The Government has confirmed that there has been no alteration to the planned in-service date for the UK’s next-generation combat aircraft under the Global Combat Air Programme.
Responding to a written parliamentary question from James Cartlidge, Conservative MP for South Suffolk, Defence Minister Luke Pollard stated that the Secretary of State for Defence has authorised no changes to the in-service date for the programme.
Cartlidge had asked whether any adjustment had been made to the timeline for the Tempest jet, the British component of the multinational GCAP effort. In a brief reply, Pollard said: “The Secretary of State has authorised no changes to the in-service date for the Global Combat Air Programme.”
GCAP is a trilateral initiative between the United Kingdom, Italy and Japan to develop a sixth-generation combat aircraft intended to replace the Royal Air Force’s Eurofighter Typhoon, alongside Italy’s Typhoons and Japan’s Mitsubishi F-2 fleet. The programme was formally announced in December 2022, merging the UK-Italian Tempest project with Japan’s F-X effort. A treaty underpinning the collaboration was signed in Japan in December 2023.
Under the current schedule, full development is expected to begin in 2025, with a demonstrator aircraft planned to fly in 2027 and production aircraft entering service from 2035. The minister’s statement indicates that this timeline remains unchanged.
Around 9,000 personnel are currently working on GCAP across the three partner nations, supported by more than 1,000 suppliers. Approximately 600 of those suppliers are based in the UK, with the remainder split between Italy and Japan.
Industrial delivery is being coordinated through a joint venture known as Edgewing, formally named in June 2025. The company is owned equally by BAE Systems, Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement Co Ltd and Leonardo, each holding a 33.3 per cent stake. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, Edgewing is responsible for the aircraft’s design, development and delivery through the mid-2030s and for supporting it throughout its expected service life beyond 2070.
‘Full development WAS scheduled to begin in 2025. However, this government doesn’t seem to know what it is doing and is still dragging its feet on defence, despite how dangerous the world looks.’
The sooner we can have a cutting edge fighter where we don’t have to rely on MAGA America or American corperations & permissions to operate or fit vital weapons systems to it the better. It must be also blatently obvious by now to even the most skepticle/neglectful MP that the UK needs multi layered, resiliant(plenty of ammo/missles) air/missile/drone defences asap.
Trump demanded the peace prize but then tips the whole middle east into regional war. The last leader/regime I’d expect to have a sensible, intelligent, cohesive plan to deliver victory & beneficial regime change for Iran is Trumps. Causing widespread chaos, destruction & casualties then pulling out, laming everybody else once it gets too difficult, having cynically made billions gaming the markets affected I can believe. Russia will get a massive boost to their war effort by the oil price hikes from war stiffling the gulf oil trade.
Donald J. Trump. Après moi le deluge 😂
We will still have to rely on America for the f35, sadly.
A case of no news is good news. The reply suggests that the project is technically on track, that the partnership is sound and that DIP funding is secure, at least for now.
Unfortunately it doesn’t necessarily. Sure, it might, but it’s exactly the same formula used when things have gone wrong and nobody wants to admit it yet, so they just fail to update the official plans. The minister can then state, hand on heart, that the planned in service date remains the same. As an example: has the official out of service date changed for the Type 45s? No. Does anyone believe that date? Also no.
Let in Saudi money, pull the plugs out and DO it. The sooner we move away from Yankee Doodle strings attached the better.
I get the same delusional comments from the clients who pay very late and then expect it to have no effect on the project timeline.
They then expect us to ‘catch up’ it is impossible explaining to people that in most projects once time is burned it is burned and that is that. Throwing resources at a problem, after the fact, makes almost no difference and can make things worse.