The Anglo-Italian-Japanese consortium developing the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP) sixth-generation fighter has unveiled the latest iteration of the aircraft’s design. New models and graphics show a configuration with a large, near-delta shaped wing, broadly similar to that of other sixth-generation fighter projects taking shape in Europe and on the U.S.
That the configurations are similar is no great surprise, as operational requirements are similar, said Herman Claesen, BAE Systems’ managing director for future combat air systems. “They all need to go far, carry lots of stuff, and to do it with low observability,” he stressed.
Claesen, along with Italian and Japanese industry counterparts Guglielmo Maviglia (Leonardo) and Hitoshi Shiraishi (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries), reported that work continues at a rapid pace as the program nears its next major milestone, the full launch of a multi-year detailed design and development phase. The shape of the aircraft is beginning to crystallize as the team “homes in on the final outer mold line,” said Claesen—although what's underneath the skin is more important.
Digital design and evaluation tools have permitted a much higher rate of development than previously possible, particularly in terms of reconfigurations of various elements. Making development easier is a joint set of requirements, with Italian, Japanese and the UK governments having adapted national protocols to permit the levels of security access required to establish a detailed requirement.
The aircraft and its systems are designed to operate in a fully interoperable environment, both with other allied forces and other own-force assets such as F-35 and Typhoon. In the case of the F-35, all three nations operate the type and see the GCAP as a complementary asset bringing considerable additional capability to the existing force mix.
Also nearing maturation is the detailed industrial workshare plan. Learning from past multi-national programs such as Tornado and Typhoon, the GCAP model will likely “look different.” The plan calls for completion next year. While the GCAP aircraft is intended for export sales, it remains feasible for additional nations to join the industrial effort, but not at the expense of the development timeline.
That timeline has seen rapid progress from the first announcement of the enterprise in December 2022, underlined in the following September by a collaboration agreement by the three national industrial leads (BAE Systems, Leonardo, MHI). The governments signed a treaty in December to deliver a combat aircraft by 2035.
The nature of what that “in-service date” comprises remains undefined, but it is assumed that it will be the date at which aircraft get handed over to the air forces for them to start working up for operations. The open-architecture nature of the GCAP concept means that the traditional notion of “full operational capability” is not valid, as the platform will be constantly refined, modified, and updated throughout its service life.
Each of the countries is also conducting national technology demonstration programs that can flow technology into GCAP, such as the UK’s Future Combat Air System. That began in 2018 and is expected to produce a flying demonstrator in 2027.
For all three participants, GCAP is a major strategic program that provides operational advantages, technological sovereignty, and the prospect of generating thousands of highly-skilled jobs. The economic benefits are considerable, while those in technology—particularly in crucial fields such as digitization, artificial intelligence, and cyber security—can spin off into many other sectors.