Europe’s three-nation Future Combat Air System (FCAS) programme continues to make solid progress, according to senior French officials involved in the activity.
Formally named the New Generation Weapon System (NGWS), the project is a joint endeavour between France, Germany and Spain.
Dassault Aviation is leading the design and development of a New Generation Fighter (NGF) demonstrator in support of the FCAS effort, with the aircraft to make its debut flight late this decade.
“Our project is progressing with ambition,” says Brigadier General Philippe Koffi, head of NGWS/FCAS for France’s DGA defence procurement body. “Two years after the launch of Phase 1B, we have already built a robust and dynamic industrial ecosystem,” he said during the Royal Aeronautical Society’s FCAS Summit in London on 21 May.
There are already more than 3,000 engineers from around 144 companies involved in the venture, he says – “from major players to start-ups”.
“It is demonstrating that it is a programme rooted in technology excellence. But it is not only about building momentum: it is also about delivering,” Koffi notes, with the programme to date having seen “more than 800 deliverables, and achieved several critical reviews”.
That has included making progress towards finalising the shape of the NGF demonstrator. A remote carrier demonstrator also is scheduled to enter flight testing before the end of this decade, he adds.
In September, the programme is expected to deliver what Koffi describes as “the three most promising architectures” for the combination of the future fighter and remote carriers to its partner nations for consideration.
Representing the next major programme milestone, “We expect to launch Phase 2 in mid-2026, moving us from the early stage activities,” he says.
“We are doing a sixth-generation aircraft because of threats, competition and instability,” says Major General Jean-Luc Moritz, FCAS director for the French air force, citing as an example Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
“We have to come to the best fighter, remote carrier and combat cloud,” Moritz says.
Referring to the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) between Italy, Japan and the UK, and the US Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance activity, which was earlier this year awarded to Boeing, he says: “GCAP and F-47 are going in the same direction. They are not just delivering a fighter and equipment, but a system of systems, integrating a fighter, remote carriers and combat cloud from the beginning, all enhanced by AI [artificial intelligence].”
“A fighter aircraft needs manoeuvrability to fight and survive. It needs stealth, and armaments. Our system should bring combat mass, to saturate, deceive, decoy and deter. We need to find the sweet spot between manned and unmanned assets, which is very complicated.
“We need high-end assets, but that won’t bring mass,” he notes. “We can have mass, but without collaboration or coordination [between assets] it is useless. That is why we need to have the combat cloud setting up discrete and secure connectivity, enabling the sharing of updated data.
“We expect to achieve in a few months the reference architecture” for that capability, Moritz adds.
“AI will be one of the main features of this sixth-generation capability – it will enable us to make sure data will flow when and where it needs to go,” Koffi says. “It will also enhance the C2 [command and control] and make the decision-making process much faster, and provide information for collaborative situational awareness and active targeting.”
He also refers to the planned use of an “AI-driven virtual assistant” to reduce pilot workload.
Meanwhile, Koffi says AI will enable sensor and data fusion and enable its operator to become “a ‘Shazam!’ in the electronic warfare domain”; a reference to a fictional film character who possesses superpowers.
While Europe has two sixth-generation fighter development activities under way, Koffi notes that the European Defence Agency is already running programmes to drive interoperability between their future end products.
Those include initiatives around the enabling combat clouds, datalinks and communications systems which will be required to work together.
He also suggests that European industry could work together in areas such as the development of engines for remote carrier vehicles, noting: “Maybe there is room for cost-saving and collaboration.”
And while the trilateral FCAS effort is working towards delivering an operational capability by around 2040, Moritz notes that for France individually, some advanced capabilities will be fielded sooner.
“NGWS is addressing the threats in the early 2040s, but there is a combat aviation roadmap [in France] to address threats before that,” he says. That includes the development of an enhanced F5 standard of the Dassault Aviation Rafale to enter use in 2030, and the planned operational introduction of an unmanned combat air vehicle from 2033.
“For each scenario there is an answer, through a long-term approach,” he says.
And Koffi says Paris wants to introduce some of the emerging technologies for its sixth-generation fighter even before the type enters frontline use. “We want fall-out capabilities [from NGWS] in the ’20s, and ’30s,” he notes.
