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LONDON—The Global Combat Air Program (GCAP) will have to “break the mold” if it is to achieve its target of delivering a new-generation combat aircraft by 2035, UK lawmakers have suggested.
In a report on the three-nation combat aircraft project between Italy, Japan and the UK, members of the UK Parliamentary Defense Select Committee say the project will need to avoid the mistakes made by previous programs such as the Eurofighter.
They call for relationships between government and industry to be “carefully navigated,” and for workshare arrangements to “accommodate flexibility” and for the three governments to be “open-minded” about allowing additional nations to join the initiative, although these will have to be weighed carefully against the risk of “jeopardizing the 2035 in-service date,” the lawmakers say.
Furthermore, multiyear funding, a process that is generally not adopted for UK defense programs, should be considered as it would “provide certainty and inspire confidence from international partners,” suggests the committee’s report, which was published Jan. 14.
The committee notes that in the UK, GCAP is likely to eat up a “significant share of the defense budget,” and the lawmakers call for increased transparency about those costs.
GCAP aims to launch a full-scale development contract for a new combat aircraft by year’s end. The resulting platform will replace the Eurofighter Typhoons flown by Italy and the UK and the Mitsubishi F-2s operated by Japan. They should be able to operate alongside the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighters flown by each of the partner nations.
“While today’s report welcomes GCAP, it also cautions that the [UK] Ministry of Defense must have a firm grip on the program,” said Tan Dhesi, the defense committee chair.
“GCAP’s timescales are ambitious–we have a window of opportunity now, at this early stage, to make choices that set the program on the right track ... history shows us that costs can easily spiral, but pressures on the UK’s defense budget mean there is no margin for mismanagement,” Dhesi added.
Exports are key to the program’s success and will help to keep unit costs for the partner nations down, the report says. But the committee expresses concerns in part about the potential for export disputes.
Similar issues with Germany have hampered the UK’s ability to sell the Eurofighter to Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The committee is also concerned that Japan’s inexperience with defense exports could present its own “unique challenges” for GCAP.
The report notes that the committee is “greatly encouraged” by Japan’s recognition of the importance of exports to GCAP partners, and it is urging the UK government to “continue to support and encourage Japan in making the necessary legislative and industrial progress” to ensure the fighter can be exported.
The committee also calls for the program’s delivery structures, both governmental and industrial, to be “sufficiently empowered to take timely and binding decisions as the program progresses.” It notes that any repeat of the structural failings experienced on the Eurofighter program could place GCAP in jeopardy.
The three governments have already established through an international treaty the UK-based GCAP International Government Organization, which will manage the program. The lead system integrators in each of the three countries—BAE Systems of the UK, Italy’s Leonardo and Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement Co. (JAIEC), a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries—have agreed to form a joint venture (JV) that will produce the future combat aircraft. The unnamed JV’s formation is subject to regulatory approvals.
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