Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) UK-Japan-Italy

DWG said:
That's not inviting India to join Tempest, it's inviting India to hire BAE Systems to consult on AMCA.
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The real world is not about nationalism, is about business.

Japan has a very small market for aircraft because the Japanese economy is stagnant.

The last fighter project they made was a a fiasco F-2. very few aircraft purchased at an exorbitant price.

Compare to China J-10 and you see F-2 does not bring any advance to Japan.

England also has an economy with little growth and Italy the same, compared to the USA, both economies are stagnant.
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Why Invite India? money money money, money money money.

Since a 6th Generation fighter program is so expensive even rumors about inviting India are logic India has one of the largest militaries and one of the largest GDPs.


Aviation is business, and selling is the best way to keep in business. An economy that grows faster obviously will spend more in military stuff, more weaponry, and obviously in the next decade India will increase its military budget more than Italy, Japan or UK, sad reality but true.
 
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F-14ATomcat said:
The real world is not about nationalism, is about business.
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The only people I've seen acting like India's join to GCAP is imminent are hindu nationalists. I've already discussed the business side of things and India is just objectively a bad partner for the program.
F-14ATomcat said:
Japan has a very small market for aircraft because the Japanese economy is stagnant.
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Japan has stated that at a minimum of 100 airframes to replace the F-2 in around a 1:1 replacement, and I would imagine the UK and Italy are looking at around the same amount based on their Typhoon fleets.
F-14ATomcat said:
The last fighter project they made was a a fiasco F-2. very few aircraft purchased at an exorbitant price.
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This wasn't a Japanese industry issue, this was a US industry issue and they aren't a factor in GCAP.
F-14ATomcat said:
Compare to China J-10 and you see F-2 does not bring any advance to Japan.
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The F-2 was the first 4.5+ gen with the first AESA radar. The J-10 didn't get an AESA till the J-10C in 2018, almost 20 years later.
F-14ATomcat said:
England also has an economy with little growth and Italy the same, compared to the USA, both economies are stagnant.
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They also like Japan still have a healthy defense budget that is still going to expand in the future.
F-14ATomcat said:
Why Invite India? money money money, money money money.
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Why invite India for money when the Saudis are right there with likely much less demands for industry participation and smaller ties to countries like Russia?
F-14ATomcat said:
Aviation is business, and selling is the best way to keep in business.
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Cool, so India can sit on the sidelines until it's up for export and then buy airframes from there. There is absolutely 0 reason to bring India on in an sort of development partnership.
 
Kota said:
The only people I've seen acting like India's join to GCAP is imminent are hindu nationalists. I've already discussed the business side of things and India is just objectively a bad partner for the program.

Japan has stated that at a minimum of 100 airframes to replace the F-2 in around a 1:1 replacement, and I would imagine the UK and Italy are looking at around the same amount based on their Typhoon fleets.

This wasn't a Japanese industry issue, this was a US industry issue and they aren't a factor in GCAP.

The F-2 was the first 4.5+ gen with the first AESA radar. The J-10 didn't get an AESA till the J-10C in 2018, almost 20 years later.

They also like Japan still have a healthy defense budget that is still going to expand in the future.

Why invite India for money when the Saudis are right there with likely much less demands for industry participation and smaller ties to countries like Russia?

Cool, so India can sit on the sidelines until it's up for export and then buy airframes from there. There is absolutely 0 reason to bring India on in an sort of development partnership.
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Fact 1-F-2 has lower production than J-10

Fatc 2 P-1 has low production, C-2 has low production.

fact 3 MRJ was a failure they could not pay for the project

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Japan has an elderly population and low birth rate, basically has no future.

India has a 6% growth rate and has plenty of young people.


India is a nuclear power, Japan is not a nuclear power.

The future for both nation is not like you pretend.

India, Japan and the UK are very likely potencial partners because aircraft are expensive and neither Japan or the UK have larger economies than India nor the growth rate India has.
 
F-14ATomcat said:
The real world is not about nationalism, is about business.
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Rather it's about business moderated by politics.

India has nothing to offer GCAP. It's still at the asking for external support stage of developing its home industry. No outside partner is going to risk tying their critical projects to India's notoriously slow development cycles (cf Tejas with it's c35 year development). It is, however a potential customer for certain systems companies.

Moreover, India's ongoing association with the Russians will make technology sharing at the cutting edge somewhat difficult.

Japan has an elderly population and low birth rate, basically has no future.
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Attacking another country is just as much nationalism as bigging up your own.

If the UK and Japan have so little to offer, why the assertions they must be about to let India join? Isn't AMCA supposed to fill the IAF next-generation heavy fighter role?

The fact is there is precisely zero indication in the UK that the UK, or the other GCAP business partners, are interested in India as a partner on GCAP, whereas there is considerable indication that they are interested in Saudi.
 
Between it’s continued inability to develop (let alone properly procure) advanced aircraft - the Tejas being generally less impressive than earlier models of the F-16 - and repeated bungles with its attempts at international cooperation - namely demanding everything and the kitchen sink, whilst outsourcing any blame to the collaborating companies - there’s only really two groups who stand to benefit from any Indian cooperation.

Indians who want the prestige of a 6th generation aircraft that’s ‘developed’ by and produced in India to some extent (because let’s be real, Tejas Mk2 probably isn’t going to see mass production before GCAP sees its first flight, let alone the AMCA getting a flight before GCAP enters mass production) and those who want to see the GCAP programme sink, be they supporters of rival western programmes or the geopolitical opponents of the three nations.

Saudi Arabia, and just about any of the Gulf monarchies really, would make far better partners. Whilst they’d likely want some in country component production/possibly final assembly of their own planes generally they’d be content to stay in their lane and just provide the money/take in their airframes (though with the expectation that they be listened to regarding adaptations required for operation in the Middle East, which is perfectly reasonable).
 
MRJ was a failure they could not pay for the project
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This is wrong on so many levels, starting with confusing a company (Mitsubishi) with the country (Japan). There was some start-up funding from the government (Y50Bn), vs an initial estimate of Y150Bn to complete development. Mitsubishi injected Y220Bn as late as 2018.

MRJ was technically successful. It flew, it achieved at least 2,400 flight test hours, and it could have been taken through to certification, but certification costs a huge amount of money, as we've seen with Lillium and Volocopter in the past couple of months. Unfortunately the basic aircraft size ran into issues with US airline scope clauses, meaning they'd need an expensive new variant to access the US market. Bombardier then decided to exit the civil market and Mitsubishi picked up the CRJ project for $550m + $200m in liabilities in 2020. At this point Mitsubishi had one certified programme, the CRJ, plus one certifiable one, the MRJ/Spacejet, but no factory to build either in. Everything then ground to a halt with Covid and Mitsubishi also decided to exit the civil market.

MHI is a Y3.8Tn company, they could have completed the project out of the corporate petty cash drawer if they had wanted to, however in the general belt-tightening during Covid, with progress in flight testing stalled, MHI decided to pull the plug on Mitsubishi Aerospace which was a non-core business and a money sink that would require years to turn around.

TLDR: If you want to lose a lot of money in aerospace, try to enter the civil market as a newcomer.
 
Deino said:
No, to in case I sound rude, but that‘s a lack of understanding of the CHinese numerical system: 20 stands for J-20, the third digit for the x-th variant of that type (= for the J-20 demonstrators, 1 for the true prototypes, … 3 for the J-20S and 5 for the J-20A) and only the final, fourth digit shows the number built.
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The serial number on the plane in the videos is 36011.

Which by your explanation is the 11th airframe of the 0th variant of the J36.
 
F-14ATomcat said:
The real world is not about nationalism, is about business.
(...)
Aviation is business, and selling is the best way to keep in business. An economy that grows faster obviously will spend more in military stuff, more weaponry, and obviously in the next decade India will increase its military budget more than Italy, Japan or UK, sad reality but true.
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It's generally considered the industry standard to avoid doing business with India. They've more than proven themselves to be incompetent, flaky, and prone to harming a contractor more than helping. Just ask Dassault, Saab, and Sukhoi.

India may increase its budget but the bulk of that increase is going to line the pockets of Indian bureaucrats more than it is towards purchasing new hardware in any sensible timeframe. It may increase the time period of acquisition of new systems like AMCA and Arjun from 30 years to 50 years though.

When India can pull a 30 year old tank like T-90S out its ass in 10 years and start building AMCAs, we can talk about development, but until then it's going to be watching DRDO and HAL struggle with making a fighter jet comparable to the one that tiny little Sweden managed to make a hundred or so of about 40 years ago.

paralay said:
It is better to deal with India one-on-one. By negotiating the best terms for themselves, the Indians will bury any multinational program, as it seems to me.
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Even then it's burned France and Russia for sure. My friend's brother has answered more than one phone call from Indian Air Force techs, who after attempting to fuel a Su-30MKI with avgas, were trying to figure out why the AL-31FP decided to kill itself. The IAF ringed UAC Sukhoi's Begovoy office to scream at their engine design team in their confusion.
 
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F-14ATomcat said:
The real world is not about nationalism, is about business.
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And India is terrible about military procurement. Case in point, that time that Dassault, with almost no customers for Rafale, basically offered them a complete Rafale production line, complete with everything that that entailed.
Deal of the century... For India. It would have catapulted their indiginous aircraft industry forward by decades.

They thoroughly proceeded to fuck it up with idiotic demands. Fast forward a few years and then they bought a bunch of Rafale's at full sticker price in a busy market, instead of just building more themselves.

India is a shitshow, and anyone with any business acumen knows it.
 
DWG said:
Rather it's about business moderated by politics.

India has nothing to offer GCAP. It's still at the asking for external support stage of developing its home industry. No outside partner is going to risk tying their critical projects to India's notoriously slow development cycles (cf Tejas with it's c35 year development). It is, however a potential customer for certain systems companies.

Moreover, India's ongoing association with the Russians will make technology sharing at the cutting edge somewhat difficult.



Attacking another country is just as much nationalism as bigging up your own.

If the UK and Japan have so little to offer, why the assertions they must be about to let India join? Isn't AMCA supposed to fill the IAF next-generation heavy fighter role?

The fact is there is precisely zero indication in the UK that the UK, or the other GCAP business partners, are interested in India as a partner on GCAP, whereas there is considerable indication that they are interested in Saudi.
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aircraft programs need money.

Do you remember Mirage 4000?
Tell me where is it? Aircraft need sales and buyers, otherwise they end up being cancelled.

I can mention you programs from many countries, XB-70, Su-47s, Pulqui, Lavi, Yak-141 etc etc.

A 6th Generation fighter is ultra expensive, fly them is ultra expensive too.

In WWII Germany made thousands of Me-109s, now how many Typhoons they made and purchased?

Same Russia how many MiG-15s they made? now How many Su-57s?

England tried to build many aircraft but they decided to build them in joint ventures.

The reality is no money an aircraft program will be cancelled; joint ventures are designed to help to finance them, the Indian economy will grow more per year than England or Italy or Japan.


Consider this a 16 trillion economy growing at 6% grows more in billions than a 6.6 trillion economy at 1.2%

Reality bites but that is the reality, more old people and less young people tell me who is going to finance the pensions?


Why the USA grows?

Simple 330 million people with a GDP of 28 trillion even growing at 1.5 % grows more than England at 1.5% because the British economy is smaller at 4.7 trillion and the USA is a magnet of immigrants.

Reality bites but if you want to finance an aircraft program you need a market and the Indian market is bigger, if it happens is another issue, but definitively no sales no program
 
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F-14ATomcat said:
The reality is no money an aircraft program will be cancelled; joint ventures are designed to help to finance them, the Indian economy will grow more per year than England or Italy or Japan.
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It already is a joint venture, amongst three highly developed nations with a history of advanced aircraft projects (not only their own initial 5th or 6th generation programmes but also major experience with the only mass produced 5th generation fighter in the world), with the potential for another member (Saudi Arabia) who can and will actually throw money at something to get it (even if the main design/production elements are already divided up).

Meanwhile India has failed to keep at a 5th generation programme (Sukhoi/HAL FGFA) derived from a plane that already had much of the design work completed (Su-57), from a company and country that was desperate for sales and the money that would bring them.

This is before the many issues that any ‘made in India’ concerns (you can bet the present development and procurement agreements would be entirely unacceptable for India, and any changes for the present partner nations) or the corruption in military/government procurement is factored in - they might have the 4th largest defence budget, but I’d wager that the effective budget is much, much lower (especially when it has to interface with international concerns rather than mostly/purely domestic).

India is welcome to buy airframes from the partner nations, but I strongly doubt it will become a partner nation. And I even more strongly doubt that it’s lack of partnership (or even potentially sales) will sink this programme.
 
LightningFan1959 said:
It already is a joint venture, amongst three highly developed nations with a history of advanced aircraft projects (not only their own initial 5th or 6th generation programmes but also major experience with the only mass produced 5th generation fighter in the world), with the potential for another member (Saudi Arabia) who can and will actually throw money at something to get it (even if the main design/production elements are already divided up).

Meanwhile India has failed to keep at a 5th generation programme (Sukhoi/HAL FGFA) derived from a plane that already had much of the design work completed (Su-57), from a company and country that was desperate for sales and the money that would bring them.

This is before the many issues that any ‘made in India’ concerns (you can bet the present development and procurement agreements would be entirely unacceptable for India, and any changes for the present partner nations) or the corruption in military/government procurement is factored in - they might have the 4th largest defence budget, but I’d wager that the effective budget is much, much lower (especially when it has to interface with international concerns rather than mostly/purely domestic).

India is welcome to buy airframes from the partner nations, but I strongly doubt it will become a partner nation. And I even more strongly doubt that it’s lack of partnership (or even potentially sales) will sink this programme.
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time will tell
 
The actual country GCAP should be trying to bring in, is the USA. Sell it as a near-term F-15C/F-22 replacement while NGAD gets the kinks worked out.
 
Kat Tsun said:
Even then it's burned France and Russia for sure. My friend's brother has answered more than one phone call from Indian Air Force techs, who after attempting to fuel a Su-30MKI with avgas, were trying to figure out why the AL-31FP decided to kill itself. The IAF ringed UAC Sukhoi's Begovoy office to scream at their engine design team in their confusion.
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HOW TF DID AVGAS GET IN A SINGLE-POINT FUELING TANKER?!?

(Remainder of 3.2TB profane rant deleted)



Desertfox said:
The actual country GCAP should be trying to bring in, is the USA. Sell it as a near-term F-15C/F-22 replacement while NGAD gets the kinks worked out.
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I'm actually thinking F-15E, if the GCAP has large weapons bays...


Ainen said:
Requirements don't match.
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Long range, good stealth, high speed, uses CCAs... Sounds like most of the NGAD discussion so far. Just not made in USA.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Long range, good stealth, high speed, uses CCAs... Sounds like most of the NGAD discussion so far. Just not made in USA.
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Long range - indeed, but not *beyond second chain* level long, more like reliably first one.
For US, that's wasted size in this case, just simplified PLRF targeting.
Which is a big no, PLRF became decisive factor on the theater.

Good stealth - as it appears from outside, it's more of moderate, as for 2030s.
For a big aircraft in US context, PCA requirements apply. GCAP won't be P in a peer.
It is built by nations that can hardly afford to develop or field premier stealth, nor they can absorb risks of penetrative missions by themselves anyways.

High speed - let's see how high, I am doubtful due to conflicting requirements (UK and especially Japan requires loiter). Recent renders show a lot of wing.

Finally, everything 2020s onwards uses CCAs(it's basically smart home level feature, being ironic), it isn't much of a push. Though CCAs may end up harder to integrate into a non-native system.

It is just a different aircraft for different countries. Maybe could've made sense for USN, but carrier requirement is again ironically the one lacking (and USN needs new big bird faster).

Finally, GCAP really needs demonstrator to fly.
Eurofighter wasn't exactly a *quality execution* confidence builder, and that was 25 years ago.
Among gcap nations, only UK counted as a first tier aircraft developer, and it didn't develop new aircraft in a long while. Italy is very solid, but second tier. Japan is...well, decision to selfishly suppress F-2 in a longer run wasn't really a good one.
 
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Ainen said:
Long range - indeed, but not *beyond second chain* level long, more like reliably first one.
For US, that's wasted size in this case, just simplified PLRF targeting.
Which is a big no, PLRF became decisive factor on the theater.

Good stealth - as it appears from outside, it's more of moderate, as for 2030s.
For a big aircraft in US context, PCA requirements apply. GCAP won't be P in a peer.
It is built by nations that can hardly afford to develop or field premier stealth, nor they can absorb risks of penetrative missions by themselves anyways.

High speed - let's see how high, I am doubtful due to conflicting requirements (UK and especially Japan requires loiter). Recent renders show a lot of wing.

Finally, everything 2020s onwards uses CCAs(it's basically smart home level feature, being ironic), it isn't much of a push. Though CCAs may end up harder to integrate into a non-native system.

It is just a different aircraft for different countries. Maybe could've made sense for USN, but carrier requirement is again ironically the one lacking (and USN needs new big bird faster).

Finally, GCAP really needs demonstrator to fly.
Eurofighter wasn't exactly a *quality execution* confidence builder, and that was 25 years ago.
Among gcap nations, only UK counted as a first tier aircraft developer, and it didn't develop new aircraft in a long while. Italy is very solid, but second tier. Japan is...well, decision to selfishly suppress F-2 in a longer run wasn't really a good one.
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Id say Italy and the UK have been tied on that point considering both produce Eurofighter together and have worked together for a very long time, i do agree that Italy alone cannot produce much (MB-346FA Is still a decent plane) but It Is true that we Need the Flying demo and i Hope It Is soon finished
 
DWG said:
I'm not sure the US can offer enough money to make dealing with ITAR worthwhile!
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Why would selling GCAP to the US make it ITAR?

And of course then UK, Italy and Japan all have their own equivalent arms exports legislation
 
red admiral said:
Why would selling GCAP to the US make it ITAR?

And of course then UK, Italy and Japan all have their own equivalent arms exports legislation
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There was an issue on F-35 where data between BAE and the US was blocked until someone explained 'no, the Brits are sending us info'.

It had been assumed it all flowed one way.
 
red admiral said:
Why would selling GCAP to the US make it ITAR?
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Because the point I was replying to was on making the US part of GCAP development, not selling it GCAP. If the US is involved in the development of GCAP then everything it touches becomes subject to ITAR. The UK has a partial ITAR exemption, Italy and Japan don't.
 
DWG said:
Because the point I was replying to was on making the US part of GCAP development, not selling it GCAP. If the US is involved in the development of GCAP then everything it touches becomes subject to ITAR. The UK has a partial ITAR exemption, Italy and Japan don't.
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No I think the purposes of this thought experiment as a solution to the US airframe gap you have to assume ITAR being a non issue as initial conditions. This is a theoretical scenario so no need to burden it with the drag of bs like ITAR.
 
Training_Dummy said:
No I think the purposes of this thought experiment as a solution to the US airframe gap you have to assume ITAR being a non issue as initial conditions. This is a theoretical scenario so no need to burden it with the drag of bs like ITAR.
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The suggestion was the GCAP partners should bring in the US, not India, and the (baseless) argument to bring in India was to bring them in as a full partner, therefore the suggestion was to bring in the US as a full partner. You can change that point if you want, but I was answering the original one, not some theoretical one discarding US laws.
 
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Cooperazione tra Leonardo e WB Group

Tra Leonardo e WB Group nell’ultima parte del anno scorso è stato siglato un accordo strategico di cooperazione. Le due imprese, infatti, hanno deciso di cooperare nel ampio settore dei velivoli a pilotaggio remoto, prefigurando anche importanti possibilità di puntare ad ottenere commesse in...
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Italy and Poland to develop a new wingman (initially for the Eurofighter and later for GCAP).
 
FighterJock said:
I suppose that the UK would join the program later on if if the loyal wingman is going to be used alongside GCAP? That would be good news if they did.
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Well the article states that It will be used for GCAP pretty well so I suppose it will. Btw wasn't Britain alredy in the Airbus loyal wingman programme or am I mistaking?
 
Regio Ammiraglio said:
Forgive me if I ask, but what do You mean with this? There is alredy the japanese loyal wingman project and the airbus one was supposed to be UK's one.
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I meant in a common Sense that they all make one (or multiple) designs together and instead we see multiple countries doing there "own thing" right now
 
Regio Ammiraglio said:
orgive me if I ask, but what do You mean with this? There is alredy the japanese loyal wingman project and the airbus one was supposed to be UK's one.
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UK has looked at the 'German' Airbus proposal. But following Project Mosquito's cancellation with Spirit Aerospace, BAE presented 2 CCA designs for UK consideration, 1 high 1 low...
 
You really want your CCA capability to be platform agnostic, because that allows you to optimise your loyal wingman pairings to the immediate mission. The cooperative platforms you want for long range interception over the Sea of Japan or the GIUK Gap are likely to be different to the ones you'd want over the Med, or penetrating into Russian or Chinese AA/AD networks.

I'd expect something like we saw with drones, with NATO eventually coalescing on a common comms architecture for control of wingmen, then a golf-bag approach to mission packages.
 

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