The two realities of the Airospace want both the most relevant position in the project, which now risks braking. For once we saw right and we stayed out of it, choosing the GCAP with the United Kingdom and Japan
Tensions in the most complex of European military aeronautical programs. Already during the Lebourget Aerospace Salone, signs had emerged at the end of June according to which France and Germany allowed different positions as regards the sharing of work on the new hunting of sixth generation FCAS. Dassault had already expressed doubts about the organizational structure of the program in April April last, criticizing Airbus for the delay in signing the contract for phase 1b. And for the concerns of other delays to start phase 2 in 2026, and for that relating to the hardware part and the testing of the NGWs, or the next generation weapon system.
A few days ago the German newspaper specialized in defense Hartpunktresumed last Monday from Reutersreported the news that the French aerospace company Dassault Aviation would have liked to increase its visibility in the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program and that this ambition would create turbulence in the Franco-German-Spanish agreement that supports the entire project. However, the prospect of increasing Dassault’s responsibility for some parts of the program at 80% compared to Airbus Defense and Space, the industrial counterpart that also represents Germany and Spain, risks creating crises in a program mainly supported by the political will of the Transalpine Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu and his German colleague Boris Pistorius.
The FCAS program aims to build sixth generation combat planes that will replace the French dessaults and German Eurofighters by 2040, even if this deadline will be likely to postpone at least a five -year period. At the moment for both hunting, updates are underway, but to give them the characteristics of the aircraft of the next generation aircraft it would be necessary to profoundly review their electronic architecture. Like the competitor GCAP (Italy, the United Kingdom and Japan), the FCAS weapon system will also be composed of a combat jet accompanied by drones for the attack, surveillance and electronic war. The system should be powered by what officials have called a “combat cloud”, a real brain responsible for the merger of data from the sensors and the control and control system.
Currently the cooperation agreement is divided to 50%, but the friction between Airbus and Dassault began immediately, making the program waste time and bringing some nations not to take part. Not only that, not too veiledly there is a part of Airbus that aims to merge the Franco-German project with the Anglo-Italipponic project. The head of Dassault, Eric Trappier, repeatedly declared that he was not willing to give in any authority to Airbus, claiming that the experience of the French company in the field of war planes, also financed by exports to the countries chosen from Paris, must remain undisputed for a matter of national security. Airbus, which by definition is a multinational rooted in European cooperation, wishes to preserve their knowledge in the military planes sector and supports jobs throughout the continent in the context of a considerable presence of industries associated with the Eurofighter program, in which Dassault renounced entering. Trappier also declared to French legislators at the end of June that the imminent phase 2 of the FCAS program, aimed at building a demonstration plane, requires a revaluation of the roles established in the previous phase, focused on the design. To make “the whole cake,” said Trappier, referring to the aircraft of sixth generation, “a single leader with the authority would have been necessary to choose the subcontractors. This does not mean that all the work must be done in France, but that we must be able to choose the best realities to create the best plane”, concluded Trappier.
