Pardon me, catching up.
Not partners now, all the serious countries for aviation industry are already involved with either one, with the exception of Saab for whom GCAP or SCAF is not the right platform.
I think SAAB is going to end up as a high-end CCA builder, and then port that into a manned aircraft if they can.
For all practical purposes, something roughly F-35 sized is your minimum size "stealthy" light fighter.
I suspect that there are some difference between IT-JP-UK.
The fighter system can be divide roughly into aircraft system (airframe?), engine system, and mission system from the word definition list.
Among these, We can confirm from second image that same aircraft system will be delivered to three nations through the joint development.
In the NGF engine system pd specification doc, there are text showing involving of IT and UK company but no word (or black masked?) indicating "for three nations" so far.
And this is same for the mission system (also no word showing joint work with IT and UK).
So at this moment, I think joint work for engine and mission system (jp's mission system and uk's ISANKEICS) are technical share or something like for compatibility.
(possibility of making 2 different engine is very low. However no confirmation from documents)
I honestly think that the UK and JP mission requirements are pretty close to each other. Super long range CAP patrols.
Italy doesn't need as much range, but if they go along with the "long range" needed by UK-JP they get long loiter time at a shorter range.
Having two engine designs competing would be good, if only to prevent vendor lock-in like what happened with the F-22 and F-35.
Australia requested a brief on the GCAP which took place during the week of the Avalon Australian International Airshow. Air Vice-Marshal John Haly on the 27th of March said the brief was primarily from an interoperability perspective but they requested further information after the brief which will feed into the current review of Australia's aircraft mix which is considering partnering with or acquiring technologies from overseas, the review is being conducted by the government but the air force will provide input.
The head of capability for the Royal Australian Air Force says his office received an informational briefing from the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) consortium - a trilateral initiative between the UK, Italy and Japan to develop a sixth-generation fighter.
www.flightglobal.com
Combined response:
I'd have thought both the UK and Japan would be keen in Australia getting involved.
Combined response:
Same thinking here zen, plus you could add Canada into that mix too.
Oz is really more of a customer for this, though it's possible they can wrangle some assembly. Canada definitely needs a long range patrol fighter like GCAP.
If you can't patrol it to keep someone from pissing on your lawn, you don't own it.
Discussion of FCAS, GCAP & Team Tempest with MOD and industry guests from Leonardo and RR.
[...]
7. Targeting 10 year development period - technology challenge comparable to Apollo?
8. Payload will be about twice that of F-35A.
9. Single-seat WSO rather than single-seat pilot...
A 10-year development period for a new aircraft is incredibly aggressive. They must be doing a whole lot of early work in saying "X has final decision on specification Y" kinds of stuff.
Double the payload is almost certainly 8 amraams. No one outside lm and internet users gives the sidekick upgrade much thought.
Also, four 1 ton bombs? Unlikely.
Unless, of course, gcap will be sized similarly to j36. Which is also not plausible.
When people are talking about a 5000km range? Maybe even 6500km, depending on how much fuel we're anticipating burning in combat?
No, an F-111 or J-36 sized GCAP is
definitely possible.
(Comparing normal range to combat radius for older planes usually places combat radius at 1/3 the non-ferry range of the aircraft)
I have a question, how long is it going to take the GCAP consortium to develop and build this aircraft? I may be wrong but I think this going to take a while, too many partners.
It's looking like a 10year development to IOC, first flight in 2030.
Which is amazingly aggressive. We'll see how well they do.
This is the GCAP schedule written in a Japanese government document released on March 25, 2025 (「航空機産業戦略」の実行状況について).
27: Design complete
25~32: Prototype production
29~35: Ground testing
30~35: Flight testing
The above is what is written in this document.
View attachment 765859
That is incredibly aggressive.
