can build a solid 6 generation fighter that is not over the top expensive just as the last 4th gen fleets are replaced I think they may end up with the defacto western 6th generation fighter.
Is it complicated ? Sure: having german industrials under a French management to develop a plane that would carry an atomic bomb, land on carrier and to be exported without restrictions, thatās a challenge for a german.
But germans havenāt much choice and political pressure is enormous. Thatās probably why lecornu and trappier are quite brutal in their comments: they seem having the uper hand.
The Germans alway have a choice.. in the parlance the film industry ā they are the Moneyā.
I honestly suspect that in the end France will go it alone.. the French military industrial complex ( dassault ) will want its own product to sell..the Germans will want political control..itās not likely to work out. I may be wrong but there was a good reason France build its own 4.5 gen figher.
Many France have the same opinion than you do, letās see!
Well I have to say this is great news bringing the 3 great countries and their wealth of cutting edge, world class, state of the art capabilities all together in one staggeringly impressive package.
The Leading edge of 6th gen technology all wrapped up in single package the likes of which the world has never seen before.
“On the edge of a wing and a prayer”.
Still skeptical about it, no offence to anyone but the UK, Italy and Japan have different views on what they want. There is also reports of BAE not sharing certain things with Japan (understandable) but the Japanese not impressed by it
Yup, but BAE will have IP that they can use but not disclose. If all depends how it was developed and who paid for it under what contract.
There will be some Typhoon things they know about and can use but not disclose.
Similarly with some of the F35 bits that BAE designed.
IRL BAE have better IP on a huge range of areas which is far better than starting everything from scratch.
No. The reports came from Italy. And all nations have agreed on a common set of requirements.
There is always going to be arguments over IP, no one is going to give away their hard earned secrets easily so there is going to be some conflict certainly in these early stages. How deep real conflicts go is not easy to assess because you will always get news reports based on who knows what evidence no matter the veracity. I would have thought the three Countries are reasonably aligned on what they want as long range is important for all three unlike arguably Germany and France. Obviously Japan will desire it the most but each has large reas of water they have to operate over without having these aircraft operating from Carriers. I suspect any dispute is over the details of that requirement.
I feel like the UK should’ve gone the route of Canada, Australia and they’d happily take less shares. BAE also have a presence in Australia and Canada
No. Those two countries do not have the money or expertise to contribute.
I agree and certainly until recently with the maverick in the White House any inclination. That might change now but if it does it will be as junior partners which would be the best fit all round, original partners would have been a disaster I suspect especially with the whinging Australians. Realities are likely pushing both in the right direction that can be to our advantage. Even Carney came out last week saying ing he lamented how Canada had moved away from the United Kingdom and others.
It has been reported that Sweden is in talks with GCAP again as well
Where?
Was on some defence news website, but don’t ask me which, I don’t remember! But if true, it would probably unlock more Baltic nations to get on board
I’ll be amazed if this ever actually happens. Or of it does we’ll have an order of 14 of them, fitted “for but not with” a radar and landing gear.
Why? This kind of collaborative effort is exactly what the UK does well.
At least in regards to fighters.
Itās seems a small bureaucratic tick box but the single most important thing on this programme was creating a company structure that all parties could work under.. the UK, Japanese, Italian plane is now being developed by one company.. the French and German plane..by about 8 arguing and bickering companies..
Another important and probably crucial factor, is that the GIGO will have complete engineering authority over the design. This decision is in part due to lessons learned from the debacle that is Eurofighter Gmbh. Where each partner must agree to a modification, or else it won’t happen. So hopefully upgrades will have a much easier path than what Typhoon has had.
No. Edgewing has design authority. That’s not the same as GIGO.
The UK government needs to go all in here.
Get GCAP into production asap. Pull the programme to the left. In service by 2032-2033 and then just see hundreds and hundreds of overseas orders come in. Just so long as the partnership doesn’t get greedy and put each aircraft at the price of a B21- Raider we should be fine. Max price Ā£150 million each if we can do it for less great.
Seize the opportunity.
agree… we have ethe potential to make an absolute killing in the export market here, provided our politicians don’t f*ck the whole thing up!!!
fund it, get a prototype done asap,. and make up for the idiotic cancellation of tsr2! ;p
Operational by 2035 will be tough, but I think there’s a reasonable chance they can manage it if everyone is focused and the requirements don’t continually change.
When you look at the US F-47, the two companies vying to produce the engine, GE’s XA102 and Pratt & Whitney’s XA103, are both saying they are aiming for 2032 with ground testing of the prototype starting in 2029, or by the end of the decade. Meanwhile Boeing are claiming to be able to build the entire aircraft by 2027. That’s a bit of a mismatch and probably means that the first tranche of F-47 will be underpowered or delayed.
F-47 will probably be delayed past 2027?
Probably???????? How about definitely.